From the Home of Tone bench
Chris' Les Paul project
This has been a lovely project to be a part of for it's owner Chris. He fairly recently took ownership of this '90s Gibson Les Paul Standard burst, but it was rather sorry for itself. A too low cut top nut, insanely low action and 8 gauge strings left the playing experience, to put it bluntly, awful. Chris had decided it was worth saving though, and I agree, as even through those issues you could tell it was a resonant example. He had purchased a Faber tune-o-matic and a pair of 'Wizz' un-potted PAF humbuckers for it. So I was set with the task of fitting the pickups, installing one of my Signature Series 50s style wiring kits (pots section only), re-wiring the original switch and jack with some Gavitt 22awg traditional braided 2 conductor wire, removing the plastic top nut and replacing with an in house made unbleached bone nut and then setting it up on Stringjoy Broadway pure nickel 10 gauge strings. All went really well and I'm blown away by the results, it plays beautifully and is one of the most resonant LPs I've played in a long time. Here's some pics of the progress and the final beauty shots.
2012 Gibson Double Cut for new wiring and nut
I have neglected my workshop blog a little the past few weeks, apologies there. So let's make up for it with a cool job in this week. Steve dropped off his very cool 2012 Gibson Billy Joe signature Les Paul Double Cut for a new wiring harness and new bone nut. This one has been gigged a lot, and Steve took it on from it's original owner opting to give it some Johnny Thunders vibes!
A little TLC for a Miguel Malo Classical
Had a fun day working on a really nice nylon string guitar, courtesy of my Dad! His 20 year old Miguel Malo classical guitar needed a little TLC and refinement after many hours of use. Although in the grand scheme of things, it is in great condition, Dad's pretty meticulous to say the least. But understandably after years of regular use, some things could do with a little care and attention.
Left handed CIJ Fender Stratocaster - Setup and wiring tweak
Roger kindly brought in his CIJ Fender Strat for a bit of TLC. It had suffered a fall, but thankfully only suffered very minor damage as a result. It had fell head on with an edge on the fretboard, and only damage was the edge pressing the strings into the fretwire. It had marked a couple of frets with the strings, but it wasn't deep by any means so nothing a minor fret level, crown and polish wouldn't resolve. As this is part of the setup process here anyway, to get the very best from the setup and guitar's play-ability, this was no trouble at all to resolve. With a few passes with the leveling file and radius block, those dents were a distant memory and I cracked on with the crown, polish then setup work as normal.
