From the Home of Tone bench
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!
