South Austin Guitar Repair

Thought I was done with this fret leveling and after I removed all all the masking tape, bringing the strings up to tension, lo and behold, a single high spot! I have a special little diamond file for exactly this situation. Fixed the problem in 5 minutes. As you've heard me say before, you can't have enough tools!

New frets and a bone nut on this very early Schecter

I never knew Fender made Aerodyne Strats! Just as beautiful as the Aerodyne jazz basses.

Leveling frets on this PRS 7-string. I just love it when the crowning file does its thing and you can see just the slightest bit of the high point on each fret. Now, time to polish these jewels from 220 up to 10,000 grit.

LTD Tele with a Seymour Duncan P-Rails in the neck and Hot Rails in the bridge. Bridge is coil tapped and neck is wired to a 3 way mini toggle that splits the coils to allow P-90 side, series humbucker and rail coil.

Lots of wires in not a lot of space!

On the bench this morning, a Suhr and Hagstrom, in for P-90 installations. This customer, is a man of good taste.

These 60's Teisco guitars are always fun. The original parts aren't so up to par with today's standards. Tuners upgraded with Klusons and the bridge to this awesome narrow spaced don't adjustable bridge and it's ready to rock.

I don't normally do just re-stringing, but when someone has a '32 Martin from Nashville, you take the job.

These Fender locking tuners used to be such a pain to install. Thankfully, there is this handy little drilling jig from the good folks at G Dek have just the thing for that. You can't have too many tools in this line of work.

This is no ukulele, it's a South American Cavaquinho! This poor little fella snapped under tension while in transit from Brazil. Like all my headstock repairs, it glued back nicely and will play another day.

Bonus photo, that time I traveled to Brazil in 2016. What a beautiful country!

Testing, testing. Is this thing on?

Well hello there! Hope everyone is having the best 2020 ever... I've been on hiatus working on this this very special project for the last 5 months and am now looking to ease back to fixing your guitars!

Starting one week from today, I'll be offering contactless drop offs/pick ups. As much as I enjoy meeting everyone and talking shop in person, I think we all understand this is necessary for the time being. Hope to see your guitars real soon!

This old Martin had a nasty crack and raised bridge. Took a bit of convincing to remove the bridge but my LMI heat blanket and a few putty knives did the trick. After treating the crack with some glue and clamps, the top of the guitar and the bottom of the bridge we're sanded flat down and re-glued as well. A little bit of touch up work with micro mesh sticks and it's almost as if it never happened.

And that, is the final repair for 2019, and for the next few months/foreseeable future. Thank you for another great year Austin. I'm going to be taking some time off from guitar repair as I embark on a new chapter of life, fatherhood! I will be back at it somewhere down the road when the time is right. Until then, keep your guitars safe! Happy holidays and happy new year! 🤟😛🤟

This Danelectro had an unfortunate break on the pickguard. They're long out of production and replacement parts are few and far between. So, I spent the afternoon cutting one from scratch.

Rise and shine.

Not my project... But worth a share. And as a wiser man than I said, just because you could, doesn't mean you should

Frets polished up to 12,000 grit. Now standard on every fret job

This is my 11th re-fret so far this year. A new high score!

Here's a very cool 60's Harmony Stratotone. Retrofitted with a new set of Kluson tuners, bone nut and a tune-o-matic style bridge I've had in a drawer for nearly a decade. The bridge was too narrow for any other guitar until this one came along and everything fit just right.

This guitar was the first scalloping job I ever did back in 2011. The same guitar returns for a fret leveling and re-crowning from years of shredding. Nice to see a familiar face!

Installing a set of Kinman P-90buckers on this interesting guitar. And by interesting, I'm really saying pain in the... to wrap it together with Kinman, pain in the down under. Look at this electronic cavity! It's literally two holes!? Going to have to be EXTRA careful with the soldering iron today.

Freshly pressed frets on an 80's G&L bass

Not a guitar I'm working on, but felt like this needed to be seen. With all the resin guitars being made these days, I'm surprised we don't see more resin and piranha guitars. Seems like the next logical step, right?

I should have taken more pictures of this one. It was a hot mess. A BC Rich Warlock strung up with acoustic guitar strings, frets and fingerboard covered in cigarette smoke residue, what appeared to be a galvanized nail in place of the first fret, and a new first for "I thought I'd seen it all until..."

A nut made from an Oral-B toothbrush.

This Taylor expression system was grounding out and the customer was ready to buy an entire new system to fix the problem. Usually, Taylor makes they very best of anything they do. There had to be a clue or something noticible causing this. Sure enough, when the preamp was removed, I noticed a damaged clip from another tech. The next problem is, Taylor won't just sell me this clip to make the fix. So, I salvaged an EMG quick connect, spliced the wires with the expression system and the guitar will sing another day.

A fresh canvas for re-fretting.

New tool day! Large 3 corner, rounded edge crowning file for stainless steel fret jobs, a diamond coated Z-file for all other fret material, 400-8000 grit fret erasers for polishing out the file scratches, and two Armana router bits, one for shallow plunge cuts, and another for tight corners that can be leashes into a Dremel. Good tools make the work easier and are always worth the investment.

After leveling the fingerboard to this Taylor T3, one last finishing touch was needed, add a lock washer to the jack so it would stop spinning. There was no access point other than the jack route. Feeding a line of stranded electric wire and looping through the jack did the trick.

Up and at it early today, re-crowning frets on a Goya and removing the finish on the back of a Schecter neck.

Scraping off the finish to one of those unfortunate acts of guitar violence from last week. I had to determine if the cracks went through the finish and into the wood... They did. Oh the humanity.

Pair of Rick's on the chopping block today. According to internet lore, the bass is cursed and causes all it's handlers to go mad. Look up "the legend of the red Rickenbacker" and wish me luck..

Fun fact, bigger strings are made of smaller strings. This 8-string set has a low F # string .80 gauge wound around a .42 wound string, wound around a .22 unwound string. Some say, this was how Christopher Nolan came up with the concept to the movie Inception.

Loving the finish on this Les Paul. The pics don't do it justice. In for a copper shielding, pickup install, and bone nut.

There's a saying, "happy wife, happy life." So folks, let's all do our part to keep it that way, or else, the guitars will get it. 😬

On this sunny Sunday, carved a bone and saddle for a Gibson acoustic and spot fret leveling and setup for this PRS.