G&K Instruments

Sometimes, you just have to make that grain pop!

This is a classic technique used by many luthiers to bring out the depth and character of figured woods, especially flamed maple tops.

It's often the difference between a guitar that looks good and one that instantly catches your eye the moment you walk into a music shop.

The three-dimensional effect, the movement in the figure, and the way the grain dances under the light are what transform a beautiful piece of wood into a true showstopper.

Yes, it's time-consuming, but the end result takes it from attractive to unforgettable.

Leave a little of your DNA in every repair.

You never know what the future holds. Decades from now, someone may open that instrument and discover the traces of the work you left behind.

Every repair is a small piece of your legacy.

Relicing an instrument can be incredibly satisfying—or pure torture for a luthier.

You start with a polyurethane-finished Strat and end up with a nitro relic. But what's the most painful part of the process?

Is it stripping a perfectly good poly finish down to bare wood, then refinishing it with nitro sealer and nearly 15 coats of clear, followed by level sanding and buffing it to a flawless mirror shine?

Or is it the moment when, after all that work, you deliberately ruin it again—freezing it with frost spray, tapping it with a hammer, and creating dents and wear to make it look decades old?

That's the strange beauty of relic work. You spend countless hours creating a perfect finish, only to spend countless more making it imperfect.

But in the end, you're not just damaging a guitar—you're creating and recreating a story.

6 string madness 🔊 🎼 🎸 🎸

This is a very, very special post about a very special project! 🖤🔥

As many of you know—or maybe don’t know yet—George & Khatch (G&K) are huge heavy metal fans, specifically extreme metal, and even more specifically, Death Metal. 🤘

They even have their own band, Vomitile, since 2007.

Almost 8 months ago, Anastasis, the guitarist and vocalist of one of their favorite Death Metal bands, Dead Congregation from Greece, approached us with a very special request: to rescue his first extreme-shaped instrument—a guitar he had owned since the early ’90s.

To fully bring this beast back to life, we had to build a completely new neck from scratch, inspired by ESP’s M-II reverse headstock and, of course, featuring diamond inlays inspired by B.C. Rich guitars. ⚡

The neck is a 7-piece scarf joint, reinforced with two carbon rods and fitted with a dual-action truss rod.

For the fretboard, we chose a beautiful piece of ebony, shaped to a 14" radius, and topped it off with 24 big-ass stainless steel frets. 😈

We also had to modify the neck pocket and neck pickup cavity to accommodate the new single-coil pickup. Together with some careful touch-up work, we managed to finish the area with almost zero visible evidence that the guitar had ever been modified.

And then something happened that gave us chills…

While we were fretting the guitar, we randomly had Garza’s podcast with John McEntee from Incantation playing in the background—and completely out of nowhere, he mentioned Dead Congregation.

What are the odds?! 🤯

At that moment, it honestly felt like a sign.

A little reminder that sometimes the things you wish for really do come true when you put your heart into them.

There are two basic ingredients:

Follow your passion with hard work.
And believe in yourself, no matter what happens.

Keep pushing.
Keep believing.
Keep doing what you love.

Sometimes, the universe has a funny way of reminding you that you’re on the right path. 🖤

The goal was simple: bring this bad boy back to life and get it ready to summon some chaos on stages around the world. 🔥🤘

It was an HONOR to build, restore, and revive this guitar.

Now we’re hoping to see it back where it belongs!

And that's how you SHOULD NOT restring an instrument !
Too much winding can cause tuning instability issues string breakage and sometimes ( in this case ) can damage the tuner or break it!
2.5 to 3 turns should be the maximum !

Buffing some Yildizian Guitars 🎸 🎸

StewMac
Yildizian Guitars

Restoring a 1980s Ovation
We were lucky to find a replacement rossete for it through the ovation community on Facebook
Shout out to them!

Ovation Guitars

Our yearly holiday schedule
Have a great summer ☀️ 😮‍💨 😀 ✨️