Featured Repairs

Featured Repairs
A mixed selection of past work.
Thank you to all of my customers who have trusted me with their precious instruments and for giving me the chance to do what I love for a living!

1961 Supro Ozark Electric - Structural work for high tension strings
1. Cool 60's Supro now cherished by slide players for their raw sound.
2. With only a single screw neck attachment and basic tilt adjustment, the neck moved a lot and also had an upbow. The new owner will be stringing up with his special gauged high tension strings for slide playing and this guitar would not provide the reliability needed without these improvements.
3. Widening and flattening the neck pocket to resemble a telecaster.
4-5. Removing fretboard and tapping the factory metal T bar to accept two M6 machine bolts.
6-7. Adding cheeks to the rounded neck profile to tightly fit the pocket.
8-9. Routing and installing carbon bars to straighten and strengthen. Note the bars are fully recessed at neck heel and shallower up the neck to allow for a more natural relief toward the nut.
10-12. A large void under fretboard due to slightly too low installation of the T bar needs to be filled before the fretboard goes back on.
13-16. Gluing on fretboard, levelling and refretting.
17-18. Touch up work with lacquer
19. New bone nut and strung up to pitch. This guitar is now very stable with perfect neck relief.
20-22. It was very important to me to find a solution while keeping this classic as original in appearance as possible.
Thanks Owen!

1963 National Glenwood 95 'Reso-Glass' - Neck bow, binding, refret
1-2. Here she is! Another slide machine. This particular guitar, has a big upbow in the neck a bit like the other Supro and also has very low frets and shrinking, crumbling binding.
3-4. Carefully picking out old binding, most of it popped off fairly easily.
5. New binding glued in, no side dots yet.
6-9. Refretted with slightly wider and taller fret wire which also helped to slightly stiffen up the neck. Interestingly, this model had the frets installed through the binding not tucked behind it like a Gibson. Little bit of lacquer touch up along the edge of the new binding.
10. What a rippa, thanks Dom!

Gretsch 6120 Japan - Neck joint failure
1-2. Unfortunate separation of neck joint.
3-5. Not a lot holding this big guitars neck on. The puny neck tenon had almost no angle to act as a wedge in the pocket leaving only a little glue holding it all together. Or they could have at least used a screw like the oldies.
6-8. Building up the tenon and increasing the dimensions and angles to allow the neck joint to be shaped into more of a traditional dovetail albeit a little deeper.
9-10. Refitting the neck and gluing in.
11. Some touch up to the clear gloss nitrocellulose lacquer.
12-15. Back in one piece.

1920-30s Italian Flat Back Mandolin - Restoration
1-4. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall!... on to tiles...from 6 feet up after hanging on the wall unplayable because of a warped neck for years!
This instrument had huge sentimental value to the owner and the brief was to repair and make playable again. BTW, there is a huge difference between repair for display and repair to make playable.
5-8. After removing the back, the splits and structural issues are repaired in a very strategic order due to internal forces within the instrument.
9-10. Back on, binding on.
11-15. These delicate instruments endure about 70kg of string tension day after day. The neck was very warped (the reason it hadn't been played in years)and needed straightening and reinforcement.
16-17. Taking a break to work on the fiddly stuff, rebuilding the fine rosette and some cosmetic work.
18. Back to the neck, inlaying a carbon fiber beam for added rigidity.
19. Fingerboard back in place
20. A cousin dropped in for moral support.
21-23. Plugging and redrilling headstock for new tuners.
24-25. Making the new look old.
26-28. Replacing badly worn frets, using flattened modern fret wire to recreate the antique bar style frets.
29-30- String spacing and slotting the bone saddle.
31-32. String up and set up.
33-38. We made it! Thanks Anthony!

Maton 808 'Performer' Series - Back Replacement and more
1-5. A guitar with huge sentimental value to the owner with major structural damage.
6-7. Firstly, to loosen the fingerboard extension.
8-9. Because of the damaged back and splits or separations all through the guitar, the pressure needed to remove the neck would have pulled the guitar apart. I created a sort of exoskeleton to handle the forces of neck removal. Definitely not pretty!
10-12. Removing binding and back.
13. Good to get to the splits and loose braces while the back is off.
14-15. Maton was kind enough to supply a replacement back for this repair. Still needed to trim braces and fit to body.
16-17. Trimming new back and cutting ledge for binding.
18.-19. Binding glue up.
20. Fitting the neck
21. New adhesive for pickguard.
22-26. After applying matt nitrocellulose lacquer finish this repair really came together. Plays wonderfully after also receiving a neck reset during the process and a final set up.
The customer elected to leave the three remaining strings on the guitar again for sentimental reasons. This guitar will undoubtedly become an important heirloom to the family.

1966 Gretsch Clipper - New binding and re glue tone bars
1. A lovely light weight full hollow archtop with typical binding rot
and loose internal bracing, slight top collapse and neck angle woes.
2-4. Some binding was completely missing, some falling off and other areas stuck so well it needed to be carefully chiselled off.
5. Removing the old binding was very slow going at times!
6-7. Separating the back to repair tone bar bracing.
8-9. The tone bars were loose almost 3/4 of their length and were repaired using hot hide glue.
10. Replacing the back, lots of clamps gives even pressure. Neck angle was also improved at this stage.
11. After carefully cleaning the binding channel, new ABS binding that wont perish like the original plastic was glued in place.
12. The new binding was slightly oversize so filing and scraping is needed to bring it down level with body for a neat look.
13. I masked off and touched up finish lapping it up over the edge of the new binding just like they did at the factory. Cleaning up the colour coat with a razor for a crisp line.
14. Testing some tinted lacquer to give the new binding an aged look.
15. After the colour coat and a few clear coats, wet sanding and buffing is required to blend touch up work in with original finish.
16-20. The fruits of all the hard work, a lovely old guitar!

1981 Maton 12 string - major structural work
1-4. Strung up in its case for over 20 years, this guitar was coming apart.
I suspect the glue used had deteriorated as it was powdery in the areas coming apart. I've also read about mould and fungus destroying glue joints in old violins but unsure if this is happening in this case. Top/ sides, top braces were very secure as was neck joint.
5-9. The neck had a nasty twist to the treble side and the fingerboard gluing surface was convex. I was able to heat straighten neck and flatten gluing surface before removing neck from body.
10. Removing the neck.
11-13. Removing binding and back plate, braces still sitting in the lining!
14-16. Broken brace, gluing in new brace and scalloping ends.
17. This is the contraption I've made for keeping acoustic bodies in shape when tops and backs are off. Once a top or back is removed, the sides really want to pull in different directions. It all comes out through the sound hole once its glued up.
18-19. Gluing up back and replacing binding.
20-23. Fingerboard back on, cutting dovetail for resetting, levelling board and refretting.
24. New handmade unbleached bone nut and compensated saddle
25-27. After touching up lacquer and a good set up, this great sounding guitar is back with low action and tremendous volume and tone.

90's Gibson Blues King Deluxe - Truss Rod Repair - Repair
1. The guitar came to me after having the truss rod previously replaced.
Unfortunately, the replacement rod was the wrong choice for this neck and required a deep channel routed which in turn left the back of the neck very thin in exactly the area where the ill positioned truss rod applied most of its force. The owner started to feel a lump at the back of the neck not long after collecting it.
2. The end of the truss rod pushing out the back of the neck.
3. Truss rod nut very deep in the neck.
4-5. Removing board and unsuitable truss rod, with very sloppy channel which overran the neck went right through the neck block and note the missing top wood in heel area. You can see the original truss rod anchor plate slot further up the neck.
6-8. Cleaning up slot and filling with mahogany inlay. I left a separation of filler strip at dovetail to allow for future neck removal.
9-10. Routing new channel for a gibson style truss rod and nut.
11-12. Filler strip to go over the new truss rod.
13-14. Patching the other damage and refitting fretboard.
15-17. After some cosmetic touch up, the neck is bump free and the truss rod has good control over the neck.

1964 Fender Jazz Bass - bridge pickup rewind
1. A classic Fender bass in anyones language.
2. This bass had a real vibe and one owner since new!
3. The bridge pickup was dead. I needed to investigate and test everything to be sure it was really a candidate for a rewind.
4. Even reflowing the solder joints at the pickups eyelets.
5. This era of pickup was lacquer as opposed to wax potted (dipped), making unwinding the coil essentially impossible. Here I'm cutting off the coil. The lacquer only penetrates the outer layers giving these pickups an extra dimension to their tone.
6. Making sure the rod magnets were not corroded.
7,8 After straightening up the bobbin. it was taped and lacquer dipped.
9. The bobbin and the 42 gauge plain enamel wire I'll be using.
10&11. Building up the coil to a little over 9,500 winds.
12&13. It only needs a few minutes in the thinned lacquer to recreate that partially soaked coil. Check out the trail of tiny bubbles as the lacquer works its way in.
14. Ready for the stage. That was fun!

Musikraft Tele Neck - reshaped, refinished and reliced
1. If you have a case of neck envy (where you're secretly in love with one of your friends guitars necks) don't sweat it. You can have the same neck profile shaped into another neck your not as thrilled about, providing theres enough wood of course!
The customer had this really really chunky top grade maple and black ebony board Musikraft neck but loved the feel of his good friends custom shop '60 Tele Custom relic. He brought that guitar down with him and I was able to take very accurate measurements from all over the neck and make back profile templates.
2. Getting the neck down to near final thickness.
3. Rolling the shoulders into the new slimmer profile.
4. Slowly easing in the back profile to match the Tele Customs.
5. Still a way to go.
6. Very close to final shape now.
7. Checking my work.
8,9. We went for an amber gloss lacquer to complete the transformation.
10-12. The customer wanted really heavy wear like his friends tele. After the relicing process. Feels great!
13,14. Back on the guitar, his new favourite!

Gibson SG - tricky little headstock crack
1. Is it a crack in the wood or just in the finish?
Well, it's usually always deeper than the finish when it's a Gibson.
2. You can see the epicenter of the crack occurs in the darker streak of the mahogany. The grain in that area looks like dots rather than lines as in the lighter areas either side. This is due to the angle of the grain and more end grain or runout along that part of the neck making it more likely to crack than the longer grain areas. ( That's my theory, anyway!)
3. Careful masking before gluing up. I gently flexed the headstock back and forth while applying glue and I was surprised how much glue this seemingly closed crack sucked in.
4. Taking care of the cured glue squeeze out after tightly clamping.
5. Touching up with lacquer.
6. After a block level and buff it looks pretty good.

Gibson Gary Rossington Custom Shop SG Murphy relic - no dot???????
1. Who let the dots out..... who..who..who.. sorry, dad joke.
2. If you looked at just the right angle, you could see the slight depression in the lacquer where our dot should be. Now you could argue that the absence of the dot makes this guitar even more unique and even MORE valuable. Like me, the owner was a real stickler for details and by the time he finally decided to have the work done he could hardly bring himself to look at it! This being a '61 reissue, it's supposed to have a dot, although there have been times in Gibsons history where the headstock logo went without.
3. Luckily I had access to about a dozen vintage Gibsons so I could measure the diameter of the dot for accuracy before digging into the lacquer. I found there to have been different sized dots over the years but the ones around this guitars time were all very close to .093".
4. I clamped acrylic scrap with the correct sized hole to the headstock so my little excavating tool wouldn't slip around.
5. Slowly removing the lacquer to reveal bright mother of pearl.
6. The other pearl in the logo was under yellowing lacquer making the newly uncovered dot out of place.
7. Matching up some tinted clear lacquer for a touch up.
8. There's your dot. It's been there all along!

2004 Hancock Adelaide Archtop - broken tailpiece
1. The owner opened the case to find the tailpiece in bits!
2. My feeling is that a couple of things led to this situation. One of the splits was across this screw hole which must have been for a pickup or jack mount. Looking at the compression of the grain around the thread, I'm guessing the pilot hole was not nearly big enough, the screw created a fine crack when driven in. Also, if you look closely at pic 1, you can see stress cracks near where the tail gut leaves the tailpiece. The tail gut had been adjusted too short not allowing the tailpiece to sit naturally over the top and along the plane of the strings. Because the tailpiece wanted to sit up, the torque from over 80kgs of string pull was too much for this delicate piece of wood.
3-4. It took me a while to work out which order to glue up the bits as there were no second chances.
5. Final assembly.
6. Levelling the squeeze out using files and scrapers.
7. Luckily the streaky ebony hid the joins well.
8. After fine sanding, buffing and some tung oil.
9. I wont tell if you don't!

Classical guitar - strap button install
1. Fitting strap buttons to acoustic guitars is a common job. The difference with this one is the desired location and that I couldn't get my hand through the smaller than usual sound hole.
Here I'm just drilling a small pilot hole to help with the next step.
2. I then run a guitar string through from the outside and back out the sound hole.
3. The thin sides of the guitar means I cant just go running load bearing screws in because they wont hold. It needs a block glued in to reinforce the area.
4. Glued and ready for its trip down the wire.
5. Just like a little cable car heading up the mountain! I made it slightly bottom heavy so the block would hang like this and hit the inside of the guitar positioned parallel to the neck block.
6. Not much further.
7,8. Using a guitar tuner to pull the string which will hold the block hard up against the inside of the guitar while the glue dries.
9. Lightly countersinking the hole to prevent finish chip out.
10. One strap button that isn't going anywhere!

Taylor 914-C Acoustic Guitar - Maton AP5 Pro Pickup Install
1,2,3. Fitting this Maton pickup is a fairly involved process. If you love the sound of these and thought about having one installed, it might be interesting to see how its done.
4. Marking the position of the saddle in the top
5,6. Removing the bridge.
7,8. Routing the top for the under saddle beam and test fitting.
9,10. Adding the cutout for preamp and jack hole in sides.
11-14. The solid rosewood sides would likely split around the preamp and jack holes, so a ply lining is added to strengthen the area.
15-18. Machining the underside of the bridge for the pickups elements.
19-21. Preparing the surfaces of the top and bridge for gluing.
22,23. Regluing the bridge to the top.
24-28. Installing the pickup system.
29-31. For really accurate intonation and the best sound out of the under saddle pickup, a custom compensated micarta saddle is fitted.

Lowden S-35 12 Fret Acoustic Guitar - Install position markers
1. A beautiful and very expensive Lowden from Ireland. Walnut back and sides with cedar top.
2. This top grade ebony board will be receiving position dots at the 5th, 7th and 9th frets.
3. Matching the abalone dots with the rosette. These are the five finalists, with only three spots up for grabs, competition is fierce!
4. You've heard the saying 'measure twice, cut once', I must have measured at least half a dozen times!
5. I'll never get used to drilling into guitars like this.
6. The lucky three are ready to make the ultimate sacrifice.
7. Pushing in the dots. It really needs to be a tight fit to look good.
8. Levelling the dots to the fingerboard.
9. Polishing the fingerboard on the buffer.
10. Looking good!

1958 Gretsch Anniversary - Repair the repair and owners tinkering!
1. Online purchase from an overseas seller who sold the guitar as having a recent pro neck reset. Once here in Oz, the neck heel began slowly pulling out of the pocket.
2. The previous repairer had crudely glued the binding strip to cover neck pocket damage where the pocket on the cutaway side had completely blown out.
3-5. Removal of neck and rebuilding pocket with new binding strip.
6. Making a new era correct heel cap with black outer ply.
7. Refitting neck at correct angle.
8-10. The new neck angle created a space under the fretboard extension that I filled with a maple shim and shaped in the gretsch style creating an increased gluing area and a very stable neck joint.
11. Reinstalling the 'Gretsch' neck screw and a new ebony plug.
12-13. Touching up the repaired area, not bad!
14. The owner has a strong tinkering gene (he won't mind me saying that) and after routing for the bridge pickup himself, decided to move it forward leaving this little gap which I was recruited to fill.
15-17. Patching hole and neatly routing top for pickup.
18. Trying my best to match this faded transitioning top colour.
19. A little less eye catching than before, anyway, thanks Matt :)

Acrylic Jem Style Guitar - Body Reshaping
1. The owner of this unusual guitar found the sharp edges really uncomfortable. He had a bit of a go himself but I don't blame him for giving up, this stuff is really hard! I needed to create an arm contour and...
2. also improve access to the upper frets.
3. The glue residue and scratches will also need to be cleaned up.
4. Rasps, files, sandpaper and sweat got me this far.
5. The big pedestal buffer got me the rest of the way!
6. Improved access to high frets. This was hard work!

Greco Thunderbird Bass Copy - refinish
1. Really cool Japanese thunderbird copy from around 1990.
2. An early 60's vibe but with a late 70's style bridge. Weird!
3. The new owner wants to give it a make over and fix up the damage left by the previous owners relic attempt ie. dragging along the road!
4. Stripping her bare.
5. That relic job, unfortunately most corners front and rear looked similar.
6. Building back up with epoxy.
7&8, Levelling back epoxy fill and existing finish to provide a base for refinishing.
9. Masking off fingerboard and black area of peg head.
10. Mixing up the tinted lacquer for an aged 60's look.
11. Spraying up.
12. After a slightly tinted clear coat, the bass takes on a really authentic vintage look.
13. Building back up and tossing in some Lollars.
14-17, Totally worth it!

1964 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins - Refret, Nut and a lot more
1. Fantastic guitar desperately in need of lots of work!
2. Levelling the uneven fingerboard before refretting.
3. Preparing the slots to accept the new bigger fret wire.
4. Super important to match slot size to fret tangs(the part of the fret that pushes into neck) width. Very bad stuff happens if you skip this bit.
5. Always expect these little extras when working on old guitars.
6. Pushing in the new jumbo wire.
7-12. refurbishing the string mute for smooth operation. Very fiddly!
13. New unbleached bone nut and zero fret.
14. Replacing the completely worn out originals with some very smooth Waverly's
15. Making an accurate aged reproduction truss rod cover.
16-18. Better than new from head to tail.

Ovation EA63 Viper Classical - Bridge Reglue
1. This is a really lovely guitar with a nasty problem....
2. The lifting bridge needed to come off and be properly re installed.
3. A reflective skirt will keep the heat on the bridge.
4. I'm fairly certain Ovation uses some type of super glue. That gauge is reading in Celsius! I feel for signs the glue joint is releasing as things heat up!
5. With the glue softened, I'll work the flat edge in feeling for top grain orientation. I want to be moving with or across the grain when ever possible.The tape is to protect the surface. The high gloss ultra flat black finish would show even the tiniest blemish. This guitar was flawless!
6. Using more heat, the mating surfaces can be cleaned up. The bridge had taken set to the twisted shape it was in under string tension. I needed to clamp it to remove the twist while it was still warm and left it for a couple of weeks to re humidify as I'm sure it dried out while being removed.
7. With both surfaces prepped for gluing it's time to plan my clamping.
Notice the two smaller holes, the little nylon studs in the bridge keep everything located while gluing. Thanks Ovation!
8. Clamps in place. There is no sound hole to clamp through like a traditional guitar. The body is highly chambered Mahogany with a solid foot under the bridge area, so you must clamp the whole guitar.
9. All flat and good as new.
10. What a beauty!. Thanks to Oscar for trusting me with this one.