The Best Humidification For Your Guitar
"An ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure." In this post, we'll break down the best way to protect your guitar in the cool months ahead. Chicago winters kill guitars. The weather gets dry and cold, so we turn on our furnaces - drying out the air in our homes even...
Feelin’ Glad All Over
Lenny Davidson of the Dave Clark Five pays us a visit. A favorite customer and friend of ours came in with his father to get a little work done on dad's travel guitar. Some of the tuning gears had been stripped to Bits and Pieces so we installed a new set and strung...
Vintage Gretsch Country Gentleman – Binding Repair and Restoration
When it rains it pours, and my partner Dan has been up to his elbows in binding repairs this year. Here, he replaces the dried and crumbling binding from a vintage Gretsch Country Gentleman. A common problem on vintage Gretsch guitars is the decay and crumbling of...
Vintage Gibson ES-355 Refinished, Bound and Refretted
Hold on there! Refinish a vintage Gibson? In candy apple red?? There better be a darn good reason to do something like that... and there was. As mentioned in previous posts, the guitar repairman's rule of thumb with vintage instruments is to leave it in as close to...
Lyon and Healy Mandolin – A Complex Headstock Repair
In this post, you'll see how we tackle a very difficult neck re-repair on a Chicago-made Lyon and Healy Style-A Mandolin. A new customer brought us a remarkable and beautiful Lyon & Healy mandolin that was made here in Chicago nearly a century ago. This is a...
Vintage Mossman Acoustic Neck Reset And Refret
Not your average 1970's acoustic, this Mossman South Wind is a great example of one of the better small manufacturers of that era. We reset the neck angle and refretted it for more comfortable action and sound. Mossman Guitars is a smaller American guitar company with...
Replacing A Fretboard: It’s Not As Painful As Removing A Tattoo!
Thinking of tattooing the name of that special someone on your arm? You might try inlaying a fretboard instead. At least it won't hurt when it's time to move on. The owner of this bass had the Guild custom shop inlay his wife's name on the fretboard several years...
Vintage Martin 518 Repair and Restoration
A true pre-war Martin rides again with a neck reset, crack repair, and bridge reglue! The owner of this 1930 Martin 518 saw work we performed on another Martin and entrusted us to repair a lengthy side crack, separated bridge, and to reset the neck angle. This is work...
52 Hot Rod Telecaster Relic
Can't afford a real 1952 Telecaster? We made this new guitar feel like it was 55 years old. De Leon's nightmare. For a variety of reasons, some folks just prefer old guitars. Maybe it's the neck, worn smooth by years of handling. Maybe it's the checked and cracked...
Vintage 1965 Gibson ES345 Wiring Repair
Rewiring a jack on a vintage Gibson hollow body isn't always as easy as it sounds. A good customer of ours recently purchased this Gibson ES345, a beautiful and rare guitar, but one that just wasn't sounding right. When it came to us, there was so much scratching...