News Info & Prods    Tales from the Workshop

Welcome to Peter Allen's Weekly Blog If you have been directed here by a Search Engine to this page, it is because the relevant information is in one of my weekly bulletins. To save time on your further search, use the "Search" button at the top of the page and your topic will be listed in 'Date' order. Thank you.

Entries Week Ending ............. .

Week ending 2nd January 2009 A Happy New Year to all. In the midst of the festive season I took pity on a guy who wrote to me: "Nice to see you're doing well. I remember you doing a bass I had about 10 years ago, and have never had a better set up done. I've recently acquired a Michael Tobias bass 5 string from eBay, but found the set up to be too high and strings very old. I gave it to a shop to do but have found the bass returned with a bloody awful set up. I've corrected some of the problems but ideally I think it needs some attention from a Pro. Can I drop the guitar off with you?" When I got the guitar it was clear that, although the previous Technician had removed sharp fret edges, there any similarity in work ended!! In short, the customer had spent over £50 on a set-up that hadn't even included sorting out the high and low frets. This is a nearer equivalent to what I call a 'Standard Set-up', which would only take half an hour at most! So, at £100 an hour, you would think the service should be top rate rather than what was actually delivered. Looking a little closer (literally) I found the lacquer was chipped at each side of the fret - showing that whoever did this job didn't bother masking the lacquer to protect it. See pics. As people get more savvy about what constitutes a 'value for money' set-up it pays to dig deeper into what you're actually going to get for your money. It's not a case of knocking the competition, but it is worth re-iterating that I give 100% effort in making the set-up the best it can be, including dressing the frets, and I do whatever it takes to get a good and consistent result. There are some 'dabblers' in set-ups who just give the industry a bad name. One customer, who has in the past been to several different 'Guitar Technicians', recently commented there ought to be a 'Standards' governing body. Sadly, the only protection available is to know what a good job is, not get stung for a poor one a second time and put it down to a lesson learnt. Reputation and recommendations are probably the main safeguard for customers and I am afraid that the saying "You are only as good as your last job" is true in this industry - one of the reasons I pay so much attention to achieving consistent results and the best I can for every instrument. Anyway, back to the bass………….I dressed the frets (see pic) and set it up accordingly. Intonation was out and the pickups were unbalanced. The 5th string silk wrap was over the saddle too, so I had to trim it back - I do find it odd that string manufacturers make this too long. The interesting thing about this bass was that the way it was built meant it was great instrument to work on - which makes it even more incomprehensible how the previous 'Tech' got it so wrong!

Pic ref. above 2nd January 2009

Christmas Day - 25th December 2008 And finally, it's another year over - and very successful one thanks to the patronage of my customers. Many guitar techs only see their customers once in a lifetime, yet many of my customers seem like old friends because they keep coming back for health checks and other new work and set-ups. So it's a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all - including the fanbase of readers of this blog, many of whom I have never met (yet!). Further to last week's blog, my customer was finally able to collect his Strat with the 45 mm wide nut and string spacing at 7.75mm, similar to his Taylor acoustic. He had the last laugh when he phoned me up and said "Peter, what have you done to this guitar?" Well, that threw me on the defensive - "Why? What's wrong?" I asked - to which he replied "Nothing, only that it sounds fantastic and I can't put it down!" So here is the guitar - seen below - and one very pleased customer to end 2008.

Pic ref. above 25th December 2008

Week ending 17th December 2008 What happened to last weeks blog ? Well …..last week I was in New York, I have to say that I picked up a nasty cold on the plane back and, coupled with jet lag, I seem to be a little slower off the starting blocks than usual. As for Christmas - I have found that it's been difficult to plan work load as it's sat right in the middle of the week! One experience I want to forget was the night I arrived in New York and sub-contractors started digging the road up outside the hotel at 8pm. This literally went on for hours until they hit a massive power cable at 2am and it exploded several times sending bits into the air like a firework display - maybe an arc furnace would have been nearer the truth. Then the Fire Department arrived with several trucks and this power cable and ground was literally glowing bright red. I finally dozed off at 4am - Welcome to New York! On the plus side - I took time out to see the infamous 'Mannies' Guitar Shop, which is a legend I was a little disappointed after all I had heard - its now called Sam Ask Music Store but they still keep the 'Mannies' Sign. Directly opposite was a shop run by Rudy Pensa which didn't mean much until the penny dropped and I realised that it was the origin of Mark Knofler's 'Pensa-Suhr' guitar. It was built in Rudy Pensa's Music Shop and was one of the first guitars built by John Suhr, who apparently then went to work with Fender. I have to say the guys there were very friendly and you could tell it was a quality guitar shop. Just before I left the UK I put a final coat of lacquer on a 'custom made neck' for a Fender USA Strat. My customer asked me to build him one with the same dimensions around the nut area as his acoustic Taylor. He couldn't get on with the narrow Fender string spacing because he had larger fingers. So the first job when I got back was to take the lacquer off the frets and dress them and build it up into a guitar ready for his Christmas present to himself! The rotary tone control threw me a curve as it didn't function properly and had an inoperative tone control - the customer had followed the directions relating to a Standard Strat. His was a Fat Strat and the extra leaf on the 5-Way Switch had him guessing where to fit the wires. It's like the reverse of that bomb disposal thing you watch on TV with choosing 2 wires to cut. Then on to remedy the tone control - after a quick call to Award Session I decided to experiment with several capacitors and the job was complete.

Week ending 5th December 2008 I had a beautiful 12 string Guild that came in this week for a transducer to be fitted. I opened up the case only to find that the bridge-plate was literally hanging half-off. I was able to slide a piece of paper more than 50% of the way under the back of the bridge plate! Just standing there in close proximity made me nervous of likelihood it might part company at any minute. There is an extra amount of tension on 12 strings guitars and I once remember one coming apart in my music class a school - it was more of an explosion! - and it left behind a nasty irreparable mess. When I got this bridge-plate off it revealed that the glue had stuck to the wood but the surface layers of the spruce had parted company. See pics below. With all that tension on the adhesive, it is still possible for delamination to occur and this is why many manufactures use the 'belt and braces' approach to fitting the bridge-plate. This is usually done by using wood adhesive with the addition of either 2 or 3 bolts that have washers and nuts on the inside. To disguise the bolts, a mother of pearl inlay is added to make it look nice. This job went reasonably well except that - as careful as I am - the fine spatula knife I use for this operation separated just a bit too quickly and I gashed my thumb! It's always the way when you use a bit of heat to soften the glue - the knife is being eased along and all of a sudden it releases! Putting things back together was more difficult because the length of time it had been left in a poor state of repair had caused the bridge-plate to warp out of shape. Getting both surfaces to mate is more difficult on older guitars because there is always more bellying of the soundboard to take into account. In the end I was pleased with my results with just one niggle - the treble side bolt had to be placed about a 1mm over to avoid the brace inside. Other than that slight symmetry issue the guitar was back to good-as-new. The saddle slot was too thin for the B-Band transducer so this has to be machined wider to accommodate it but, actually, I believe it sounded better and I don't think this was just psychological. The customer was also pleased with the sound from the B-Band I fitted and he now wants his Martin fitted with the same.

Pic ref. above 5th December 2008

Week ending 28th November 2008 I often get people seeking the 'holy grail' of a low action but find they have different ideas of what is actually meant by a low action. Recently I had someone else's customer relating how low he wanted the string to be on the last fret of his bass fretboard. Looking a little deeper, this could mean that, with massive relief in the neck, his frets in the middle of the fretboard would be further away than the distance at the last fret! This is not a low action or the way to set the action height. The same customer said that he was looking for a parallel action - i.e. the same string height all the way along the fretboard. There has to be relief in the neck - dead straight necks don't play well because they don't accommodate the vibrating string. I know that the customer's pre-conceived idea of how the string should be, meant his expectation of great playability could not be met within these criteria, so I declined to take on the work. There is no point trying to do the impossible. The height of the string is often measured at the 12th fret and it's the height from the TOP of the fret to the UNDERNEATH of the string. Misconception and optical illusion sometimes causes people to think that the action is from the wood to the string but this is incorrect. Therefore, you could have one guitar with a low action from the top of the fret to the string which (because of the tall fretwire) is actually further away from the wood than a guitar with low/worn frets and a higher action. You might say this guitar set-up had a high action! This takes some understanding and may cause you to read this section twice. I have included pictures to show what I mean. See pics below to explain. Sometimes I get guitars that have been set with the action too low and I'm asked to rectify the problems this causes. A common example is when the customer has had work done in the following fashion: The guitar is strung up and relief adjusted, the strings lowered until they buzz and then lifted up again until they just stop buzzing! This way of setting a low action is doomed from the start because the height is related to the condition of the frets in that area and is set at an almost unplayable position - to the edge of its limit. The first time the weather (humidity & temperature) changes they are likely to find the guitar buzzes and is unplayable. Secondly the strings are likely to be at differing heights - again the wrong procedure Can you play a guitar with a low action? Well, this depends on your style and if you play hard a low action will not work for you as the amplitude of the string will undoubtedly cause it to buzz and rattle about. If you play lightly and use the volume of the amp you can get away with fast and light techniques and a low action. What to do to achieve a low action? This is the secret of my success and, given that the customer plays with a light touch, there is a limit I go to in reducing the action height. All this is done AFTER dressing the frets. Once the frets are even and level the setting up work is straight forward. This is one of the reasons that guitars I have worked on are easier to re-set afterwards - even by someone else - so it does sometimes happen that others may get the benefit/take the credit for my investment and past craftsmanship. (The listing of low action heights are listed on my products page…) So, I had a 5 string bass player whose guitar was set far too low - lower than I would set a Vintage Stratocaster with the exception of the 5th string (which was almost 50% higher than the others) and he had problems with it buzzing and volume output per string. Could I help? Well yes, but only if I do things my way. If I am asked for something I cannot deliver I will not do the job. Bass strings, particularly, need room to breathe and setting them lower than the normal Strat & Les Paul makes me wonder what planet some people are on, it's only going to end in tears in the long run! The amount of work I have had in recently means I cannot take on any more work until about the 18th December. If you contact me for set-up work, I will have to put you on my waiting list.

Pic ref. above 28th November 2008

Week ending 21st November 2008 There is always something to write about and this week I was all set to explain what a low action is and then I hit a problem. They say a problem shared is a problem halved - and in this case it could be, for you, a problem solved as well! First off, I had a very noisy 1983 vintage Strat come in - loads of mains hum and crackle. First I shielded the electrics to reduce the noise and then, taking a quick look at the electrics, I noticed that there was no earth loop running from pot to pot. What I mean by an earth loop is a piece of soldered wire that runs from component to component body and all the way on to the jack socket. Fender had played the economy game and bolted everything to an aluminium plate. This practice is not uncommon and is still used on the jazz bass & telecaster - although they have chrome face plates. I soldered an earth loop and the noise in 1983 Strat guitar was drastically reduced. Some feedback from the week before was a customer that had brought in a Flying V which cut in and out intermittently. I thought I had resolved the fault with the electrics, everything indicating it was a combination of a dirty switch and a worn jack socket. I cleaned the switch and replaced the jack socket and it was working fine both when the work was done and when the customer collected it. However, I got a call during the week saying that the 'V' was being played at a gig and had died after the 3rd number. The sound went down to 10% power and came back when he pressed the scratchplate! One clever wag, overhearing my phone conversation with the customer, offered the advice to replace everything! Well, that's ok if it's a component fault but would not have worked on a straight swap in this case. I went through the rest of the week wondering what the fault could be and then, when I got it back, found that the sparse wiring and lack of earth loop I had found on the Strat just happened to be the same problem with the Flying V! When the customer came in, sure enough, the sound cut out and crackled when the scratchplate was pushed. On taking the scratchplate/controls out, I could not see a short or a wire out of place and the soldered joints were good. There was an earth wire to the jack socket body BUT nowhere else! It was clear that Gibson believed that the aluminium foil on the back of the scratchplate was sufficient to make a good contact. The problem with this thinking is that the contact is a DRY one and, as metals oxidise (powder), they produce resistance. The shake proof washers on the volume controls & tone had cut through the aluminium foil and into the plastic so no wonder there was a problem! I soldered an earth loop to all the components and the job was sorted out. If you have this intermittent problem it might be you, too, are the victim of the manufacturer's cost-cutting. Typically the Fender Jazz Bass will cut in and out if the jack socket is loose, because it's a dry joint. A wet or soldered joint is always preferable. I won't forget this in a hurry. The explanation about low actions will have to wait until next week!

Week ending 14th November 2008 Finally, the feedback comments from the 'The Glued-in Neck Guitar' ref. 31st October 2008. "Wow!! Received and unpacked the guitar. Looks and feels superb - thank you!! Had the chance over the weekend to play the guitar properly (actually I had difficulty putting it down!) The neck is wonderful to play, and has made the guitar a really excellent instrument. The pick-up configuration is really quite simple, but extremely effective - high gain to Strat-like sounds in one range. Thank you - you have done an amazing job!" "For your testimonial page, I would be pleased to contribute with the following comments, "An amazing job - above and beyond what I expected! Has turned a good looking guitar, into a wonderfully playable instrument to savour and enjoy! Thank you!!" ........Stephen S. In the past week I had several customers coming back with their guitars for re-set. They felt the guitar 'didn't feel right' and it was not how it was originally set. In a couple of instances, the cause was a spur of the moment decision to change their gauge of string. I don't mind reiterating this, but my set-ups are done so that the truss rod is in perfect balance for the gauge and type of string asked for and I don't charge for re-setting within a 12 month period of the set-up (excluding strings and admin & transit costs for mail order). To take one example of what happened recently: I set up the customer's Strat with 11 to 48 gauge strings but he found it too difficult to bend the strings and didnt really get the extra tone he was told about on various 'forums' so changed down to 10 to 46. At first he didn't notice much difference except the trem didn't work properly - clue number 1. Some weeks later, he joined a band where the singer needed everyone to play at Eb (a semitone lower than standard pitch). He now found that the guitar was unplayable, with buzzing on all strings, and he couldn't use the tremolo, except to low pitch - final clue! He phoned me and I explained to him that the truss rod probably needed to be adjusted. He adjusted it himself to 'tide him over' and, when he eventually brought it in, it had a very high action and the neck bowed forwards with buzzing when played in the centre of the fretboard - clearly the truss rod was over adjusted because, if you can see a curve in the neck, it's too much. So - what is going on and how does it all work? The formula is simple and needs to be thought of a 'balancing act' - see picture below. The main reason that many people do get away with changing gauge of string is that their guitar probably has a higher action to start with so they don't notice the difference so much. Another of my customers also wanted to play in Eb (less tension on the truss rod). After asking my advice, he shifted the gauge in the opposite direction - i.e. 9 to 46 to 10 to 52 (more tension on the truss rod) and it seemed to work as a temporary measure. When he came in to see me there was still a slight change in the neck curve to the original set-up but not as bad as it would have been without the compensated higher string tension. This rough estimate can work for some but not others and there is also another overriding factor - the composition of the string! To elaborate: A bass player came to me and wanted to change from Nickel wound to Flat Wound strings of the same gauge. Seems OK on the face of it but it highlighted to me the tremendous difference in tension! He did the right thing and asked me to fit and adjust for them - to my surprise, the Flat Wound strings at the SAME GAUGE pulled the neck forwards! The answer is obvious when you think about it - Flat Wound are also referred to as 'Ribbon Wound' and, as there is less air and more metal mass within the string because the ribbon is tightly wound, it is therefore a denser mass than a Round Wound. The only unknown quantity is the natural tension in the neck-stock wood. Unfortunately, some necks are naturally very floppy and others very stiff. Sometimes this is due to how the timber is cut - whether the neck is slab sawn or quarter sawn. The whys and wherefores can be debated at length but I think I have put forward enough food for thought about what effect a change of string gauge can have without due understanding of the situation In summary: the truss rod balance is about a) an effective truss rod b) string gauge - weight/mass c) natural wood - neck-stock tension

Pic ref. above 14th November 2008

Week ending 7th November 2008 This week I had a customer phone me to apologise because he had used another shop & technician to fit his own Bare Knuckle Pickups into a cheap Vintage LP and he now wanted me to sort it out because the pickups had fallen into the guitar! He told me he had also asked for the guitar to be wired/work like Peter Green's guitar - i.e. 'out of phase'. What I found was that the tech (for reasons only known to him) hadn't used the screws supplied but had drilled the ears out of the pickup! He had then fitted two nuts onto his own screws and 'hot melt' glued them in place! Actually, if he had put the nuts on the other side of the PU ears they wouldn't have fallen into the guitar …..but still - an incorrect repair and a recipe for disaster. When I looked inside the control cavity of the guitar I found a low powered soldering iron had been used, which had failed to solder properly and caused dry joints everywhere. The 'wired like Peter Green's guitar ' was a non starter as there was only one conductor per pickup so it couldn't be done, although the customer was led to believe that it had. To sort it out I repaired the damaged ears by soldering on brass plates, then drilling and tapping for new screws of the correct size. I then sent one of the pickups to Aaron Armstrong for him to slit the can and re-wire it with four conductor wires, allowing all options upon fitting. When it was back I sorted the phase out and re-wired it with a push/pull switch for the customer to change from normal Les Paul to the 'Peter Green out of phase' sound. I was just pleased I could help out the customer. The subject of fitting pickups has raised its head several times over the past few weeks. One customer had no sound on the top two treble strings because the neck of his guitar had been knocked out of alignment with the body. Another customer had fitted Strat PU's to a Baldwin Burns and had a similar problem except that the string spacing was totally incorrect (see pics) and the 3rd was 10 dB louder than the rest of the strings due to the staggered pole pieces. For this one I recommended a bladed type from Seymour Duncan (Single coil sized - stacked Humbucker). Another customer had a Strat with a Dimarzio 49mm Pole piece spacing in the bridge and that too had poor sound from the strings not running over the pole pieces - even with 52mm PU spacing it was tight. Then there was that glued in neck guitar I finished last week, that had the correct PU's put in but in the wrong positions and therefore string to magnetic poles didn't match. Phew! And only a couple of days ago a customer emailed me to ask if he could move the neck PU to the bridge because it sounded better than the bridge PU: I replied : Basically, it's not the bridge pickup's fault but 'where it is'. Years ago, there was a guitar on the market that has two rails and only one PU and you could move the pickup from the neck or any point along it………...all the way to the bridge to alter the sound!. Now, if in theory, we could do this with your neck PU, it would not sound the same in the bridge as it does in the neck. WHY? Well, it's because of the string vibration changes, depending on where you are along its length. There is more skipping rope /amplitude effect at the neck area so that the sound is bigger & more rounded and mellow. BUT in the bridge area the string has only a small distance of travel/vibration and so it sounds thinner and it's weaker! The whole reason they wrap more turns on the Bridge PU to make it more powerful. To get a bigger sound in the Strat /Tele Bridge position means fitting a mini humbucker like the Hot Rails which produces a fatter/thicker sound. So, in conclusion make sure the strings run over the pole pieces and don't think all techs produce the same quality of work.

Pic ref. above 7th November 2008

Continued ............ 7th November 2008

Week ending 31st October 2008 And finally.......I got to find out what the 'glued in neck guitar' really sounds like! To summarise, I have been working on this guitar over the past few months although initially I refused to do the job and wanted to send it back. However, the customer so wanted this guitar to work that I took it on and here is the finished product - see below. Problems that I encountered along the way were: - The truss rod wouldn't straighten the neck because it was incorrectly installed. - There was an upturn at the end of the fretboard, partly caused by massive leverage on the neck. - There wasn't enough string down pressure at the headstock to keep the strings in the nut slots due to the shallow headstock rake angle design! - Two of the tuners were wrong handed (back-to-front). - The neck to body rake angle was incorrect, giving a high action even with the tremolo sat flat on the body. - The Wilkinson trem failed to work except for downshift - because it was sat on the deck. - The radius of the fretboard was less than 7" making it impossible to get a low action contrary to my customer's objectives. - Finally, the pickups had been fitted the wrong way round (neck in bridge and vice-versa) - the strings didn't run over the pole pieces and were wired incorrectly for the type pickups and switch. After sorting everything out, I cut and polished the guitar and rebuilt it with some of the original parts. Because I sensed the customer wanted 'options' in pickup selection, with a little thought and using both sides of the 5-way switch wafer, I got the layout as pictured below - so simple yet so effective. The end result is that, by flipping the switch from one end to the other, you go from a FULL Bridge humbucker to a Tapped Bridge Single coil. One of the 'in-between' positions now gives a typical 'Strat sound' and its position is mirrored on the opposite side of the switch to a 'Les Paul sound' with BOTH humbuckers on. It seems so logical as a layout that I cant understand why I haven't seen it before. I now have both single coil from each humbucker giving that 'Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing sound' often referred to as the out of phase sound (it's not really out of phase) OR the Les Paul with BOTH humbuckers on. I think I will use this on one of my own guitars. I need to see how this guitar settles in the next week before shipping it back - maybe an excuse for me to play it a bit before I let it go!

Pic ref. above 31st October 2008 part 1

Continued........ 31st October 2008 part 2

Week ending 24th October 2008 A colleague in Florida once told me 'if you're good at what you do you are always busy.' I guess the proof of that is my steady flow of customers - the downside being that that you may not always be able to get work done exactly as soon as you want it. I do have people saying they will wait until I'm not busy before bringing their guitar in - the problem being I can't say when that will be. However, whenever I take work in I always give a promise of when it will be ready to collect and I make sure that I stick to that date - even if it means burning the midnight oil if a job turns out not to be as straightforward as I thought! This planned system of working - giving customers 'promise dates' and sticking to them - has worked very well for a very long time but things got thrown a bit into disarray this week because several customers were asking how things were going the day after they'd dropped the job off and asking could they have them back sooner than the agreed 'promised delivery date'. To try and accommodate them, I had to move out jobs for more easy going customers who weren't going to collect early and then work until midnight to extend the working day. I had 3 guitars for one customer this week and they all looked as if they needed a bit extra work. I was wrong - they needed a lot of extra work! Loose frets, 2 necks in at wrong angles - I needed my tenacity to get me through the work load this week! As I have said, I always try to accommodate customers' needs whenever possible but, under the circumstances, it was a very difficult week. My normal working week is: Saturday - working day. Popular for collections & deliveries, especially with people travelling to me from some distance away and those who work away during the week. This means I don't usually get much 'bench work' done on Saturdays. Sunday & Monday - days off (my 'weekend') Tuesday - Friday 'normal' working days. So you can see that guitars dropped off on a Saturday won't get touched until Tuesday or Wednesday. The reason for explaining all this is that you can now see that phoning up on Tuesday or Wednesday to see if a guitar dropped off on Saturday is ready is the same as phoning up on Wednesday about one dropped off on Tuesday - i.e. it's the equivalent to phoning up the next day! Anyway, the week's work got sorted out in the end and the one big job - 'the glued in neck' - got its final stages of lacquer work done. Lacquering's a slow process because the lacquer has to harden off between coats. If you try and rush it, it becomes a mess - but this is looking good so far. The one thing that is not understood is that doing a neck joint is relatively easy if there is no damage to paint/stain. If there is, the over-shading to blend in has to be taken onto the body. This causes over-spray and 'contour' or 'witness lines' - where the old lacquer meets the new, so the only way to get round this is to put a 'pull-over' coat on the body at the same time. Then there will be no 'join' lines between old and new. As you can see here - below , I am near finished and hope to build it up by next weekend - looking forward to it!

Pic ref. above 24th October 2008

Week ending 17th October 2008 The faulty CF Martin came back to me after having a neck re-set at their UK repair shop. I must say that they did a very good job at taking the neck off - virtually no signs of where they had been. The customer asked me 'Was it ok?' - I said it was in the 'ball park' and I could now make it work. Whilst the neck was set correctly in relation to the bridge plate, there was still an upturn at the end of the fingerboard. As a result I took 0.2mm off those frets from 18th to 20th and the guitar is now ready for the customer to collect. I guess that word has got out about me being back down to a 5 day turnaround because it only lasted 2 days! The work came flooding in to such an extent I am now looking to the end of the month before I take on any new customers. What I didn't expect was that customers would bring in 2 and 3 guitars at once. I 'm not knocking it - I just didn't expect it, what with the credit crunch and all the doom and gloom recently. The 'glued in neck' is still in the process of matching colours and so there is nothing to show this week except that the chipped lacquer has been repaired.

Pic ref. above 17th October 2008

Week ending 10th October 2008 It's rare that I get a guitar come back to me the day after it's gone out but this is what happened at the weekend. I got a call from a guy who had had a Pro Set-up and a paint job on the neck, combined with replacing both pickups. His problem was static noise from the new PU's which he supplied from Gibson for his Les Paul. The physical/cosmetic difference between the old and new pickups was that the new ones didn't metal covers - 'cans' are reputed to reduce the clarity and treble. I also thought it was a good move as the 80's PU's seem dull and lifeless (email me if you know why). I did the replacement by the book and they worked fine. What I hadn't banked on was the 80's Gibson trick of not putting on a string earth, but shielding the controls with a metal can instead. If the replacement PU's had been covered, the customer wouldn't have noticed a difference from his old ones. I was really annoyed with myself for not remembering this issue - it was some years ago I resolved a similar issue because the metal cover inside the cavity had long been discarded and the problems of noise increased. At least when he told me about the problem I immediately knew both the cause and the solution! The solution to the Les Paul problem is simple, yet needs a little bit of care. The post to the stop-tail piece needs to be removed so a wire can be inserted. This can be simple or a swine to remove! As this guitar goes back to the 1980's the wood is nice and dry and had partnered the inserted ferrule, so it needed a bit of persuasion to come out. It needs a big soldering iron, an old post, a phone directory and a claw hammer! I stripped the hardware to expose the ferrule and the first thing that needed to be done was to clean any paint covering the top of the ferrule. By lightly scoring around the hole I know it won't lift the paint off the guitar when extracted. Next I used a 100 watt soldering iron to heat up the circumference of the ferrule - to sweat it away from the wood. When it's nice and hot I put in the old post and lightly hammer sideways at all points of the compass to make a bit of room to pull it out. Once this has been done I then enlist the help of the claw hammer and one of those old phone directories - to protect the top- to pull the ferrule out. This guitar was a real pig and I had to have two goes before it came clear. It's always a good idea to tap it slightly further in to start with - just to break the seal of corrosion around the ferrule. With the ferrule out of the way I could now drill a small hole from inside post hole thought to the cavity and the job was almost done. It's a matter of stripping the wire back and wedging it in place as the original post is refitted. On the other side - inside the cavity - it's just a case of soldering a wire into the earth loop /pot case and the job is done ........ short of fitting the metal cover most techs seem to throw away! I guess next time I'll remember this experience and not let an uncovered PU from an 80's les Paul go out without a string earth fitted. Self criticism is always an asset. As a P.S. - I often get people say that there is a problem with the electrics because the hum dies away when they touch the strings. It's because of the string earth that this happens. It seems like I am being sarcastic when I say it's fine because you can't play the guitar without touching the strings - but it's true and the reason that the string-earth is there! The 'glued in neck' has finally been glued / re-united with the body. Pics below. The new fret ends were cut off and chamfered, the headstock shaped, and the rough carving has been sanded and prepared ready for lacquering and staining. No, I didn't get that the wrong way round! A clear lacquer base-coat has been applied for staining/shading/bursting because IF it's done the wrong way round the stain will bleed into the wood and it cannot be sanded off easily like it can when sprayed onto a sealer base-coat. The other problem is the original coloured body already had chips around the neck joint before it came to me - a problem with the original finishing. Now I have to repair the original colour and match the same colour on the neck-stock. Once this is done, I will be able to darken the shading around the joint and hopefully it will blend/disappear! This is a slow process of layers but I am hoping it should be finished next week.

Pic ref. above 10th October 2008 part1

Continued........ 10th October 2008 part2

Week ending 3rd October 2008 Good news for the customer whose guitar got rejected last week, the retailer agreed with my report and sent the guitar back to CF Martin! On a different guitar, I diagnosed a faulty (open circuit) PU at the weekend, sent it off for rewinding and got it sent back to me in double quick time ready for collection tomorrow. What service! Good service also, last week from the people at Tanglewood Guitars UK, who were very good in providing cover for a faulty transducer above and beyond the call of duty. The customer was also happy with the outcome. It's a misconception that a wound Pickup that has a broken winding will not sound. On the contrary, the wire that has broken is often trapped in other layers of wire and the ends cannot separate, so there is just enough of a dry joint across the wires to allow a signal to come through the amp. The sound is typically thin and low in volume. I once remember a customer bringing an old Hofner with humbuckers and asking my opinion on the pickups. He complained that even though his 150 watt valve amp was FULL on, he could only just hear the guitar and was it supposed to be like that? I put the ohms meter on it and the only reading was from the pots - Both pickups were dead and he returned it to his eBay seller. Had they worked properly he would have deafened himself! One job that should have been straightforward fell at the last hurdle this week! I did a Pro set-up on a Brian May guitar and when it was almost finished I pushed the tremolo arm in, tried to use it and found it fitted as well as a toilet brush! Grrrrrrr! The culprit was the nasty piece of plastic tube which wasn't a good fit to start with. Then the Allen key adjuster had been tightened and had punched a hole in the side of it, cutting into the trem arm. (See Pic below.) I had to take the tremolo apart, turn a new sleeve from Delrin and fit it, then reassemble the tremolo and set the guitar up all over again. This will be another problem to look out for next time I have one in. The rebuild of the 'glued in neck' has moved a few paces forwards and this week I managed to carve the back of the neck and straighten up the sides. (Pictures below) I took the frets out and then checked out what sort of state the neck was really in. First impressions were that it was pretty poor with undulation in it - I suppose only to be expected, given that I have heated it, steamed it, levelled the base and glued it! Furthermore, the radius was at 7" which is absolutely wrong for what the customer wants from it. That has to change. Initially, the customer had an Ibanez professionally set up and he wanted the same action on this guitar. The 7" radius chokes off on bends when set with a very low action. I believe it's one of the reasons Fender changed from 7.25" to 9.5". With the frets removed I was able to create a compound radius that starts at a 7.25" @ fret 1 and ends up between 10" to 12" @ fret 24. At the same time, I levelled out all those high and low spots and then it was ready to refret. I measured the fretwire to mimic the original and cleaned out the slots and refretted it, gluing the frets in for the best transmission of sound. Now I have to wait for the glue to dry before the next phase. More next week.

Pic ref. above 3rd October 2008

Week ending 26th September 2008 Wow! What a blinding week! I had that many people coming to me this week that I over- booked myself with work. Luckily, there are a few set-ups that require PU changes and mods that will take me into next week, so I won't be working the nightshift! Sometimes, I have to play receptionist, which I did all day Friday - one of those days where I thought of replacing the Fire Door with a revolving one! Basically, I didn't do a stroke of work on the bench but I did get to meet lots of customers. Points to comment on this week were: I got an emergency call on Sunday to look at a Lowden that 2 other guitar techs before me had tried to sort out but uneven frets and a loose truss rod did it no justice. Maybe the other techs couldn't find the truss rod, which is tucked up inside like the Larrivee. At least they supply a bent Allen key to get to it without taking the strings off. Anyway, it eventually turned out to be a great guitar Then I had an Explorer with the action set so low that it buzzed. The nut had been cut too deep and it was fitted with 11 to 54 strings. The slots should have been cut wider rather than deeper and, consequently, I had to replace the nut. Then I got one of those nasty jobs I hate doing! It was a brand new CF Martin Acoustic which the customer had taken back to the shop several times to ask for the action to be lowered but had been told it was alright! I checked the guitar out and it was clear that the neck had been put in at the wrong angle in manufacture and would take great skill and expense to rectify, so no wonder the shop was reluctant to do anything about it. In this case I am also reluctant to go to the trouble and expense of doing a repair as it is a manufacturing fault, the guitar is virtually brand new and the onus in this case is on the supplier. I have written a report for the customer and we will wait to see what happens on this. The moral here is that a top quality name doesn't guarantee a perfect guitar every time. I did manage to move along with the rebuild of the 'glued in neck job'. After last weeks' machining it to fit the body, I steamed the fingerboard straight and left it for a few days to dry out. The interesting thing here was thinking my way through this problem. I cut and shaped the headstock, drilled out the machine head holes and fitted one machine head for the 1st string. I then loose-fitted a make-shift nut and checked the intonation relative to string height. It seemed very odd tapping the fretboard along the neck to get the correct intonation! Once I found the right place I marked it and was then able to peg it and prep for gluing. With knowing the final place of the fretboard, I could jig up the neck stock and route a slot in it to take a two way truss rod. Now, here is one of my trade tricks; as you will see in the picture the truss rod is fitted in place. The previous tech's idea was to protect/wrap the truss rod in masking tape but this didn't stop it rusting! The issue is ensuring protection while not impeding its use - glue can go everywhere. Here you will see that I use PTFE tape (used by plumbers). The tape is one of the slipperiest substances known to man, and it's very thin. By wrapping the truss rod in this tape it ensures that it's protected from glue and will still maintain is function without getting stuck. Once fitted, the Vacuum press comes into operation and boy! - does it do a nice job! I must add that I had pencilled in Friday to do the neck carving but you know what happened to my Friday! More next week.

Pic ref. above 26th September 2008

Week ending 12th September 2008 Just before my holiday I had a problem taking a neck out of a solid body guitar. I ended up having to cut it out because the maker had used waterproof glue, which is impossible to break apart. I then had to find some birds-eye maple wood to make a new neck and fit it to the body. Usually, you can machine wood to be almost exact and then hand finish for total accuracy but when you're trying to make a new neck fit an old body both have to be machined without error. First, I machined the neck socket out of the guitar body. To do this I made neck and body joint templates which fitted perfectly and, by using a laser line. I set the neck and body in relation to the tremolo, which was already fitted. If I build a new guitar, the tremolo is fitted afterwards, in line with the neck, so doing things the other way round is a whole heap more difficult so I always use the rule 'measure twice and cut once' or is that 'measure six times!'....... Anyway, I machined the body out and then I tested the neck blank (taking nothing for granted) to a depth of 1mm and woah!!!!…..It's out by 0.5mm - which may not seem a lot but is a serious problem. Clearly, I found the problem to be the router table and pin in relation to the cutter. The brief back-story to this is that I bought the Router from my friend Patrick James Eggle before he moved to the USA (He's back now and makes astounding guitars in Shrewsbury - his details on my Guitar Maker page) but transporting the router meant taking the table off and there lay the problem. It hasn't mattered so much before, as hand finishing has eradicated any error, but now utmost accuracy is required I've had to fix the problem. Over the weekend I was down at the Cheltenham Acoustic Show helping out a friend on the Sheehan's stand and while I was there I bumped into Mark Bailey who I have not seen since shortly after leaving The Eggle Factory in Coventry in 1994 click here for Mark Bailey Guitars . Mark now runs courses in guitar building and I was a little surprised and very pleased to find how well he had done for himself. Well done Mark! One of the reasons for mentioning him was something Mark said whilst demonstrating acoustic wood bending. He explained how guitar makers have to adapt tools and techniques, which led me to this weeks blog about how I resolved the router table issue. I had to make a jig for setting it up by getting some ½" steel bar and fitting a dial gauge onto it. Using an old angle-pose lamp base (I never throw any thing away!) I managed to drill out the post hole to the same ½" and use a piece of angle to harness the Dial Gauge. Tapping in a 3mm cap head, ensured the dial gauge stayed put. You can see the picture below of it in situ and, by rotating it to all 4 compass points, I was soon able to get within 0.002" in line. That is accurate enough and, although I would have preferred exact, I am a realist! One of the issues to make the pin not central is the pin locking method which pushes from one side, so it's never going to be perfect - only very close to it. Pictures below it show the new neck in place - I still have a way to go on this project.

Pic ref. above 19th September 2008

Week ending 12th September 2008 One of the first guitars I had to deal with was a Walden Acoustic. The action was high on both the treble and bass sides but I could see that there was an issue with how the neck had been put in, coupled with some heavy bellying on the sound board. I calculated that I could only set the guitar up if I lowered the bridge-plate on the treble side because it was too tall for the current set-up. What I mean by this is that if I reduced it to the correct height the saddle would not be poking out of the saddle slot! (See picture 4.) I also found that the much favoured Fishman transducer (coaxial type) was so thick that there was not enough depth to the saddle slot anyway - see pic 1. Way back on 23rd May 2008 I adjusted the saddle depth on a guitar fitted with one of theses, to allow more of the saddle to fit into the slot (see May 2008 pics for more detail on this procedure) and I had to do the same procedure on this guitar. You will see from the pictures below that once I had dressed the frets and sorted the neck relief out, I could then take stock of the exact place the strings need to sit. By placing the saddle at the correct height I now can calculate how much wood is to be removed from the bridge-plate. I start by filing a slot that tells me when I have got to the desired level - see pic 4. Once this has been sorted out, I can reshape the plate so it looks original and finish off by re-countersinking the string peg holes - pic 5. It's important to make sure that there is enough depth to the slot to allow for the transducer and about 50% to 60% of the saddle- something that many far eastern manufacturers fail to do. The final leg of the set-up was to slot the bridge- plate and, because this operation is done in situ, the slot is more parallel to the soundboard. In this case a new saddle was needed because the original was too low on the treble side. Finally, the guitar now has a new lease of life - pic 6. One benefit to the customer was that I had quoted for a new nut because the slots were cut too low. After the set-up the strings cleared the 1st fret so I didn't need to fit a replacement.

Pic ref. above 12th September 2008

Week ending 5th September 2008 Well, I have just come back from a couple of weeks in Canada and find that I have had loads of phone calls and emails while I've been away. Despite having a waiting list before I went, it's not put people off joining the queue - so thank you all very much for your faith in me and your continued business! I also had one person ask about helping me with my work but the crux of the matter is that, if you take someone on, you first need to spend a lot of time teaching them and you then have to spend time checking their work and correcting it if necessary, which can sometimes take longer than the job itself. All this is necessary to maintain the quality and reputation my business has been built on and I don't have that much time to spare so, for the foreseeable future, I don't intend to expand. I prefer to remain a custom shop specialist service with a reputation for doing things right first time. From the length of my waiting list - and people's acceptance of it - it is clear that, for my past customers, the choice of waiting and going elsewhere is a no brainer and I am thankful to them for their loyalty. I should also say that I am thrilled that the delay/waiting list has not put people off. So, as a priority, I have set about answering my emails and phone messages. One of the assets I have is a phone log that lists all my incoming calls, so going through the list tells me how many times each person phoned and shows the numbers even if they left no message - I know some people just don't like answer phones! I am then able to ring all the callers back to see how I can help them. I don't work on guitars while I am still getting over jetlag - I wouldn't work on my own guitars in that state so I am surely not going to work on anyone else's! The recuperation time is spent in wearing the receptionist's hat by phoning and emailing customers and arranging appointments and also the purchasing department's hat, ordering in any parts and stock I need. It's not that glamorous but they are still both functions of the guitar repair and building business and, as I prefer to stay a one man band, it means I get to wear all the hats!

Week ending 15th August 2008 One tough week just completed with some difficult jobs. The 60's Telecaster from New York came in and went back out again a different guitar. The problems were poor Bigsby set-up and badly fretted neck - the 12th fret that was buried! I don't know if the person who refretted it had just had a bad phone call but they sure took it out on that particular fret. The frets should have been thin vintage frets but they had been replaced with fat 3mm wide and 1.4mm high beasts. That, together with the fret job made it a pig of a job for me. Normally the frets start out new at 1mm and at 0.5mm your start to think of a refret. The 1.4mm height is often used with lacquered necks so that the height of 1+mm is achieved once the lacquer is built up. I took these frets down to 0.9mm to 1mm to make it feel more comfortable and still give plenfty of life in the guitar. Taking 0.5mm of the height is quite a bit of work, especially when they need reshaping, otherwise you have flat tops to the frets. Lucky that fret reduction is what was asked for and now the 12th fret issue is resolved. I fitted a B-Band to a Takamine that needed reconstruction surgery before I could do the implant. I can't believe that Takamine used a transducer getting on for the size of a Telecaster neck pickup - fitted from underneath (I exaggerate not). This required an wood insert from underneath - with the aid of a mini camera - then on to a machining job like I did with the left handed acoustic converted to right handed - see 11th July 2008. Eventually, the guitar was up and running and personally, I thought it sounded more natural. Maybe I 'm being bitchy but with all that hardware for a PU it's no wonder it could be improved on. Then, I had a T5 Taylor that only came in for a 6-month re-check but I found that the amount of leverage on the neck was causing it to creep forwards and the amount of relief I had put into the neck was correct at the time but the neck was now a different shape. There is no other way to deal with this but to do the work again. It's what is called a learning curve and the factor that caused this is the thin Taylor heel section. I came across the effect of the shortened heel in production of the New York model at Patrick Eggle. As a rule, the guitar stays correct when you allow for this leverage - experience over the years tells you what is needed to achieve an effect on each model. Even the type of fingerboard wood affects the flex in the neck. Next time I get a T5 Taylor in, I will make sure that a little extra magic is put in to allow for leverage of the neck. Incidentally, there was no cost to the customer for this. As with all my set-up work, if the neck /geometry changes and an adjustment won't do the trick it means that I start over again. Over the thousands of guitars I have done I now have 3 guitars that have needed a complete rework. Not a bad average bearing in mind it's due to wood movement and not 'pilot error'. Ha-ha The hand built PRS has taken a turn for the worst. I took out the fillet and truss rod which was caked in masking tape - probably to stop the glue water rusting it - I use PTFE tape which lubricates and protects. The amount of deflection in the truss rod measured less than 1/16th of an inch which was taken up by the double wrap of making tape. No wonder it never worked. I moved on to the body to steam the apart and after several hours the wood saturated but the glue would not come apart. This is a reminder that if you glue things together it may need to come apart and using waterproof PVA glues might be good on the external window frame but for guitar making it sucks, big time. In the end, I decided that there was so much wrong with the neck it had to be destroyed. Now I have to make a new neck - the correct way. It will take a few weeks to normalise the wood after injecting steam into it, so it gives me time to get a nice piece of birds-eye for the neck remake.

Week ending 8th August 2008 I seem to have cleared out an awful lot of guitars this week, which is just as well because I need to focus all my attention on rectifying the badly built guitar I mentioned a couple of weeks ago (the one like a PRS in shape). Having said that, I got a phone call from New York which phased me a bit - it was a tour manager who I did a lot of business with when I first started Guitar Technical Services in 1994, after leaving Patrick Eggle (and no - I'm not going to start name dropping………...). Anyway, just after I had finished helping out a desperate customer on my Sunday off, I found myself agreeing to sort out the tour band's guitar, which will arrive any day now. It wants a little bit of Telecaster customising & a Pro Set-up. Speaking of which, the G W Fest was a little hampered by the damp grass but other than that the weather held out and the event was a success and well supported. I understand that they sold loads of raffle tickets for the customised Telecaster I put up as 1st prize. See picture below of the hand-over. Matt Hernandez - the event's main organiser - told me that the lucky winner was a young lad who first saw the guitar when it was showcased in Bandwagon's shop window and went in to buy it! He was so disappointed when he was told he couldn't buy it, but he could enter the raffle for a mere £1 and then he might win it. And that's just what he did - well done, that young man! One of the helper-organisers said he couldn't help having a play on it before the raffle and told me it was an excellent piece of kit. I was also prompted into doing something about the frequently requested 'Gift Voucher' for Pro Set-ups, which I have kept putting off. Like a lot of jobs, once I got started it didn't take me long to sort out and here is the link to give a view of it. Gift Voucher, The very next day I found I had sold the first one - that was quick! I may skip a week or two here or there on the blog over the next month or so. As I mentioned before, I won't be taking on much work now, until mid September - regular 'Petes Customers' being the exception.

Pic ref. above 8th August 2008

Week ending 1st August 2008 Another hectic week has gone by with completion of a 5 string Bass that, for one reason and another, has been with me since February! The customer sourced the parts himself and he had a great deal of trouble getting them from the suppliers. Finally, I got all the parts and was able to complete the job and this week it was ready for shipping back to him. I changed the bridge, the pickups, re-wired it with a new on-board pre-amp and a cosmetic upgrade of wooden knobs. The bridge pickup also needed re-routing from single coil to humbucker shape. I had my first of the recently revamped, top of the range Fender Stratocasters in this week, too. Just when I thought Fender didn't care about their tremolos, they have sorted it out - thank goodness for that! The problem I have always had with the old block saddle type is that they grip the string and work like a ratchet, so the strings tend to go high when used. I could get round this but if you went for a big bend the thing went badly out of tune. The old vintage 'classic bent steel' saddle has been brought back (hurrah!) and the two pin, knife-edge pivot retained. This brings out the best of both worlds and is a major step forward. I once remember having a conversation with the top technician at Fenders' UK Importers about the 'block saddle' tremolo and eventually he agreed that, if I sent him the problem guitar I had, he would not be able to do any better. I commented to my customer that you would never see Hank Marvin using one, to which he said he did actually see him play one but he spent most of the night's concert preoccupied with what the tremolo was doing to his tuning. That must have been one of the shortest endorsements ever! You only have to look at what Jimi Hendrix did with the vintage tremolo 'classic bent steel' saddles to see how Leo Fender got it right first time. I can truly say I am envious of the owner of this new Stratocaster. From next week, I will be concentrating on my own guitar builds and also resurrecting a guitar that came to me with its neck glued in at the wrong angle and the truss rod not working.

Pic ref. above 1st August 2008

Week ending 25th July 2008 I often have discussions with customers about tuning and whether a guitar is correctly set-up. In fact, I must say that I would be rich if I had a dollar, euro or pound for every time I had calls or e-mails about tuning difficulties, so I have decided it's worth repeating previous comments on the subject. This week I had a Gretsch Jet with a Bigsby tremolo. These are interesting and quirky guitars, which means they can throw customers and guitar techs a big curve if they're not familiar with them. This one came in with the bridge stuck down and the customer revealed that the tech wanted to drill holes and screw it down but was persuaded not to - which was lucky as the intonation was out by 15% anyway. The reason for mentioning this guitar is that there are two parts to the equation in sorting out the intonation: One small factor that can get overlooked here is the fret height. New Gibson and Fender guitars have a much higher fret, which causes them to get sent out of tune very easily by finger pressure alone. Some players have the bad habit of pressing the strings down too hard - usually the results of original learning technique and something often missed by guitar tutors. The string only needs to be pressed down sufficiently to voice the note. If the string is pressing down until it touches the wood (fingerboard) then the note will increase in pitch and the guitar will wear out quicker. If you try this with the bass E string on the first fret, you will find that the string can be about 4% sharp when lightly fretted but if you press down to the wood, you will see the tuner raising pitch up to 50% or more. This is the key to why new Fender and Gibson guitars with tall fretwire can have the intonation correctly set but be badly out of tune when played between the 1st & 5th frets. The other big factor is the elasticity within the string, which needs to be removed to make the string stable. I cannot emphasise enough that a string can be ruined by pulling at it - especially wound strings - and I have therefore developed a method of pre-tensioning strings, which is consistent and doesn't damage the string. See Restring a guitar When I checked the Gretsch I found that, when the strings were bent, it detuned by 20%. When I pre-tensioned the strings, this cured that part of the problem. I then went on to the next part of the solution: The Bigsby and Jaguar Tremolos need to find an equilibrium, so when they are set in the correct vertical position for intonation they can be used without the guitar going out of tune. You do this as follows: After tuning the guitar up to pitch and pre-tensioning the strings (see above) a) Make sure that the bridge is vertical and not leaning forwards/backwards - especially the pivot bridge types - as this will affect intonation. b) Pull the tremolo arm up, but not too much (otherwise the strings will be damaged), then depress it as far as it will go and then pull the tremolo arm upwards again. Do this several times and check the condition / stability of the strings on a tuner. The object of the exercise is to balance the bridge evenly between the back pull and the forward push - the bridge needs to rock to an equilibrium point and then settle. This is why it's important to start with the bridge vertical as in point a) - replacing the strings may pull it forwards! The tremolo is not designed to have excessive movement and stay in tune. Some tremolos have been up-graded to give smoother, more precise action than the original design. The bridge is a weak link in the system but allowing it to move WITH the strings forwards and backwards allows the guitar to stay in tune. This Gretsch has a roller saddle to reduced drag and friction. In summary, any tuning problems are likely to be caused by: a) excessive use of the tremolo arm b) not pre-tensioning the strings c) not equalising the bridge vertical position between back pull and forward push and d) forcing the bridge to become too rigid - e.g. taping it down. On the Gretsch I removed the tape, mated the surfaces and set the intonation. To help the customer reset the bridge, I made him a quick fix positioning spacer that fits between the Pick-up and Bridge. This means that, should the bridge ever come off he can always refit it in the correct place. See pic below. On a completely different subject, this week I became aware that my I had inadvertently upset someone in my area by using the word 'local' when referring to shops and technicians. To clarify, when I use the term I am often referring to shops/technicians local to the owner of the instrument rather than local to me. As my customers come from all over the UK and even overseas, I mostly have no idea who has worked on an instrument before me and, even if I did, I would not be so unprofessional as to 'name names'. I am also mindful of protecting my customers' privacy. Since I started this Blog, it's become even more evident that people may need - and are prepared - to travel to get good service. Just because there may be 'local' services (within, say, 20miles of where you live) it doesn't mean you have to keep going back there for inadequate or poor service. To give a recent example - I had a customer from Liverpool who had already tried shops & technicians locally (i.e. local to him!) without being really satisfied, looked on the internet and liked what he saw of my services, made an appointment and came to see me. This is a regular occurrence which, to me, demonstrates the bigger world out there facilitated by the internet age we live in. I hope this explains my use of the word 'local' and makes it clear that, contrary to some opinions, it's not there to 'slag people off'. Which brings me back to why I started the Blog in the first place - I just try to show some of the things that I receive in, why they are wrong and what I do to put them right. As for grammar and terminology, I can only say that I do the best I can. I don't have a degree in English (I think that's obvious) and we are all on a learning curve, so I will do my utmost to not use the term 'local' unless I can't find a better word. For now, and for the sake of keeping the peace, I have been through the Blog & Archives and removed any references to 'local' shops or technicians. I was tempted to go a stage further and change 'technician' to 'someone' but a 'someone' may not know what he or she is doing yet a technician should! - so I will leave it as it is. For the next month, I am limiting the amount of work I take in, as I need to work on my house and reorganise my workshop. I will take in Health Checks and emergency jobs for regular customers, and carry out assessments, but bigger and/or non-urgent jobs may get deferred until September.

Pic ref. above 25th July 2008

Week ending 18th July 2008 The week started off with a disappointed customer who had taken his Cort G290 into his technician because of a problem with the active Jack Socket. Weeks later, after retrieving the guitar, he found that it was worse than when he had taken it in. With his confidence in that technician lost, he brought it to me and, after looking at the problem, it was clear that the technician had no idea how to wire up the active Jack Socket! Here is a quick and clear description of how it's done if you don't have an ohms meter: After the wires have been unsoldered and the new Jack Socket fitted: 1) Hook a guitar lead up to the amplifier with the other end in the empty jack socket. Lick your finger and then touch one of the jack socket contacts. The live contact will make a loud noise/ buzz from the amplifier. This is the where the live wire is soldered. 2) the next wire to attach is the earth lead and this should be very obvious as the contact comes away from the outside body of the Jack Socket - see picture below - and often it is longer and has a earth clamp/crimp. 3) This only leaves a one wire left to solder, which comes from the battery negative and is fitted to the only contact left that has not been soldered - so no clues as to where this goes! In short, when a customer touches the strings the hum should die away. When it's wired up back to front like this was, a loud hum is produced just like the hum from touching the centre of a live guitar lead. However, even when I had rewired the guitar and tested it, it was clear that the original problem was still present so I replaced the Jack Socket and now the customer has the guitar back working properly with the crackles from the Jack Socket eliminated. Not all guitar Tech's are technically minded or know what they're doing with wiring! Apart from the above incident, I found myself having to tell a customer that his prized possession, a custom, hand-made UK PRS clone guitar had been incorrectly put together. In short, the neck was badly bent because the truss rod didn't work properly - i.e. didn't control it - and the neck to body joint was at the wrong angle. Hopefully, in the weeks to come I may show some of the work-in-progress with this guitar to show where some of the fundamental errors in building it have been made.. The first task is to take the fingerboard off the neck so we will see what this guitar maker actually did with the truss rod. Don't get me wrong - I don't have an issue with other Guitar Techs earning a living, and there are some good ones out there, but I do have an issue when someone doesn't do a good job because they risk damaging the reputation of all of us.

Pic ref. above 18th July 2008

Week ending 11th July 2008 After all my years in this business and the thousands of guitars I have seen, I reckon there's nothing much I haven't come across but this week I saw something I've never seen before - and probably won't again! It happened when Bandwagon, my local music store, asked me to do a custom job on one of their guitars. The customer wanted to take a left-handed Instrument and make it right handed so that he could play it in a left-handed fashion, but upside down. (Yes, you did read that right!) Basically, this left-handed customer had learned to play right-handed guitars but he fretted them with his right hand and used his left hand for picking. Because left-handed guitars weren't really around when he wanted one in his youth, he accepted a right handed guitar but played it left-handed. His request presented me with the following problems: Firstly, a new nut obviously had to be made, with the nut slots reversed to accept the correct widths of string. Then there was the problem of the intonation related to the mass of the strings. It's at this point that most people would make the error of just changing the strings from left to right, or vice-versa, without adjustment. The way in which the saddle position is measured is to take measurements from the nut to the 12th fret and use that figure from the 12th fret to the bridge plate - equal distance. Marking this point shows where the TREBLE side of the saddle should be fitted. The bass side is roughly worked out by adding another 3mm further on so that the saddle has that typical slanted look about it. 'Why are Spanish guitars different?' I hear you ask, and the reason is that all the classical strings have the same amount of mass and therefore do not require the saddle to be set at an angle. So, for the order of things, see the picture reference below: A) After taking off the strings, transducer and saddle, I had to machine out the slot in its entire width. I then found a piece of Rosewood to match and glued this in place. Then I took the top down to the same height as the bridge plate, ready for marking out the new saddle angle. B) One small trick I have used before is to use fret wire without the tangs, which I fit to the top of the bridge plate and move around until I get the intonation correct. Then I pencil mark its position, remove the strings and route out the new saddle slot. C) As you can see from the pictures, on altering the bridge plate, it revealed the original transducer hole so the centre of the saddle was in exactly the same place! D) Finally, the customer came to collect the guitar and said that, "for the first time in his life he had a guitar that had been tailored to his requirements". Given the handicap that he had 'accepted' ( that of playing a right handed guitar, left-handed) he sat down to knock out some tunes, showing some really neat finger work with both hands that made my work feel all the more worthwhile. Needless to say, the customer was very pleased. Now have I seen everything? PS: Almost forgot to mention that we are behind on updating the testimonials page due to pressure of work! That sounds good………but I had a very nice letter this week from a customer that brought me two terrible guitars which tested my expertise to the limit. Why? Well the Fylde with no truss rod had to be almost reverse engineered to get the correct relief when it wasn't adjustable. Why do some guitar builders think they know better than everyone else? See the customers letter here below.

Pic ref. above 11th July 2008

Week ending 4th July 2008 This week's guitars should have been called 'The Good the Bad and the Ugly!' Well, maybe not Ugly but 'Very Bad' and that wouldn't sound right! The culprits were: 1. A Fylde acoustic with no truss rod that had been sent back to the factory for their tender loving care and still came back with a high action - so I got it. 2. A Martin 12-string, which also had a high action, so much so that you could fit a thin phone book between strings and fretboard. 3. A Sheraton, bought 3 years ago from Slippery Sam's music shop which, at first glance, I thought it was a lapsteel due to its badly bent neck and high action. 4. A Rickenbacker that had so much lacquer over the upper frets that I think the sprayer had nodded off during the lacquering process. The rest of this week's guitars weren't a problem but one other issue deserves an mention. Someone brought me a Deluxe Fender Strat, which he had bought a couple of years ago from some 'Tricky Dickey' who had also done a set-up on it. I found the set-up now to be very poor and watched the surprise on my customer's face as I reduced the height of the pickups to show how they affect the intonation, which went from 4% flat to 6% sharp without me even touching the saddle! Anyway, the thing I wanted to mention is that, while I was doing the set-up, I stumbled across what appears to be a problem with the design of the sophisticated locking tremolo, illustrated in the pictures below: There are two screws - a retaining screw which holds the saddle down (I thought it clamped it in place) and an intonation adjustment screw for moving the saddle backwards. From the 1st to 5th strings, both screws interacted fine, but the 6th string needed to go a long way back and the intonation adjustment screw fell out! It actually rode over the retaining screw! I could see that the screw was too short and found some threaded rod to make one long enough to do the job. However, when I tried it, it still rode over the retaining screw. The issue here was that I had tightened the retaining screw as much as I dared but it slipped forwards when the string was under tension - possibly due to being clamped to the shiny chrome plating. You can see from the design that the intonation adjustment screw is also there to help prevent the saddle sliding forwards by catching 'on' the retaining screw - but it's too short! A second modification did the trick - I got an additional washer and fitted it, raising the height of the retaining screw and that solved the problem. Phew! Well done Fender - not! And finally, the 'Good'. Well, after a week of bad stuff, I was presented with an Epiphone Custom for set-up and for fitting two Seymour Duncans (JB & 59) from one of my veteran customers, of 14 years standing. I did the set-up, sorted out some uneven frets and upgraded the PU's, and was totally knocked out by the guitar's sound. Evidently, so was the customer as this is what he wrote not long after collecting it from me: Hi Peter, I've just been playing the Epiphone on my studio setup for about an hour. In fact I had trouble putting it down until She Who Must Be Obeyed reminded me that we have to go out this afternoon! Of all my electric guitars this one has just unbelievable tone. I played along to some Gary Moore and Peter Green backing tracks and it's just awesome. The left hand feel is already like a well played in neck so goodness knows what it'll be like when it is played in!! Thanks so much for helping to bring out the absolute best from me and the guitar. All the very best - P.S: I'm naming it the "Epic" W.M. Coventry

Pic ref. above 4th July 2008

Week ending 27th June 2008 What do people do with guitars that they have tried to set up and can't? Well, sometimes they sell them on eBay! It's rare for a customer to openly admit he has messed with a guitar and made it worse than when he started but that did happen a few weeks ago with the Patrick James Eggle and it all worked out fine in the end. This time I had a Mexican Stratocaster that sported the most common mistake I see, which is the nut slots being cut too low. As a result, the person then put too much relief in the neck to get over the buzzing on the 1st fret and then, to get round that problem, he adjusted the truss-rod to increase the action. To try and get out of the hole he had now dug himself he then tried to lower the saddle heights, so anything played in the middle of the fretboard now buzzed like mad on the last frets. Game over! It gets sold on to a second-hand shop that resells it to my customer, who brings it to me to sort out. I can see the problem straight away and, with a new bone nut installed and a pro set-up, the guitar plays great - my guess is, better than it played when new. The advice to original owners is 'don't mess with it if you don't know what you're doing!' The next day I received an Ernie Ball 4 string Bass where the same thing had happened to the 1st slot but, luckily, not too much damage done. Again, the action was high with a bent neck and low set saddles. The novice had then got fed up and sold it to my customer who is now delighted by my Pro Set-up and amazed to find that I have raised the saddles and reduced the action height to improve the sound. Things are hotting up again in the workshop and it's not the weather! I have taken in a lot of work recently - bordering on too much, really - and am now getting down to dealing with it. How do I do that? Well, looking at it and crying or having a nervous breakdown won't sort it out! My method is to estimate the amount of time each job will take, add 1 hour to each one - just in case - and then schedule the work in accordance with the dates I have given customers for completion. For me, the important thing is to make sure that, if I give a 'promise date', it is achievable and then I go for it. Once I have calculated the hours of work I then know how much I am committed to for the week and, when I have a busy one like this one, any customers wanting something done immediately are likely to be in for a disappointment. The drawbridge is up, the head is down and I just get on with it! I have a sign in my workshop, which I bought in the USA, which says "lack of planning on your part does not constitute a crisis on mine". In short, I won't let down anyone I have already given a promise to by taking on someone else's big rush job and I am also not looking to take any one else to deal with extra work as I couldn't control the quality if I let someone else do it. Having said that, if a small, urgent job or a Health Check comes up, I will always try my best to squeeze in a bit of time for it, especially if it's for one of my regular customers! (This, along with any unforeseen problems with a job, is what the extra hour is added onto each one for!)

Week ending 20th June 2008 This has been a disappointing week for a few disenchanted guitarists who bought guitars complete with a set-up from music shops. First, someone brought a Taylor to me that had too much relief in the neck and the action height set low at 3.5/64th Treble and 6+/64ths Bass. However, if I had adjusted the relief to the correct position, the strings would then have been too low and it was already buzzing! The customer's comments were "I can't afford a proper set-up" and he promptly took the guitar back to the shop and got a refund! This was a real shame, because there was nothing wrong with the guitar, only with Technician's/Shop owner's work and the customer didn't ask for it to be corrected! Next came a Jackson fitted with Floyd Rose bought by mail-order. This customer said, "It's supposed to have been properly set-up for £25". (To which my thought was "What do you get for £25? Not much!") I found the action was very high at 5.5+/64ths Treble and Bass, and it had virtually no relief in the neck. The correct relief would have increased the action height even further. The Customer commented, "I need it setting up but can't afford it just yet!" He explained that "the locknuts were loose on arrival and it was all out of tune". My observations - his only consolation was that the intonation was almost correct! Wearing my 'business' hat, I look at my competitors' prices from time to time and, on the anniversary of my annual price increase, I find that I am still good value for money! It is important to see/know what competitors are doing but not to be intimidated by them, especially when I know I don't work to the tight budget or time constraints that some others have to, especially within retail shop units. With me, each guitar 'takes what it takes', meaning the set-up is completed when I am satisfied and not before, whatever the time taken. About 3 years ago, I had to rework a 'famous' guitar technician's set-up work at my (then) normal cost £75 where the 'famous' tech had charged £120+ for it. Now, bang up to date I found a competitor quoting: "Acoustic & Electric set-up plus strings at £40 ………….." followed by the statement: "additional work such as Stoning & Re-profiling frets from £60 and Fine tune Tremolo surcharges at £20 extra". By my arithmetic that adds up to £100 for an Acoustic & Electric set-up plus strings against my new price of £82 inclusive of strings! In the case of the Floyd Rose set-ups, his price was £120 for a Floyd Rose + strings, which is slightly more expensive than me but my work is superior and guaranteed for 12 months. The whole point of mentioning prices is to show that I don't do the cheap, 'quick fix' set-up that 'Bodgit' down the road often does! It has to be the full, all-inclusive service that includes levelling & reprofiling the frets, then the set-up and new strings in the one price! It's as simple as that. A point to note, I don't refer to 'stoning the frets' because the 'chippie sharpening stones' some technicians use is never flat or level. What I do know is that the 'Tech' whose prices I am quoting above, for comparison, uses a piece of wood with sandpaper stuck to it and I bet that's not flat either! OK, trade secret revealed, I use a precision ground steel block www.stewmac.com that is loaded with abrasive for one guitar only and then re-loaded for the next. See Pics below Repeatedly, I have to re-do "inclusive set-ups" from shops, whether it's free or not. In both the outlined customer cases above, they couldn't/wouldn't afford to have my set-up, so it wasn't done. I set an industry standard years ago by being independent and setting up retail sold guitars. It mattered to me if a guitar was rubbish, so I would not do the work on it or allow the customer to have it. This provided a quality of service and product to the customers. Now, picture the guy who opens a shop and needs to make money - selling guitars whatever. He is going to make damned sure he gives it all the sales hype, including "The Set-up" just so he can sell a guitar. That brings us full circle back to the disappointed customer who thought he was getting the best deal in town. PS: The Taylor taken back for a refund was a lovely guitar and it's the first time I have witnessed a customer metaphorically 'cut off his nose to spite his face'. The Jackson guy says he will be back - soon!

Pic ref. above 20th June 2008

Interim On Friday the 13th June ! The week finally came to an end with a little pain and some gain. An old car accident injury niggled away at my neck and I decided that the London Guitar Show was the place to relax a bit. There, I met up with old acquaintances Rob Williams and Patrick (James) Eggle who were both exhibiting their latest guitars. I took some shots of their stands and you can see some of Rob's guitars here London Guitar Show. I couldn't get to photograph the one Les Paul type guitar as a customer just wouldn't let it go! If you're looking for a Gibson guitar you should consider Rob's variation - personally I prefer it. NB. Also in the same section London Guitar Show are some photos of Patrick's latest acoustic guitars - Wow!

Week ending 13th June 2008 I have had a very mixed week - maybe because we had 'Friday the 13th'!. It started with a Martin OM28M Laurence Juber model that was brought to me for set-up. The interesting thing about this customer's guitar was the way he came to buy it. This customer has a track-record of buying nice looking guitars, which are expensive, yet not outstanding in sound. It's not in my nature to tell a customer he/she has a rubbish-sounding guitar because the purchase is always his/her choice. Not that this customer's guitars were bad - I'd say above average but not exceptional. So, I have beaten the drum before about choosing an instrument with your ears and not your wallet, and when this customer sent me an email telling me about a guitar for sale on the Dutch Border - you guessed it - I said you need hear it first before you buy it. To my amazement, he made a round 24-hour trip, listened to it, bought it and brought it to me for a set-up. What dedication! I can honestly say that this is the first Martin I have heard in about 10 years that sounds phenomenal. The clarity and vibrancy from treble to bass needs to be heard to be appreciated. This doesn't mean everyone should now go and buy a Martin because this one is brilliant - sound is a lottery and each is different. Looking at the set up showed no relief in the neck, action ok on the treble side and high on bass strings. The problem is that adjusting for the correct amount of relief also increases the action height. When I looked at the frets it became clear that the frets had been flattened/levelled around the 12th fret area where previous Luthiers had tried to level the very slight hump where the neck joins the body. This can cause problems because it is nice to have a small amount of fall-away in the tongue section (over the body area) to compensate for future movement caused by leverage on the neck. By the time I had rectified the frets in this area and put the correct amount of relief in the neck the guitar was back to how Martin had made it. I then reduced the saddle height by 4/64ths to give a nice low action. The picture below shows the base of the saddle, which almost seemed to have two flats to its base - I guess it was caused by not sanding it flat along its entire length. Anyway, when I told the customer of my findings, he said 'well even with an uneven saddle base it still sounded great' - and I had to agree. Starting next week, I am now offering Standard Premier Guitar Set-ups on new guitars for Bandwagon Music Store in Leamington Spa. Past customers of mine will be familiar with my 'Retail Set-up' and this will be exclusive to Bandwagon customers. Should you buy a guitar from them, ask about the Standard Premier Guitar Set-up Scheme that also entitles customers to a discounted Professional Set-up 18 months after purchase and entry into the Christmas Draw for a One Year supply of guitar strings to be given away. It can't be bad!

Pic ref. above 13th June 2008

Week ending 6th June 2008 This week, I had a phone call from a customer saying that his electric guitar, which I had set-up the day before, was very buzzy and didn't sustain. His description of how he had just put the baby to bed and this gave him his only good chance to try it out, led me to inquire more. It turned out that he was not playing the guitar amplified but trying to listen to what he was playing acoustically so as to try not to wake the baby! It has to be said, if you find yourself in a similar predicament, it would be best to buy an acoustic guitar. Having the electric guitar un-plugged means having to play it harder so you can actually hear it and having a low action compounds the problem, making any buzzes and rattles worse - Pointing out that they cannot be heard when normally amplified. Unfortunately, there is no easy way of putting this: If you have an electric guitar set up with a low action, it needs to be played through an amplifier. All electric guitars will sound buzzy and lacking in sustain if they are played acoustically - i.e. not plugged in. (I am excluding electric guitars with high actions from this statement.) It is for this very reason that acoustic guitar set-ups have a higher action than electric ones. Of course, there is no point in setting up an electric guitar with a high action just so that it can be played unplugged! This leads me on to another area where buzzes and rattles can be heard. Some customers spend time at their computer recording electric guitars and listening in real time with their headphones on. Years ago, during Christmas periods, I used to do Standard Premier set-ups on brand new retail guitars (set-ups with no fret dressing, as distinct from my Professional Set-up) Because of the volumes involved I used to work late into the night and, so as not to disturb anyone, I would use headphones to check the guitars. I know from this that using headphones makes for an 'up close and personal' sound to the point that you can hear the slightest buzzes and rattles. When re-checking through an amp the next day, I was amazed to find that none of the buzzes could be heard even when only 6 feet/2 metres from the speakers. In short, the best thing to do is play lightly on the electric guitar and use the controls on the amp to create the volume - this is how they are designed to work and how you will get the best sound & results! Finally, although the customer was surprised that he couldn't find any buzzes and rattles when he plugged his guitar into my amp, I wasn't! I then put him out of his misery and explained why.

Week ending 30th May 2008 To my surprise when I came to do my next blog, I found that I had not up-loaded this one to the server! Some of you may have thought I was on holiday but no - just a moment of absent-mindedness, I think! Anyway, here it is, better late than never! I had a brand-new Jaguar guitar brought to me, made by Fender in the USA. The shop that sold it had done a set-up on it but the customer was complaining about buzzing strings and vibrations from somewhere. The customer also said 'the top two strings were very buzzy'. Looking at the set-up, there was too much curve in the neck, which doesn't help, and the retailer/technician had lowered the 5th & 6th strings to make it look good - apparently his idea of a low action! One of the problems I get from guitarists is when they describe a problem with 'the top two strings'. To me, the 'top two strings' would normally relate to the top in pitch - i.e. the treble strings but often the customer means the top strings physically rather than musically and then the 'top two' strings are the ones closest to his eyes/line of sight - i.e. the bass strings! That is why I always needs clarification of exactly what is meant when using this description. I did a professional set-up, which took care of the buzzy frets and found the rattles were coming from one of the metal plates which had not been screwed down properly - naughty - and the main cause was from the curved damper plate holes being too small, making it buzz on the bridge posts. I reset the damper plate and opened up some clearance on the bridge post holes and that did the trick. From the picture below you can see that the saddles have been raised so that the string is no longer sitting on the back of the bridge. This can create another issue, depending on how much neck rake angle there is. Raising the saddle causes the intonations screw to move upwards toward the string. This needs to be kept an eye on and, in rare cases, I have shortened the bass screws to stop them touching the string in front of the saddle.

Pic ref. above 30th May 2008

Week ending 23rd May 2008 I saw the return of a customer from 'up north', who I remembered for wearing out the frets on a Les Paul Signature inside 8 months! This guitar had Japanese soft frets and they were almost cut in two with his heavy playing style. It's the first time I have had to re-fret a brand new guitar! This time he brought me a Pacifica - again with massive amounts of wear - but this time it was all over the neck and not in just one area. The Yamaha frets were much higher than normal and now I have dressed out the wear it's been given a new lease of life, just like in the slide show - half-way down the page - see here: Pro Set-up Slide Show. Here is a tip to save fret wear on you guitar: You only need to press the string down to sound the note - there is no need press so hard as to touch the fingerboard with the string! This not only wears the fret but cuts into the fingerboard wood. In passing, this week I set-up a custom shop Telecaster Relic that had a brilliant neck on it - I have probably seen about 5 necks like this in the past 10 years and that covers thousands of guitars. This was one guitar I was sorry to have to hand back! I also set up a T5 Taylor with slightly lower than my normal low action, which does go against the grain a bit. I know people with acoustics like low actions but there are limits and I do feel that once you get into the realm of trying for a Vintage Stratocaster action on an acoustic you might as well get an electric guitar instead. As this one was for a Jazz player the chances are he will be OK but for the normal player it would be back the next day as 'too low'. Following on from this guitar, I then had another jazz player with an acoustic from my former colleague Patrick (James) Eggle, which had a high action on the treble side. This Saluda was a lovely guitar but it required more work than normal because the customer had made a typical mistake which I have seen countless times before - namely that the belief is that to get a low action the nut slots need to be reduced. Mistake! Most reasonable quality guitars have the nut slots cut correctly, so lowering them only leads to it buzzing on the 1st fret if and when the action IS eventually lowered. This customer then started digging a hole for himself by filing the first two frets down to stop it buzzing! In short - my 'fretmap' on the worksheet showed that this area was low and he also incurred an extra cost for me to fit a new nut. He said he preferred a bone nut, which is just as well, as it needed replacing anyway! He, too was pleased that the guitar ended up set-up to his expectation, saying that it sounded and played better than some £5,000 guitars. Well, in honesty, most of the work was Patrick's in making a good guitar - my work just added the icing on the cake. This reminds me of the 'good ole days' back at the factory, when Patrick made 'em and I set 'em up! Finally, the pictures below show a common production mistake which was rectified. This situation was outlined in my 22nd February 2008 blog . The braided type transducer fitted to a Martin Acoustic is too thick for the routed slot, causing the saddle to tilt forwards. Increasing the slot depth by machining, corrects the mistake.

Pic ref. above 23rd May 2008

Week ending 16th May 2007 There is so much going on other moment, with launching the four other web sites I have had for sometime. Two of the domain names relate to my own new guitars and have been held back waiting for completion of the patenting process. I have just had letters from the Patents Office saying that things are progressing well, so it shouldn't be long before I am able to show the new guitars off. This website is working well and the amount of enquiries leading to work means that it's been difficult to even write the 'weekly blog'. Still, as my fellow luthier in Florida says 'if you're not busy you can't be any good' - so that's reassuring!