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Here is a return customer. Remember Black Beauty II? If you don’t, here it is:

https://lkoguitargarage.com/a-date-with-snow-whites-cousin-black-beauty-ii/

However, this time, the complaint was that when you played open chords, the instrument sounded a natural seventh!! I tried playing it and if I had played a major 7^th, it wouldn’t have sounded any better! Unfortunately, I had played a G Maj chord.

My experience told me that it could only be a badly cut nut. But, how was it possible? Last time around, I had swapped the plastic nut and saddle for a swanky, new bone nut and saddle.

So, I looked at the nut and sure enough, someone had tried to file down the nut slots with a knife or a like tool. Firstly, do not touch the nut ever! You can sand the saddle down but the nut is a different story. Please don’t try this at home. Let an experienced hand handle it. Of course, if you have done such a job before, go right ahead.

Ideally, in a properly cut nut, individual strings should sit half in the slot and half out of it.

What was happening with Black Beauty II, strings in the badly cut slots were catching in them and sounding off.

There could have been two ways to rectify the problem. The easier way – replace the nut – would have cost the customer, the tougher way was to fill the slots with bone dust and super glue and then cut the nut slots again.

That is what I did. Also, I cleaned up the fretboard, oiled it and shone the frets. With new strings and stretched to hold tension and tune, the guitar played as good as new.

 

This is something that I wrote, printed and pasted on some cardboard for my younger customers. It sits on my work counter and is as much for students as it is for the general player. A little care, a few precautions can improve string life – a recurring expense – and the overall life of your instrument dramatically.

Interestingly, these points are valid irrespective of the kind of guitar – acoustic or electric – that you possess.  

The photograph is only for representation, and you can read the 10 points here:

Check your score

• My guitar is always in its bag/case and after I finish playing, it returns there.
• If I know that I won’t be playing for more than 2 weeks, I de-tune my guitar and keep it in its case.
• I have a soft, 100% cotton, old t-shirt which I keep in my case to wipe body oils off my guitar – before and after playing it.
• I have another, thicker piece of cloth with which I wipe each guitar string – before and after playing – pinching it between my thumb and forefingers.
• I always wash my hands properly before touching my guitar.
• I change strings at least every three months.
• When I change strings, I give my guitar (especially the fretboard and headstock) a good cleaning.
• When I change strings, I also check the hardware on the headstock – if it has got loose.
• I know the specifications of my guitar: fretboard radius, action at the 1^st fret, action at the 12^th fret, nut and saddle height, width and radius.
• I always keep a spare set of strings and a string winder in my case.

 

The penultimate point, I feel, merits an explanation. 

Once you know the specifications of your guitar, you are better off in two ways:

1. Checking the specs once your guitar comes back from the repair guy, and
   
2. Being able to tell a new guitar repairman the specs that you would like to see on your instrument. By being able to quote the specifications on your guitar, suddenly, you will be seen as someone who ‘knows’. Rest assured, the chances of you being taken for a ride become near negligible.

 

I will be thrilled to know how much you scored, or, if you would like to add some points towards maintaining an acoustic instrument. 

 

As promised, here is the metamorphosis of the Ibanez PF15-BK, though a tad delayed. In my opinion, for its price, it is a good guitar with some excellent features.

One thing that I will say though for the instrument is that it is a dust and fingerprint magnet!

(For those who would like to read my review of the instrument, they can do so here:

Ibanez PF15-BK (from Bajaao) – an honest review

For all its ‘goodness’, it is also true that there is always room for improvement and to better things. With that thought I set about working on it and here are glimpses of the done piece.

The biggest pain always is getting the equaliser installed, which in this case was not just one thing but a combination of four things: an under-saddle pick-up, the battery unit, the end-pin jack and the EQ itself.

For the end-pin jack, a proper-size hole had to be drilled first. And if any of you have tried this, getting the end-pin jack to come out through this hole, from inside the guitar…it’s like threading a needle with your hands tied behind your back!

Once it comes out, one has to dial in the right number of winds on the screw so that just enough of the jack peeks out for its cap to fit on. Let me explain this through a diagram.

The under-the-saddle pick-up required two main things: holes to be drilled in the ends of the saddle slot in the bridge (for the piezo pick-up to come up through, and the other one to receive the end of the piezo pick-up – so that vibrations are picked up evenly, from all 6/12 strings), and shaving the saddle down to accommodate the piezo pick-up, ensuring that the action remains optimum.

The battery unit and the EQ unit were simple enough, with stick-on attachments. I fixed the battery box to the heel block through the soundhole and the EQ unit to the very rim of the soundhole – for easy access. I must apologise, I didn’t take photos of those.

Then it was the turn of the hardware to be switched. Thankfully, the tuning machines sat perfectly and the holes did not need reaming. Also, the screw holes lined up perfectly.

In the photo above, you can also catch a glimpse of the new bone nut that replaced the cheap, plastic factory-provided nut.

The wrongly placed strap button on the heel was removed, the hole was filled up and a new hole was drilled on the side of the heel to install a Schaller-style strap button.

The shoulders of the guitar got ivory-coloured vine decals. Above, you can see what the left shoulder looks like. Here is how the right one looks.

The bone saddle required some real elbow grease to get it to the right height, but after a few misses, I did get it right so that the action is right. I also replaced the plastic bridgepins with chrome-coloured brass pins, to go along with the rest of the chrome hardware. Do also notice the lily decals for the bridge wings.

Underneath the bridge, I also put a matching aged-ivory decal. Not a great photograph, though! 

PRETTY NEAT, EH?

 

For a closer look at all the parts I changed, go here:

Coming on the workbench…

 

For questions and clarifications, do get in touch with me through the comment section below.

 

 

 

 

Here it be…in all its majestic glory…Ibanez PF15-BK!!
Right off the shelf and straight on my bench.

It’s here for the initial setup and while it’s here, we will replace a few things on it, as desired by the owner.

1. Instead of the stock tuning machines, we will give it these swanky things with a gear ratio of 1:18 for enhanced tuning ability and tone stability:

2) Instead of the cheap plastic saddle and nut

bone elements will replace them. 

3) In place of the plastic bridgepins, it will get these:

4) It is also going to lose its mushroomhead strapbuttons, and the endpin one will be replaced by this:

while the pin on the heel of the guitar will be replaced by a Schaller-style strapbutton

5) If you missed the point in all that shiny, chrome hardware…yeah it’s getting an EQ too!

6) It is also going to get some major body embellishments that will take it from Plain Jane to Sexy Alexi. But that I rather not talk about now.

Wait for The Metamorphosis!!!

 

Last week, while dwelling upon humidity issues at length, I knew I had missed something. It came to me yesterday evening: fretwire sprout!

No! The fretwire does not sprout, as would seeds soaked overnight, but the shrinkage caused due to the loss of moisture in fretboard wood, forces the fretwires to poke out, making it seem as if the fretwire had sprouted. I can assure you fretwire sprout can be a very painful discovery, if not serious one, causing a cut and bleeding, and some serious enough to require medical attention!

If it is some solace, it can happen in any guitar – acoustic and electric!

The other day, I pulled out a guitar of mine from storage and while playing it discovered – rather painfully – that the fretwires on it had indeed sprouted. Thankfully, there was no cut or blood. That was when I got reminded of what I had missed mentioning in my last blog post.

So, like I mentioned above, fretwire sprouts primarily due to lack of humidity. However, humidity is not the only culprit. Sometimes, fretwires pop loose and move in their slot too. How do you figure out what caused it?

Simple! If along the length of the fretboard – on one or both sides – you find fretwires sprouted, rest assured that humidity is the culprit. In case of fretwires popping loose and moving, it is rare that you will find more than a couple.

If it is a humidity issue, you will have to take it to a specialist guitar tech/luthier, who will first humidify the guitar for at least 72 hours, and if afterwards the sprout still exists, he will even employ a specialised file to file away the ends.

Please don’t try this at home but even a simple bastard file will do the job – IF it happens to be an expert who is wielding it.

So, basically, this specialised file is rubbed along the length of the fretboard up and down, till the sprouts are ground level with the side of fretboard. Then follows a long and tedious process of cleaning up burrs, polishing and shining the fretwire, and, lo and behold, you are ready to rock and roll!

If it is just one or two frets popped up and dancing around in their slots, they are simply tapped into place and sometimes, even secured with a bit of super glue. 

The summer in North India (at least the first few months) is a time for dry weather with the humidity wavering around the 40% mark. This is a bad time for your acoustic instruments. Why?

The wood of your instrument loses its moisture to the atmosphere when it is hot and dry. Add to it the tension of the six strings (and imagine the tension on the neck of a 12-string instrument). That twin effect can bend, bow and crack wood easily. Remember that’s 90% of your instrument that I am talking about. In extreme cases of neglect, the instrument may be damaged irreparably.

 

What lack of humidity does

The top and back of your guitar are actually two pieces each (in all four pieces) which are glued together. Look closely and you will be able to see the seam where the two pieces of your top or the back are glued.

‘Dehydration’ shows up here first as the seams slowly start opening up as the wood shrinks, losing moisture. One day, running your fingers across the top or the back you may find your fingernail catch on something. A week or two later, you may actually ‘see’ the crack, and a month later, a toothpick may drop through it!

The fretboard – generally made of rosewood or ebony – is open-grain wood (without any finish on it) and thus, loses and absorbs moisture very quickly. A continued spell of dryness will certainly lead to cracks in the fretboard, which may lead to frets popping up, sinking, or simply hinder playability.

As the fretboard shrinks, the fretwires stick out (called fret sprout in technical jingo), making playing the instrument a difficult, if not a completely dangerous proposition.

The shrinking wood even breaks away at places like right next to the fretboard extension on the top of the guitar, or, along where the pickguard is stuck. Old Martin guitars were notorious for acting up like this.

 

What can be done?

Acoustic instruments wish to remain in that optimum range of 45 to 60% humidity. The first thing, come March, is to keep a close watch on the hygrometer (in your smartphone). Otherwise, it is a relatively simple and not too expensive instrument. If you have an expensive instrument (money-wise or sentiment-wise) I will advise that you buy a proper hygrometer – both analogue and digital are available – and keep it your guitar case at all times.

However, keeping a hygrometer in the case does not measure the humidity ‘inside’ the guitar. It only measures the ambient humidity of the case. To keep proper tabs on the humidity in your instrument, you will need a small hygrometer that you can place through the soundhole of the guitar. Put it inside. Cover the soundhole and leave it like that for the next 48 hours. The reading that you get, then, is the real humidity of your instrument.

The first photograph of this post is of a hygrometer measuring 1.88″x1.12″x0.59”.

Even if you don’t wish to go through the above exercise, knowing that the outside humidity is at or below 40% should be enough to give your ‘thirsty’ instrument a drink of water. But don’t soak it in the bathtub yet!

 

Simply…

There are many, many implements available in the market to humidify your acoustic guitar, but then nothing as cheap and as effective as what I do. Take a small plastic container (that can go through your soundhole) and a piece of your old cotton t-shirt. Soak the t-shirt in water, put it in the container, and put the container through the soundhole into your guitar.

Cover the soundhole with something so that the moisture does not escape from the instrument but is absorbed into it. Leave it like that for at least 72 hours and then check the dampness of the cloth that you left inside. If the cloth dries out, wet it again and repeat the process till you find that the cloth continues to remain as wet as you put it in.

And, of course, you have the hygrometer inside to actually check the humidity reading.

To take care of the neck and fretboard, leave another dish of water-soaked rag in the case of your guitar. But be very careful that it does not topple and wet the case or the instrument.

 

How ‘the drink’ affects

Try and imagine a raisin. Try leaving it in a bowl of water for two nights. By the third day, it is swollen, with the water it has absorbed.

The wood on your guitar is pretty much like that. After it has had that ‘drink of water’, it will swell. What that will do is that if, earlier, your fingernail would catch on the seam of the top or the back, now it would smoothly glide over it. Cracks closed!

However, it would be wrong to think that just putting in a cup of water inside your guitar would cure it of its cracks. There might be some which may get better but not close completely. In that case, you will have to find a guitar tech and get it proper attention.

This particular post is for people who have been playing for more than a couple of years (and have never really cleaned their fretboard). A couple of years is enough time for a build up of body oils, grime, dirt and skin to get deposited on the fretboard.

Like the rest of your guitar, you need to clean the fretboard too. However, here is the cautionary note: the procedure that I am about to describe, is only meant for rosewood and ebony fretboards. NEVER try this on a maple fretboard!

Another cautionary note: if your acoustic guitar has a pick-up/equaliser installed (electro-acoustic guitar), then you need to mummify your guitar, like this:

What taping it up like this does, is prevents dust and dirt and other particles from getting into the soundhole and sticking to your pick-up/equaliser.

Once that is done you can get started working on the fretboard.  You will need ‘0000’ steel wool. This is cheap and an excellent fretboard-cleaning tool, though it makes a royal mess. 

Take the amount of steel wool shown in the photograph above and then go over each fret and each fret wire until you have managed to take off everything you saw earlier on your fretboard, using an up-and-down motion as shown below.

Despite the accumulated muck, you will notice that the fretwires on the fretboard bear a shine almost as if they were new. Indeed, ‘0000’ steel wool is a burnisher and works wonders on wood and metal.

 

If, however, you feel that there are still some stubborn bits of gunk left on the fretboard, you will need an old credit card. Sand at least two edges of the card to a knife-like edge.

Stick the sharpened edges right against the fretwire, as shown above and pull outwards. Whatever is settled in that little space between the fretwire and the fretboard is taken out, leaving your entire fretboard well and truly cleaned.

After you are fully satisfied with the results, it is time to nourish the fretboard with some oil or a fretboard conditioner. There are umpteen number of products available in the market, though the best is still BOILED linseed oil. If you can get some, a 300 ml bottle should last you a lifetime.

Take a little on a paper towel, a soft, cotton cloth and massage each fret. Leave it on for 5 or so minutes and then with a clean piece of paper towel, a soft, cotton cloth, wipe off the excess.

Look at the first four frets of the fretboard in the picture above. Look at the rest of the fretboard. That is the difference a conditioner/oil makes to it. Not only does it look great, it plays good too.
HOWEVER, the oiling of the fretboard should not be repeated more than once a year IF it is oil that you are using to condition. Though oil is good but it does have a tendency to cake up. 

 

 

 

The acoustic guitar is a rather simple instrument (though a lot of physics went into building it), and requires a very simple regimen to keep it singing for long. If you (are able to) do the following, suffice it to say that there won’t be any SOSs sent out, no frantic runs to the ER. But the operative word here is ‘IF’!!!

So simple are the pointers that oftentimes we tend to skip these simple steps and get straight into playing the instrument. Curb those instincts and follow the maintenance routine religiously.

 

What you will need:

• Old denim
• Old PURE cotton t-shirt(s)
• A small jar of petroleum jelly
• Some hot water
• A soft make-up brush
• Paper towels/tissues

 

The procedure:

If you have never properly cleaned your guitar, the first time is going to be a little time-consuming and will require a little more effort. The following are the steps to be taken in that situation. In any case, this should be your Sunday routine.

• Take the fan brush (make-up brush) and dust areas that you can’t reach with your hands and fingers – under the strings before the bridge and at the headstock. This particular brush design is best suited for dusting.
• 
• Take a piece of the old, soft, cotton t-shirt moisten it with hot water. Wring dry. With the rag barely moist, wipe down the entire body of the guitar, paying special attention to areas that come in contact with the body. Once you think you are done, take a look at all surfaces of the instrument against light. Areas that you missed, or those that need more attention will show up. Go at them again until you are satisfied.

• 

• The tissues/paper towels are for particularly obstinate areas. Wet the towel and leave it on the spot for 30 seconds. Go at it with your dry t-shirt again.
• Take another – larger – piece of an old, soft, cotton t-shirt, wipe the guitar dry completely to a light shine.
• 
• Loosen all strings. Take a bit of petroleum jelly and dab it onto a piece of old soft denim – just a pinch. Pinch each string so that the jelly comes in contact with the string. Run the pinch down the entire length of the string, paying greater attention to the thicker, wound strings. For each string take a different portion of the cloth so that you can clean the strings better.
• 

• 

   

• Finally, take a clean, dry corner of the denim and wipe off whatever jelly you may have left off on any of the strings. Looking at the pieces of denim, you will realise how dirty those strings were, and when you play them, they may even surprise you with their brightness.

 

The daily routine BEFORE you start playing:

• Take an old, soft, cotton t-shirt and wipe the guitar properly: especially those areas that come in contact with the skin the most.
• Loosen strings and take a piece of denim and wipe each string clean. While you are at it, also clean the fretboard, giving it a rub at each fret under the strings.
• Wipe each tuning machine properly, lifting off dust, grime and fingerprints.
• Still holding the tuning machines with a soft cloth, tune guitar to pitch and have fun.

 

The daily routine AFTER you finish playing:

Repeat the BEFORE routine.

I know that I have talked about acoustic guitar steel strings and changing them and how to, etc. However, I failed to address this more fundamental question in that post.

The answer is, yes, you need to change strings even if they are not broken: whether they are new ones that you installed on your guitar months ago and stored away your guitar, or, those that you have played and played and they, fortuitously, have not broken.

 

New strings and not played

Many people have more than one guitar. They feel that if they change the strings on an instrument, put it into storage, and whenever they take it out, the strings should play and feel brand new.

Logical in theory but not true in the real world.

The fact is that once strings are put in tension they will go dead from being under tension for extended periods of time – played or not played. The sustained tension stretches them out and deadens them. Unfortunately, you NEVER leave an acoustic instrument without strings (not necessarily tuned up to pitch, but tuned half a step down or a full step) on the neck. That would be bad for the guitar itself.

 

Old used strings and played to death

No matter how clean your hands are, every time you play your guitar, know that you are depositing some DNA on the strings (and the fretboard too). The continued deposition of DNA – body oils and skin – deadens the strings. Old strings sound bad, are difficult to get in tune, and can break unexpectedly.

That old devil, Humidity, too, plays a huge part in the degradation of strings. Metal+Moisture=Rust!!!

The magic rule is to change strings every 100 hours or 3 months—whichever comes first – if you don’t play four or five hours daily. In that case, you need to change strings monthly.

 

What to do to lengthen string life

Simple things like wiping your strings before and after playing go a long way in lengthening the life of your strings. But then I have seldom seen that patience in guitar players.

There are also conditioning lotions for strings. You can apply them and they work – somewhat. The flip side is the added expense. The same thing is achieved – maybe better – by wiping your strings.

Also, in the market there are a variety of pre-coated strings and treated strings that do not let the body oils/material deposit on the strings. And if it all it does get deposited, it is unable to affect the strings. The downside? These strings are easily four times the price of ordinary strings!

To get the complete low down on strings, also read:

Which strings to use; how often to change

 

 

Look carefully at the saddle in your guitar. It is not placed in a straight line but angles backwards from the treble (thinner) to the bass (thicker) strings. The thicker the string, more is the length required to flatten it.

Also, when you play a string on a (any) guitar, by fretting it, you elongate it, even if it is very slightly. This causes the note to go sharp. To ‘compensate’ for the sharpness, changes are made, mostly to the saddle but often to the nut as well.

All the methods used to make a string play the same at every fret and in relation to each other is intonation and is the last step in the setting up of your guitar. Ideally, what you are looking for is for an open string to play a note and for the SAME string to play the SAME note – an octave above – when fretted at the 12^th fret. 

Why 12^th fret? Because from the nut to the 12^th fret is half the length of the string and from the 12^th fret to the saddle is the other half of the string – making the 12^th fret the midway point of a string.

So, during a set-up, if the 12th fret note is flat, the point of contact on the saddle with the string is moved forward a little. If the 12th fret note is sharp, the point of contact on the saddle with the string is moved back a little. And the process is repeated till your tuner (or your ear) tells you that the open and fretted note are the same.

What this effectively does, is increase or decrease the length of a string, thus affecting intonation.

How is this point of contact moved forward or backward? By filing the top of the saddle forwards or backwards. This is referred to as compensating the saddle (sometimes even the nut). And thus, intonation is often also referred to as compensation.

Look at the picture below. The ‘straight’ saddle is how a traditional saddle on an acoustic guitar used to look. Later, as saddles started getting compensated, they began to look like the second one. Still later, they were changed to look like the third one.

In some cases, they look like this:

In some cases and models, the saddle is actually inserted in two parts to get the intonation correct.

And in rare cases and models, the saddle is not one or two pieces but six small pieces to get the intonation near perfect!

Once you have made all possible adjustments to the saddle and find that the guitar is still not intonated properly, then you turn your attention to the nut of the instrument. Nuts too are compensated by adding material to the nut, taking material away, or fashioning a nut (out of bone, Tusq, corian, etc) to have extra material.

Here is one with some fibre used to shorten or elongate the length of a particular string.

And this one uses bone for intonation.

When you buy a new two-wheeler or four-wheeler, ideally, the showroom fine-tunes the vehicle before handing it over to you. What that little fine-tuning does is, it removes any small flaws that might have existed, making the vehicle perform to its optimum. Exactly in the same way, a new guitar – acoustic or electric – MUST BE SET UP TO THE PLAYER’S STYLE, for it to play the best that it can.

The set-up on a new guitar is ideally done in one of two ways: for the beginner and for the experienced player.

For the beginner

If you have started learning how to play a guitar, or intend to learn how to play it, and you purchase a new instrument, you MUST take it to an experienced guitar technician and have it set up. As explained earlier, this exercise will not only eliminate flaws in your instrument, but will also make it play the best that it can.

By spending a little extra money, the technician will improve the instrument’s playability, thus ensuring that you don’t fall out of love with playing your guitar. However, this is a job of approximation, a temporary set-up. He will call you back a year or 18 months later, ask you to play a little for him and watching your playing style, he will give the instrument a proper set-up.

For the intermediate player

Once you have played for a few years and have established a playing style, the luthier (guitar technician) will set up the guitar specifically to your style. Thus, the set-up for a finger-style player or a lead guitarist will get a much lower action, as compared to a rhythm guitarist or a country/folk style guitarist. The strings too, which he will suggest, will be suited to your playing style: thinner ones for the lead and finger-style artiste and thicker ones for the rhythm/country player.

 

The set-up proper

Everything related to or touching the strings has to be adjusted and/or modified when a proper set-up is given. Thus, the relief in the neck (how straight or curved the neck is), the action of the guitar at the 1^st and 12^th fret (distance of the lowest point of a string to the highest point of a fretwire), radius of the saddle and the nut (matching the curvature of the fretboard), the condition of the fretwires, tuning machines, the intonation of the instrument (whether an open string and the same string fretted at the 12^th fret sound exactly the same), all need to be worked upon.

Getting the relief right

Relief in the neck of any stringed instrument allows the strings the space they need to vibrate. Once you take off the strings from the guitar, the neck of the instrument should be absolutely straight. If it still has relief – a concave bend in it – it must be taken out by adjusting the truss rod with a hex key (Allen wrench). Similarly, if the neck has a back bow in it – a convex bend – that too must be removed by adjusting the truss rod.

How much is the relief can be checked by either placing a long enough straight-edge on the fretboard or holding down a string at the 1st and the 12th fret and then trying to tap around the 7th or 8th fret. At these points you should have just enough space to hear the ‘clink’ of the string as it hits the fretwire when you tap.

The truss rod is seated in the neck of the guitar and runs just underneath the fretboard. It can be accessed either through the soundhole of the guitar, or from the headstock end in some guitars. And yes, the neck and the fretboard are two different things stuck together! Never confuse one for the other.

After the truss rod is adjusted, the neck should be straight. Once the guitar gets strings and they are tuned up, the pull of the strings will give the neck a natural concave bend, which, nine out of 10 times, is enough for the strings to vibrate freely without affecting action.

 

Matching the radius of the fretboard, saddle and nut

On steel-string guitars (as opposed to nylon-string guitars) the fretboard has a slight curvature. This curvature is measured and must be the same on the top of the saddle and the top of the nut. If it is not then the saddle or the nut, or both, have to be given this curvature by sanding/filing them along their tops. Once the nut, fretboard and saddle have the same curvature, playing of the instrument is indeed a pleasure.

 

Getting the action right

If the action on your guitar is high, then to bring it down, the saddle is pulled out from its slot and some material is removed from the bottom of the saddle by sanding it. You get a reading of the action by placing a well-calibrated ruler on the 12^th fretwire. Know that if you wish to lower the action at the 12^th fretwire by 1 mm, you have to take away 2mm from the saddle (The 12^th fretwire is generally the halfway point of the string).

Once the saddle height is settled, we move to the nut end of the instrument. Again, the string height is measured at the 1^st fretwire. This is measured by pressing a particular string on the 3^rd fretwire.

 

The gap which is left at the 1^st fretwire, should be just enough to let a business card pass through. Specialised two-sided files are used to deepen the nut sots so that the desired height of the string is attained at the 1^st fret. This process is repeated for all the other five strings.

However, If the slots need to be filed down too much, and for all six strings, it is better to take matter off the bottom of the nut, just as in the case of the saddle.

Once done, strings should ideally sit half in the slot and half outside.

 

Getting the fretwires right

Many times, fretwires have not been seated properly in their slots. This can cause string buzz – a squeak produced by a string which is fretted anywhere before the raised fretwire. These can easily be re-seated by a firm knock with a jeweller’s hammer.

Many times, a fretwire can be seated very properly but it is still higher than the rest. An implement called a thick five-sided, flattened piece of aluminium, called the Fret Rocker, is used to check whether all the frets are in level or not. The five edges of the Fret Rocker are all of different lengths, each length enough to sit on just three fretwires at a time.

If there are more than two or three fretwires standing out, all the fretwires on the fretboard are levelled, crowned and polished.

The fretwires have rounded tops. Once they are filed, they get flattened and rough. To put the ‘roundness’ back in them, a specialised crowning file is used which works on each fretwire individually. To remove the roughness from all that filing, fretwires are rubbed with different grits of sandpaper (500 to 2000), and finally polished with a good chrome polish.

Also, if the guitar has been sitting in the showroom for long, fretwires can get tarnished or dull, which can again majorly affect the sound the instrument produces. Again, the fretwires go through the polishing process to make them gleam like new.

 

Getting the hardware snug

The tuning machines and the jack-input points are basically held by screws. These can get loosened over time, or in the case of a new guitar, may not have been tightened well enough in the first place. These need to be checked and tightened. However, caution must be exercised. The hardware on your guitar should be just tight enough to be snug. One doesn’t need to use the same kind of effort used to tighten the nuts on the wheels of your car.

 

Checking the intonation

Once all the above steps have been carried out, it is time to condition the fretboard and put on the strings. One last thing – and probably the most important thing – to be done is to check the intonation. Play a string open and then play it placing a finger at the 12^th fret. The two sounds should be the same except for their pitch. If not, the string is taken off and the top of the saddle is sanded in such a way that either the contact point of the string where it rides the saddle, either moves forward or goes back. This process is repeated till the unfretted and fretted string sounds the same. And then the process is repeated for all the other five strings.

That is the basic set-up process, a very labour and time-intensive process but well worth it. Without it, you would be either playing a wrong-sounding guitar or wasting way too much energy playing it.

This was the process for a new guitar. Older guitars need set-ups too – if they move from or to different climate conditions, or when the weather changes, or when fretwires develop furrows from where strings rub against them constantly. A change in the thickness of strings also requires a set-up anew.

When you put on new strings and are tuning it up, have you noticed how some strings go ‘twang’ and lose tension completely? It happens because the ball-end of the string was not seated properly and was actually stuck to the end of the bridgepin. The tension that you give it while tuning it up, pulls it off the bridgepin and it hits the bridgeplate (where it was supposed to rest in the first place). Fine! Where’s the problem?

Two, actually! One, strings are liable to break due to the sudden loss of tension. Also, when you start tightening them again, you may break them then too.

Secondly, the force with which the ball-end of the string hits the bridgeplate is liable to damage it badly if it happens every time you change strings.

Let’s do it right the first time and every time!

So, it’s time to change strings on your guitar. Old strings are off, the guitar has been thoroughly cleaned, polished, hardware given a tightening, polish and you are ready to put on new strings.

As you slip this bent string into the slot – with the ball-end longitudinal to the hole – the curvature in it forces it on to the bridgeplate and away from the bridgepin.

Also, it is a good idea to take a look at the ends of your bridgepins.

Notice the one on the right has a slight angle to it. It is on the face that has the groove in it, in which groove the string sits. What that angle does is help the ball-end of the string slip off the bridgepin end and rest naturally on the bridgeplate.

Now, notice the one on the left. That is how you get a bridgepin from the shop. That is how they came in your guitar when you bought it new. You have to make the left one look like the right one. How do you do that? Take a small, flat hobby file and file away at an approximate angle of 45 degrees. It should not take you more than 10-15 seconds to get it into shape.

If it is so necessary why don’t guitar manufacturers do this? It increases the time and cost, darling!

Do this for all the strings and all the bridgepins. Once you are through, you are ready to put on new strings and tune up your instrument.

No unneeded ‘twangs’ and bangs and you are ready to rock ’n’ roll!

Sometime back I had posted this guitar which needed a pick-up to be installed in it.

https://lkoguitargarage.com/recognise-this/

 

I was awaiting a specialised drill bit to work the end hole of this guitar and finally received it yesterday. Here is the finished product.

As you can see, these photographs were taken after I had strung up the guitar – almost as an afterthought.

Thus, I couldn’t capture the process of drilling the bridge through which the piezo pickup came up from under the top and now sits in the bridge, under the saddle.

Additionally, there is a microphone which is stuck to the bridgeplate, right under the bridge. 

 

Of course, there are no photos of the microphone sticking to the bridgeplate but I searched the net and found this. At least it gives you an idea of how things sit.

Internally mounted microphones capture a guitar’s natural resonance and harmonic overtones. This one should capture the full range of the soundboard’s (top’s) projection in addition to resonance. 

Let’s see how this bird sings!

 

It is not uncommon for players to dress up their instruments: decals, stickers, signatures, et al, have decorated acoustic guitars, probably since the time they were begun to be made. A change of hardware on the guitar, then, is quite common to improve performance as well as the aesthetics of things.

I had to take off the gold hardware – the tuning machines and the strap buttons – on this milky beauty

and replace it with an all-black set. The new set had a gear ratio of 18:1 (to understand this concept, refer to my last post – ‘Wishing to buy a real guitar?’). Naturally, the strings too would have to be replaced. Though not a branded instrument and not made of solid wood, it played true, held tune properly, had excellent action at the 12^th fret and at the bridge, and was an electro-acoustic guitar.

The most striking feature about the guitar was its abalone-like adornment and its f-shaped holes. F-shaped holes are a bit of a rarity in flat-top, American folk guitars with fixed bridges (bridges that are stuck to the top). Usually, one gets to see them on jazz guitars – quite a different set of strings – which have a completely different bracing pattern. The bridge on most jazz guitars is a floating one, which makes intonation adjustments a breeze, and strings just ride over it, being fixed at that end to a tailpiece and at the other, beyond the nut, to the tuning machines on the headstock.

The hardware that I was to put on it, looked like this:

I took off the strings and began taking off the gold hardware, when the thought struck me: what if the screw holes don’t match up with the new hardware? I took off one tuning machine and slipped in a new black one. Matching up the hole on the machine with the one on the guitar, I grimaced for, indeed, the holes were off by quite a bit.

I filled up the holes, painted each filling white and then let the guitar rest and dry. Then I marked the points where new holes would need to be drilled, measuring and cross-checking how the tuning machines sat in their slots and whether they were in line with those above and below them, as also whether they were in line with the ones opposite them. (I got so engrossed in the process that I forgot to take photographs of these steps – silly me!).

Anyway, new holes were drilled on the back of the headstock and the new tuning machines were screwed into place. This is what they looked like on the guitar.

Replacing the strap buttons was easy enough: unscrew old strap pin, take out, put new strap pin, screw on!

With new strings, the instrument was as good as new. And off went Venerable Vanilla home!

This post is aimed towards the intermediate-level player, who has now played for more than a couple of years and has attained a certain level of proficiency.

Wishing to buy a ‘real’ guitar, what are the things to bear in mind.

What to look for

1) The first and foremost thing to take note of when buying your first ‘real’ guitar is the wood used in its construction.

Why is that important? It is the top that moves when you strum a guitar. Its movement forces the air out of the instrument through the soundhole, and that produces sound. The more it moves, the more is the sound produced. To some extent even the back moves and helps in the propagation of sound.

So, if it is solid wood, the movement of the top (and the back) is that much uniform and better, vis a vis a plywood or a laminate guitar. Let me illustrate this by taking you back to school and into the physics class: refraction of light. Through a single medium, there is no refraction. And when light passes from one medium to another, the density of media comes into play.

Thus, if it is a single wood instrument, the transfer of sound is uniform without any loss of energy. In an instrument made of laminated wood, the varying densities of woods used are the reason for that dull and hollow sound that lacks sustain. The different woods absorb much of the vibrations, resulting in the ‘dead’ sound which you hear.

 

The wood combinations

There are traditional combinations of woods for the top, back and sides, which have withstood the ravages of their players and that of Time and have thus earned a reputation. The two most popular combinations are spruce and mahogany and spruce and rosewood – spruce for the top and mahogany and rosewood for the back and sides. Again, traditionally, the back and sides are always made from the same material – whether solid wood or laminate.

Spruce is a lighter/softer wood in comparison to mahogany and rosewood, and thus lends itself well to its role of having to move once the instrument is played. In comparison, both mahogany and rosewood are harder woods, serving their purpose of providing structural support without impeding sound.

And then there are varying types of spruce and within each type, categories, which are graded. Besides rosewood and mahogany, flame/tiger/quilted maple, walnut and cocobolo are also used for the back and sides, while cedar is a popular option for the top.

Cedar is warmer/muddier than spruce (lending itself well for rhythm guitar playing). Likewise, rosewood is harder than mahogany and maple, making the instrument sound warmer – with more bass. Increasingly, koa is being used in place of all three, being cheaper.

With growing environmental consciousness, man-made materials have made an entry into the guitar industry with quite spectacular results, though it will be some time before they really catch the fancy of players.

 

How to check whether it is really solid wood 

If you look through the soundhole of the guitar, you will notice a certain type of wood grain pattern. Turn the guitar around and look at the outside of the back of the guitar at the same point where you saw the pattern inside the guitar. If you see the same pattern outside too, it is a solid wood instrument. 

2) The bracing

Under the top, there is a bulwark of (generally) spruce wood that helps support it. Now, you might think that if the purpose of the top is to move, when the instrument is played, won’t this bulwark hamper that? Logical but not true.

These struts, or braces – as they are rightly called – only brace the top and stop it from caving in under the pressure of the pulling strings. They are placed in such a manner that they not only support the top but also help it to move, when the instrument is played.

Just carving the braces and putting them on the top or the back is an art in itself, and in factories of the bigger guitar manufacturers, there is an entire department of workers that work on just the braces. And then there is the boss, who inspects each brace and how it sits on the top or the back. No wonder, you like the sound of that guitar!

Braces may be scalloped or unscalloped. While the former, naturally, are more rigid, the latter allow freer movement of the top and thus, clearer sound. So, what should you look for?

If you are a finger-style player, go for scalloped braces. If you are a rhythm guitarist and love to accompany singers or players, choose an unscalloped instrument.

 

3) The Tuning Machines

If ever you try and replacing the tuning machines on your guitar, you will know that there is a huge price range they are available in.

You will be surprised to note that the most plain looking of them are more expensive than the more ornamental of them. And then there are those that are really fancy-looking and cost a right eyeball, a left ear and a right leg just for one piece!!!! This is because tuning machines are assessed on their gear ratio. The gear ratio is ascertained by the number of teeth on the gears of the machine, which helps tune the instrument to a greater accuracy.

On open-back tuners, you will be able to see the gear. Count the number of teeth on it. 12, 14, 16, 18, 21: the more the teeth, greater the accuracy.

The gear ratio is the number of turns of the tuning key which will make a complete turn of the string post. A tuner with an 18:1 gear ratio means that you would need to turn the tuner knob 18 times to make the string post go around one complete revolution.

When buying a guitar, once you have chosen the guitar that you wish to buy, ask the salesperson the gear ratio of the tuning machines. If you are not happy with the gear ratio, you can always have the tuning keys replaced with something better. But then, be prepared to shell out extra moolah for them!

 

Everything else!

If all of the above are in order, the rest, whatever it is, can be changed or replaced at a later date. Strings, saddle and nut, bridgepins, pickguard installation or removal, rosewood fretboard and bridge versus an ebony fretboard and bridge – even the fretwire – can easily be swapped one for the other.

The one reservation that I would make here is that though even the colour of the paint and polish of the instrument can be changed, it takes a real expert to strip the instrument of the finish on the instrument and put on new one.

It is not unheard of that while stripping a guitar of its finish, some part of the guitar got scraped off too!!!!

 

In conclusion

The cost of a real wood guitar is – at least – 10 times that of an ordinary guitar but then the manpower that is used to make it, knows what needs to be done to make a real instrument. And so it is that when you play a real wood instrument, you are forced to close your eyes at the beauty of the sound emanating from the instrument.

Also, a real wood instrument requires much greater care in terms of keeping the moisture content of the wood measured and replenished in times of need, failing which, it can easily let the rot set in.

 

DISCLAIMER: All of the above was general knowledge. There is nothing in this mortal world which says that a plywood guitar can NEVER sound as good as a solid wood instrument, or, conversely, a solid wood instrument CAN’T SOUND AS ORDINARY as a plywood instrument!!!!

 

 

 

Often, when the season changes you develop a cold and a cough. In much the same manner, your acoustic instrument is likely to develop a string buzz.

The reason for this is that wood being a dynamic material, expands and contracts under the effect of temperature and humidity changes of the environment. The wood expands and contracts at a certain rate but the metal fretwire does so at vastly different rate. This uneven expansion or contraction of the wood and frets results in the very irritating fret buzz.

However, the above statements are true only of solid wood guitars (those that have single pieces of wood as their top, back and sides, and are not made of laminated wood – plywood). And that is why changing seasons are deadly for solid wood guitars. So, why make them? Why buy them?

For their sound! You have to sit down with a solid wood guitar and play it to understand the pleasure of it.

You would remember me working on this beautifully constructed all-wood guitar. This came in again, recently, afflicted by the ‘seasonal fret buzz’.

Trying to find the errant fret(s), I went over the fretboard with a fretrocker (a five-sided steel piece milled absolutely flat on each side), three frets at a time. Finally, I managed to locate the ‘popped up’ frets and marked them.

When one levels, radiuses and re-crowns the fretboard, one is tackling all the frets, but during spot-fixing, one only needs to focus on two or three frets (which are, more often than not, in succession). Thus, not taking off the strings to work on the frets is often possible, though I took off the strings on this one, as I had to change them in any case.

Otherwise, introducing two small wooden blocks between the strings and the fretboard, raises the strings and gives you enough room in between, to work on the frets.

The painter’s tape that I used was to protect the fretboard from the various files and grits of sandpaper used in getting the truant frets, first in line and then, in shape.

As I went about stringing her up, I found the action was high too. That demanded the saddle to be taken down.

The contraption I am using is sandpaper super-glued to painter’s tape, which is stuck to a piece of scrap MDF. The flatness of the MDF helps sand the saddle (or the nut) very straight, without there being any possibility of it tilting.

Finally, as I was tuning up the instrument, I was really pleased to notice that there was still an excellent break angle being created at the saddle. The steeper the angle at which a string ‘breaks’ over the saddle or nut, the more downward pressure it applies to that saddle or nut. That downward pressure helps in the transfer of sound, and thus, a fuller, richer sound.

Chilli here is in great shape – as you can see. It’s a 12-string Jumbo. I had to change its strings and give its fretboard and bridge a little drink of the magic potion, which while nourishing them, also made their grain pop. Eventually, I shone up Chilli even more. 

This one is special. It has a bone saddle and nut…AND, abalone-topped brass bridgepins. They say that metal bridgepins seem to accentuate the high register of the instrument. We will check that out once we string ’er up!

But do look at that bridge. Beautiful! However, the overriding thought here is that because it is not a single, solid piece of wood, thicker strings just won’t do. Also, it’s a 12-string – double the tension that six strings exert.

Extra-light strings it is then (.010” – .047”). But even with a larger headstock stringing her up was a pain because the space between tuning machines is very small, and keeping track of ball-ends, which bridgepin goes into which hole, which string pairs with which string…

It took me a couple of hours but it was well worth the time. What’s more, the action on this stunner is lower than normal and there’s no buzzing anywhere along the fretboard.

And yes, the metal bridgepins do brighten up the sound appreciably, a joy for a finger-style player.

Extreme beauty – natural or manmade – has the ability to leave one speechless. I was too, after seeing this abalone-inlaid, solid-spruce-top, laminated-rosewood-back-and-sides beauty.

Suffice it to say that I have not seen a more beautiful acoustic instrument in my life, and believe me, I have seen a few. I could not believe my eyes and I just kept turning it over in my hands.

Admiring it, there were a few problems that were apparent. The action seemed sky-high and, of course, the bridge was lifting, as was the neck heel-to-body joint. I looked at the strings and they looked heavier than what I usually see. As I pulled out my digital vernier calipers and measured the thickness of the strings, they read .013” – .056”! And there lay the problem.

  

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, if it is big money that you are investing in an instrument, PLEASE, also invest some time in reading the user/instruction manual very carefully. You have spent a decent pile on your instrument; spend a bit of time reading the manual too. If you didn’t get a manual, get onto the internet, type in the model number of your instrument and you will get a free user/instruction manual in PDF format.

In there, you will find all the specifications that you need – including what size strings are recommended. If it says use .010” (high E – thinnest) string, you can experiment with .011 string set, no thicker. You could even go one step down and try .09”, but that’s your leeway – one below and one higher.

The big boomers on this guitar – .013” – .056” – put way to much tension on the bridge and the neck heel-to-body joint, and this particular instrument wasn’t built to take that much strain. Naturally, it was literally coming apart at the seams.

The first thing to do was to take off the strings and let the guitar relax for a full day.

With the strings off, I decided to take a look under the hood. Handsomely scalloped braces supported the solid spruce top, though they could have been scalloped cleaner and neater. The bridgeplate was in not too bad a shape.

After that, I turned my attention to the bridge. After taping it off so that I wouldn’t scratch the beautiful finish on the top, I heated up the smallest and thinnest moulding knife that I had. With the knife hot, I went prising into the corner of the bridge that was lifting. Some minutes and a few bigger palette knives later, the bridge was off and in a relatively clean manner.

   

Cleaning and sanding off both surfaces under high magnification, I let that part of the instrument be as I concentrated on the more difficult job that needed to be done. I had to completely detach the neck from the body!

The need for doing it was because without taking off the neck, the crack would never be glued back cleanly and completely.

In luthierese (Did I just coin a word?), guitar-building jargon, the neck-removal is referred to as steaming off a neck, for you actually inject steam into the neck, helping melt the glue, which lets go of the neck, and you can then separate the neck from the body.

For that, you need to pull out a fret, drill a couple of holes and use them alternating between the two to inject steam. And that’s how it went. 35 minutes later, the neck was off.

While the glue was still gummy, I scraped off the majority of it, leaving the rest to be sanded off later. Then it was Rest time for the guitar and me. I left the instrument to dry off for a complete two days before I returned to it. Taking a file to it, I filed out the dried glue till only the wood could be seen on both surfaces (the neck as well as on the guitar). For the little studs, I cut strips of sandpaper and sanded them clean.

   

It was time to put everything together. But before that one last thing needed to be done. I took spirit and cleaned all the surfaces to be glued: the bridge, the top where it would sit, the neck heel and the portion of the guitar where it would stick.

First, I glued the neck back on and with some strategically placed wood pieces and clamps ensured that the joint would never come apart again. The major squeeze-out of the glue seen here

  

is not a bad thing. It shows that glue has reached everywhere and won’t let go. And it was nothing for a couple of wet paper towels. I left the neck clamped for two days to let the glue cure completely under pressure.

Next, it was the turn of the bridge. More glue, different clamps, more squeeze-out all around. More clean-up, another 48 hours. When I took off the clamps everything was dry and solid.

A dot of super glue in each of the holes I had drilled, sealed them and also helped hold the fret I had pulled out. The problem with the entire procedure is that even though the fret might be seated completely, it is seldom in line with the adjoining two frets. Either the replaced fret stands proud or is lower than the frets flanking it. So, a fret levelling, crowning and polishing was required and that is what I did for the next three-and-a-half hours!

  

I even lubed the fretboard and bridge and gave the entire guitar a good polish till it shone like new.

After that all that was left to do was to string ’er up and hear her sing. But I did put on lighter strings this time: .012” – .052”. The action was so low on it that I had to pull out the old saddle and put in a new, tall saddle. After putting in the new saddle, the action was still nice and low but without any string buzz.

Silly me…I got so happy seeing the action that I forgot to take a photograph! But she was a stunner, alright!

Black Beauty II (I have already dated Black Beauty – read earlier posts) was handed over in my care with the complaint of having an excruciatingly high action. I checked the usual culprits: the relief in the neck and whether the bridge was lifting. The bridge was, thankfully, stuck solid but the relief in the neck left a lot to be desired.

While inspecting the guitar – not a known name – a few things were highlighted. The plastic nut and saddle wouldn’t be doing any good to the sound of the instrument; the shoe-string tie of the guitar strap around the headstock was putting undue stress on the neck – it would have to go; the strings were dead – had been so since long; the hardware was all tarnished and a bit loose; and that the instrument in general was in need of real TLC (Bring out that vacuum cleaner, somebody)!

Also, the fretboard and bridge were dryer than tinder wood and the frets themselves were tarnished with minor pitting (indentations where strings struck the frets). As I inspected the guitar body, there was a chip on the outer extremity of the lower bout which exposed a bit of raw wood – probably caused by an accidental banging into something.

As I continued to go through the instrument under magnification and with a fine-tooth comb, I found the pickguard was lifting from the tip nearest to the fretboard. I pulled it off completely; the idea was to clean the pickguard and the area on the top where it was stuck, completely of the old glue and glue it back on.

If only things in practise were as easy as they appeared in theory! The glue around the periphery of the pickguard was dry and flaky. As I tried scraping it off, it left scratch marks like those when you scratch the painted side of a mirror: with light shining through! That being that I chucked the old pickguard and decided to put on a new one.

And then followed an unending experiment with solutions and solvents to take the drying glue off the top without harming the finish. Since you will screech in horror if I told you what finally worked, I won’t tell you! And a swanky new pickguard took the place of the old, cheap one.

 

Then I turned my attention to the hardware. With some magic lotion and lots of elbow grease the tuning machines shone like new.

I took off the shoe-string tie and prepared to install a proper strap-pin on the heel of the guitar. Drilling the hole to accept the screw of the strap-pin at that sweet spot is a tricky proposition. This one came out just fine.

Instinctively, I looked at the strap-pin at the bottom of the guitar. It was tarnished and beaten. So, I changed both, shiny and new.

Turning my attention to the fretboard, I scraped it clean, applied a double dose of nutrients – as also to the bridge – and recrowned and polished the frets. The end result was, indeed, pleasing to the eyes.

 

In earlier posts, I have failed to properly explain the process of replacing a plastic nut and saddle with bone elements. Let me set the record straight with this post.

First of all, what is the need to replace plastic parts? Plastic is cheap and easily available. Most guitar manufacturers (barring the biggest names in the business) put in the cheapest stuff possible to increase their profit margin – and that goes for everything that is your guitar – the wood, tuning machines, strings, nut and saddle. The plastic nut and saddle serve the purpose but when compared to bone, the volume and quality of sound is not even a patch.

This is due to the fact that bone is a denser material. Denser the material, greater will be the transfer of sound, and lesser the loss of sound while transferring from string to saddle/nut to bridge/neck.

After bone, a denser material is something called Tusq. It is synthetic but I won’t vouch for the quality of sound it produces. While I don’t like the sound from Tusq elements, for it lacks the mellow warmth of bone, many people do prefer it.

So…the plastic elements are taken out and bone elements put in. Hardly as easy as that! These bone elements are also mass produced and need to be customised to fit a particular instrument. For each instrument, the dimensions of these parts – like thickness and height – are different, which needs to be dialled in before these elements can work the best that they can with the instrument.

So, the nut was shaved down – both in height and thickness – as was the saddle.

Also, the nut slots had to be lowered to get the action on the guitar to an acceptable level. Once that was done, a carbon jelly was introduced in the slots so that the strings wouldn’t catch in the slots, while tuning up or down.

The angle that the strings make coming out of the bridge holes to the top of the saddle also has a big impact on the volume and quality of sound. With a tall saddle, strings can come straight out of the holes and the angle created is good, exerting a lot of pressure on the saddle, forcing it down into the bridge, which helps maxamise sound transfer and minimises loss of sound.

With a shaved-down saddle (to compensate for high action), the string slot has to be extended a bit so that that angle is created. The angle thus created, exerts pressure on the saddle, which, in turn, helps in a solid transfer of sound.

And finally, Black Beauty II’s coat was given a proper rubdown. See it gleam in health and happiness! Happy to see this beauty turn out the way it did!

If your remember, last time, I had said how the bridgeplate was a problem in this guitar. After much thought, I shaped two pieces of wood, stuck them together and then stuck and clamped them adjacent to the bridgeplate.

The idea was that this would only lend strength and support to the not-so-stout bridgeplate, helping hold the top of the guitar somewhat in place once the strings start pulling it up.

On a more expensive instrument, I would have suggested to the owner that a Platemate would be the way to go about it. A Platemate is a thin brass plate that is stuck to the bridgeplate and takes all the pull of the strings, protecting the bridgeplate.

Then came the turn of glueing and clamping the bridge itself.

The glue flows and moves into every nook and cranny, and once it cures, it forms a solid bond. But, in the process, the bridge holes also get filled with glue and get blocked so well that you can’t just poke through with bridgepins. The solution, then, is to open the holes using a drill and right-sized bit.

With the holes opened, and before strings came on, it was the right time to show a bit of love to the dried out fretboard. I had cleaned it earlier of all the gunk collected on it over its three-odd year life.

The fretboard scraped clean, the frets were crowned and polished and then the fretboard was given a drink of boiled linseed oil. So thirsty was the fretboard that the oil disappeared in minutes and I had to apply a second coat, which lent it a healthy sheen to the fretboard.

Then came the turn of putting in the saddle and the nut and setting up the guitar to play as perfectly as it should. Things to take into consideration is the gauge of strings used, the neck angle, etc. The nut requires a bit carbon grease in the slots for the strings to ride in them without getting stuck, or posing tuning issues.

The saddle needed a shave to get the action just right without any string buzz. An added consideration was that Snow White was an electro-acoustic beauty and thus, the under-saddle piezo pick-up had to be accommodated for.

That done, it was time to give the strings a stretch to get them used to the tension that they would be put under.

After stretching and tuning the strings a couple of times, it was finally turn to give the guitar body a good rubdown and polish.

Ain’t she a beauty?

This neatly finished guitar with abalone binding came in with the (apparent)complaint of a high action. It needed new strings too.

Simple enough? Spoken too soon!

As soon as I hear high action, my eyes automatically go to two places: the relief in the neck and whether the bridge is lifting under string tension.

And that was just the beginning of the list of woes ailing this pretty guitar. As I looked, I noticed that the spot where the ‘G’ string rode the saddle had been chewed into.

So, off came the strings and the saddle out of the bridge…not quite in one piece!

Then it was the turn of the bridge to come off completely; for the spot on the top where the bridge sat, to be cleaned thoroughly, and then for the bridge to be glued on, clamped and left undisturbed for at least 48 hours.

A few right-sized palette knives inserted in the right places helped pop off the bridge.

The bridge came off without much fuss but as it did, I saw clearly what I thought I had seen: a crack, or at least the beginnings of one, right along its centre.

Also, notice the bridge footprint on the top of the guitar. At least a millimetre or two was without glue. You can see it reflected in this next photograph of the bridge flipped over.

But as I looked at the bridge area on the top of the guitar, it seemed oddly misshapen. A simple ruler proved me right and that my eyes weren’t playing tricks.

And I knew that that could be caused only due to one problem: if the bridgeplate (a piece of wood stuck right under the bridge, whose job is to take most of the stress of the strings pulling up at the top and keep the top stable and straight) was weak, splintered or badly cut. Bridgeplates are particularly made out of hardwoods like rosewood, walnut, ebony and mahogany to take all that strain of the strings pulling up.

In this case, the bridgeplate was badly cut and made from silly wood. A bridgeplate made from ice-cream sticks would have provided greater support! Here is what I saw inside:

The flat piece of wood with six holes in a row is what was masquerading as a bridgeplate. No wonder the poor top was in misery.

What followed was a hot-water bath for the bridge area on the top and then clamping it under a block of wood for 24 hours.

When I took off the clamps, there was hardly any difference. So, while I thought about another way around the problem, I began to work on other parts of the guitar.

First came the cleaning of the area of the top where the bridge would sit: cleaning it of old glue, lacquer (varnish) so that once glued, the bridge would sit tight and never budge from its place again. An Xacto knife and two bridgepins helped me mark the boundary of the bridge.

If you look closely at the last photograph, you will be able to see how much varnish needed to be taken off all around for bare (bridge) wood to be in complete contact with bare (top) wood.

We went to work with a chisel and a few grits of sandpaper. Just like this:

That cleaned, I went to work on the underside of the bridge itself. The cleaned up bridge presented another problem.

The crack that I saw on the top of the bridge and thought was only superficial, actually ran through the bridge.

Meanwhile, the fretboard had enough DNA on it to map the family tree of the owner; the frets needed crowning and polishing, and the tuning machines needed to be worked on too.

What I did with the bridgeplate and what were the hits and misses till I handed the guitar over to the owner: coming soon.