From the Home of Tone bench
A partscaster build for Nik
Nik first reached out to me to inquire about some pickups and wiring for a partscaster project he was starting. Cut a long story short, he kindly opted for a loaded pickguard from myself, including the awesome McNelly 'S-Bar' hybrid strat pickup design, wired to a 7-way Strat harness and all mounted to a nice pearloid pickguard w/parchment plastics to soften the colours a little. Whilst we waited for the pickups to be made and arrive, we discussed his project further and he kindly asked me to assemble the whole guitar when everything was ready.
Descendant Vibrato install on a nice Vintera Jazzmaster
I had the pleasure of installing a Descendant vibrato unit on a really nice Jazzmaster earlier this week. It had the factory Mexico spec Fender vibrato, and Karl opted to give the Descendant upgrade a go. I have covered installation of these on my YouTube channel and main blog before, so I won't show those steps in specific detail again but will chat through a little about the approach. I've gotten pretty used to installing these and can usually eyeball the guitar as is, to see whether it'll be best with 1 or 2 depth shims installed. If the bridge sits pretty high in the thimbles therefore hinting that the neck break angle is fairly steep, then I find you can use two shims. If the neck break angle is shallow meaning the bridge sits pretty low in the body/thimbles, then two shims may be too steep of an angle so only one shim will be best/optimal.
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.
A tidy up for this very cool Epiphone Les Paul Custom Pro
Wrapped up the setup on this cool Epiphone Les Paul Custom Pro today (Photos were taken after the initial rough in of the setup the prior day). It has had some Duncans fitted previously, and with their open cover style and no pickguard look on the guitar, gives it a cool vibe for sure. Wiring needed a look over as there were some tone pot issues, seems that was just wires touching places they shouldn't so tidied that up and it sprung to life. New control knobs will be on via the owner I'm sure. Frets needed some TLC with multiple high spots, but overall this one came out great and looks ace too. Custom requested a low action set-up on Rotosound 10s, and thanks to the fretwork and good neck angle/alignment that was all achievable. Nice guitar!
Bronco mod project!
I've got a long history with the Squier Bronco bass, having bought one early on in the days of Home of Tone to develop my own upgrade wiring kit, and give some testing to the awesome McNelly Broncomaster pickup. Since then they have become one of my most popular bass wiring kits, mainly of course due to the Bronco being such a great modding platform bass. The owner of this very early production run Bronco got in touch initially just for one of those McNelly/Home of Tone wiring and pickup upgrades, but after some discussion decided to bring it in to have it installed along with some other choice mods.
Hand cut top nut and setup for a very nice '60 Custom Shop Strat
I have worked on Harrison's awesome Custom Shop '60 Strat before, but in more recent months he has been running BIG strings on it for baritone tuning on standard scale, akin to the likes of Ariel Posen and Joey Landreth for example. But it's time for the Strat to return to standard pitch at E and with it a return to a slightly more common string gauge of 10-48s (we're going for Stringjoy Signatures specifically). So a new top nut was needed along with a tweak to the setup again.
Left handed Custom Shop '59 Relic Strat for a re-wire
Tonight I carried out a pickup swap on a nice 2021 Custom Shop '59 Relic burst strat. The owner also asked if I could double check it's wiring specs as he has a project in the works and wanted to replicate it. Seems from the factory it had true to era 0.1uF tone cap installed, but with a more modern tone pot configuration. The neck pickup having the tone closest to volume all to itself, whilst the 2nd tone pot controlled both middle and bridge pickups. There was also a 2200pF / 100kOhm parallel wired treble bleed mod on the volume. So we'll be recreating those specs for the new guitar when the time comes via one of my harnesses.
Gibson Les Paul Standard - Full Set-up
This week saw a nice, pretty new Gibson Les Paul Standard through the workshop. This one came in for a full setup, and I supplied some Stringjoy 10-48 gauge strings for it from the shop. Final finish and general feel of this one was great, lovely Les Paul overall so was looking forward to getting stuck in.
On initial inspection, everything was quite good indeed overall. I did notice on closer inspection a couple of high frets, and that the fret leveling radius was a little out from it's optimal 12" radius. So I corrected those first of all, and a re-crown polish saw me move onto the setup adjustments. Nice relief at .008", and a low action at around 1.6mm at the 15th for the basses and around 1.2mm for the trebles at the 15th. Intonation quickly settling via the Stringjoys which are proving to be a very consistent product for accurate setups here. String slots at the nut slightly adjusted and depths set from .008" through to .004" from basses to the trebles. Lovely guitar and a pleasure to work on it!
On initial inspection, everything was quite good indeed overall. I did notice on closer inspection a couple of high frets, and that the fret leveling radius was a little out from it's optimal 12" radius. So I corrected those first of all, and a re-crown polish saw me move onto the setup adjustments. Nice relief at .008", and a low action at around 1.6mm at the 15th for the basses and around 1.2mm for the trebles at the 15th. Intonation quickly settling via the Stringjoys which are proving to be a very consistent product for accurate setups here. String slots at the nut slightly adjusted and depths set from .008" through to .004" from basses to the trebles. Lovely guitar and a pleasure to work on it!
