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I had been noticing for a couple of years now that each year, during July and August, all glue-up jobs would take two or three tries to get done. I always attributed it to my fault somewhere in the process. However, after two guitars this year led me quite a dance in the said two months, it suddenly struck me that it was not I but the weather that was to blame. And it had been the weather all along. With the epiphany came the decision: NO MORE GLUE-UP JOBS IN JULY, AUGUST & SEPTEMBER!!!!!! I guess that's fair warning ...

This guitar came in while I was still getting back from a bruising bout with viral fever, and trying to dig myself out from under mountains of work that had piled up all around the house! This had to be a quick job as it had to be returned to the owner fast. He had a gig upcoming and the action on the guitar was  very high, he said. Even without taking off the strings, I could make out that the fretboard had never seen a cloth. When I took the strings off - which, incidentally, weren't too old - ...

I am all for you doing maintenance work on your guitars. Those of you who have met me must recall the list of dos and don'ts that I have postered and which I insist that you take a photograph of and follow. The aim of the #lucknowguitargarage - the workshop as well as the blog - is to acquaint you with every part of your guitar and help you 'Mend, Maintain & Modify' your guitars by your own hand. However, there are a few things that I insist that you don't undertake. These include reglueing headstock/neck breaks and lifting bridges.  ...

After the travel-sized adventure with the LAG, came another travel-sized guitar: JnR. Though newish, it was in for general maintenance, some strings, but primarily for action correction. The problem with cheaper guitars is their construction quality becomes evident very soon in their lives. Right off the bat, I noticed that the (plastic) saddle was not the right length for the slot cut for it. Why is this so wrong? Because the longer the saddle, better is the transfer of energy from saddle to bridge to top, improving sound quality and sustain. Earlier Martin guitars used to sport what we refer ...

A few years ago, I had repaired a guitar which I had never even heard of. The owner had told me LAG was a French company which had begun production in India and the instrument in my hand was among the first few guitars of the company in India. Hugely interested by that fact, I repaired the guitar... With a shattered top, is it ‘Bye-bye, Beauty’? and as I went through the instrument with a fine-tooth comb, I also decided to review it Wait, save, buy – the LAGT88D (a review) Convinced by my ravings about LAG guitars, a return ...

A headstock repair going wrong, not working, is still understandable, but a bridge reglue not happening, ever heard that one? How wrong can one go with cleaning the underside of the bridge, its footprint on the guitar top, smearing glue and clamping the two together? HORRIBLY WRONG, says my experience! And, blame it all on the weather (the humidity in the air). So, this young man came to me with a lifting bridge on a Hertz guitar I took one look at it and said, 'Yeah, I'll do it', but also pointed out the plastic/artificial nut-saddle duo his instrument was ...

However beneficial the rains might be, it is not good for glue-up jobs! The heat and the humidity combo of the season (at least in this part of the world) refuses to let the glue dry no matter how long you leave the clamps on. As examples, I will present two instruments that refused glue-up that were bread-and-butter type glue-up jobs. This one is Epiphone but a different model from the one I worked on last time. It seems just fine till you look at its headstock And to make matters worse, the owner had tried to glue up the ...

The action on your guitar is primarily dictated by neck angle, and then there are a host of other factors. Neck angle is another element where (comparatively) expensive guitars score over cheaper guitars (putting another tick in the 'expensive guitars' column')! This well-maintained Epiphone Dove Pro came to me for general maintenance, a check-up and some fresh strings. Immediately, I could see that though the saddle was of bone, the nut was a plastic one (the first pic). And even though it had a bone saddle, the owner brought a new bone saddle which he had earlier purchased elsewhere. He ...

As you might have guessed, this was a classical guitar that came to me with a unique problem. But first, Alhambra. This is a 58-year old Spanish guitar-making company that has made a name for itself in these few years (Few? CF Martin and Co was established in 1883!!). The firm makes classical, flamenco and steel string guitars but is known more for its classical and flamenco models. The guitar came in with a peculiar problem: one that I saw for the first time. Its gear on one of the tuning machines had lost a couple of teeth due to ...

Back in the day - say mid-80s - these imitation jazz guitars flooded the Indian market but mostly of smaller towns. Of course, the metropolises had their swanky shops selling 'branded stuff', still do. Now, these guitars are usually patronised by first-timers eager to get their hands on a 'guitar'! Their sale price is right and they don't look too bad, but the best thing about them is the zero fretwire. But that is where the goodness ends. From here on, it's all bad: material, construction, tunability, etc, etc, etc. But with the zero fretwire in place, one is assured ...

So, remember how I say that similar guitars or guitars with similar problems come together? Nothing could be more similar than the gentleman who brought in the guitar featured in the last post and the one that is featured in this one. In fact, they almost arrived together - 10 mins apart! And I'll be lying if I say I have seen two guitars exhibiting the same problem, so spectacularly, coming in so close together. This was an Ibanez. and what appeared to me as a solid wood instrument. However, the irritant to the initial inspection was the three plastic ...

This was an Epiphone DR100 which came in recently, and (as you can make out) it was in need of some real TLC. The owner, in his bid to get the action lower, admitted that he had shaved the saddle down a tad too low. Thus, an irritating buzz had crept in which refused to go away try as he might. At the very onset, I will warn you that this is the first among a string of like problems that came to me starting from early June. All of them showed symptoms of suffering from the extreme heat of ...

I live in the mango belt, here, in North-Central India. Early in March, mango growers voiced fears of a severely hit mango crop for the flowering season was passing without many blooms appearing on mango trees. Later in May end, newspapers again quoted elated mango growers who said that the mango crop this year was far better than they had expected. The reason for the good crop, they said, was the abnormal, extreme heat that was experienced in the month. And now onto acoustic guitars. The 'abnormal, extreme heat' of May didn't just ripen mangoes quickly, it got to guitars ...

This came in recently for an initial set-up. I asked the owner how he got the idea of getting a new guitar set-up and he told me that he had been reading my blogs regularly! Yes, I have talked about the need to have a new guitar set-up umpteen times. And for the sake of the new reader, I will repeat myself. Guitars are 'manufactured' in factories to general specifications. For them to play the way YOU want them to play, suited to YOUR style of playing, a specialised set-up is required. Think of the set-up as a fine-tuning of ...

This is a return customer. Then, I had swapped the plastic nut and saddle for a bone one, I think. The guitar came back to me recently with the complaint of a buzz on the 1st/2nd frets of the high 'e' and low 'E' strings. But what caught my eye was the condition the guitar was in. It seemed it hadn't been loved in a long time. What also caught my eye were the string slots. It seemed somebody had tried to lower the 1st fret action by deepening the slots. I am all for experimentation but with a couple ...

Can you guess what this is and what its possible use could be? This has been the reason for my preoccupation over the last few months. The way guitars are constructed in our dear India, you must shell out upwards of 15K to acquire a decent guitar. Anything else in the lesser price bracket is a disaster waiting to happen. Notice, I have not named brands and models, instead I quote a price range. Like I have said often, after you cross that 15K price barrier, you get an instrument which has elements which justify the price. Elements? Almost everything ...

Yeah, I know I have been missing our dates for long now. However, the thing is that while I have been decidedly occupied, the work that has been coming in has been mundane, or,  something that I have already written about. It would indeed be boring to be repetitive! So, now that I am relatively free, I decided to send your way little pointers and hacks that would make your life easier, should you find yourself in a bind. These are things that spring to mind as I write. That is why the 'I' in the headline: there will be ...

Remember the sound of your guitar when you first brought it home. Over time, changing geometries on that guitar due to string tension, fluctuating weather conditions, and some bad habits cause that sound to disappear. Now that it has lost its mojo, you would be forgiven to believe that your guitar is past its prime and it is time to find a replacement. WAIT! Is there something you can do, or not do, to get your old guitar's mojo back? There most certainly is! The following list has been compiled in order of priority. Get a good set-up You need ...

Those grooves/notches/divots/pits that you see in the fretwire of your guitar is a natural consequence of you playing it. There are reasons why they may appear sooner on your guitar and not as soon on your friend's guitar, and there are ways in which you can delay them forming. The following post is an effort to explain what these indentations do, how they are caused and some remedies so that you are able to delay them forming. WHY THEY APPEAR #Type of fretwire used The material of the fretwire, naturally, plays a huge role in determining how soon divots appear ...

As I had predicted earlier, the humidity is possibly at the lowest at which you will see it the whole year through - at least here, in North India. Guitar repair – NOW is the time for those glue-up jobs! This is the best time to work with wood and build whatever you've been planning, for the weather is very dry and the glue will cure super fast, giving you a super strong bond. Instrument repair is no different. Also, this is also the time to give a little drink of water to your 'parched' instrument. You may not feel ...

If BB King can call his favourite guitar 'Lucielle' and Willie Nelson can call his 'Trigger', why should not a young man in Lucknow, India, call his acoustic guitar 'Sundari' (Beauty)? Whatever that might convey to you, to me it shows a stronger attachment to the instrument. And why shouldn't the attachment be stronger? This was a Squier Fender sporting a handsome sunburst. But more importantly, Sundari had a lot of character: booming lows, clear ringing highs and overall some excellent sustain. Now, I must tell you that the Squier Fender is not a very high-value instrument, yet, as a ...

It's been two months since our last rendezvous, what with the annual monthly closing of the Lucknow Guitar Garage getting extended by a month and me getting tied up with the household. However, guitar repair did not stop for so long, and I began working from the day after New Year. In the interim, the world is a poorer place having lost Jeff Beck and Lisa Marie Presley. RIP wherever you are! And getting down to brass tacks, you have heard me deride cheap, local - made in Indian factories - guitars often enough! But there are exceptions to every ...

Recently, I got to work on a GCE guitar. Now, the brand was new to me and so I studied it. It seemed another one of those inexpensive China-made guitars in the price range of Rs 8 - 10K but its construction was not too bad - except for the bridgeplate. More on that later. Whatever else, it wasn't the cleanest guitar ever! and the way strings had been wound around the tuning post, I doubt if it played very correctly. NOTE: Ladies, gentlemen, we need just 2.5 to 3 turns on the wound strings and 5 to 6 turns ...

Thank god for patrons who feel I can also do justice to electric guitars! One young man came in with his electric swearing that he would not let anyone else touch his guitar!! Thankfully for me, there wasn't anything majorly wrong with the guitar. There was a buzz up the neck, past the 12th fret and the fretwires were tarnished and needed some love and attention. As I began work, the young man taught me how to take the strings off the guitar (so, I'm getting there)!  With strings off, I found there were more than a couple of fretwires ...

Just a quick heads up, people. The humidity is down to 58%, here, in Lucknow, North India, and should drop further in the coming week. Till mid-December rolls around, it will remain cold and dry and thereafter, cold and wet! Now is the perfect time to get all those glue jobs done - whether it is the bridge lifting, or the binding peeling, or the fretboard coming loose, or the heel separating from the body... Just about any glue-up job that you can think of getting done on your acoustic guitar, now is the time to get it done. Why? ...