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 […]
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Guitar repair – Hoping JnR has a long life!
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 […]
Guitar repair – Joy setting up this LAG orchestra model!
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 […]
Guitar repair – Pain in the season of fails
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 […]
Guitar repair – With the rains, comes the season of fails!
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 […]
Guitar repair – A Dove that sings sweet!
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 […]
Guitar repair – A novel problem in a classical Alhambra!
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 […]
Guitar repair – Facelift for humble oldtimer
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 […]
Guitar repair – introducing the ski-jump fretboard!
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 […]
Guitar repair – Where them raised fretwires at??!
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 […]
Guitar repair – May mayhem in (North-Central) India
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 […]
Guitar repair – Another initial set-up. The awareness grows!
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 […]
Guitar repair – That buzz may not be from the fretwires!!
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 […]
Guitar repair – Save the ‘heart’ of your instrument
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 […]
Guitar repair – Tit-bits to get you out of a fix – I
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 […]
Guitar repair – Get the most out of your old guitar
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 […]
Guitar repair – Fretwire munch: whys & wherefores?
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 […]
Guitar repair – It’s time to let your guitar drink up!
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, […]
Guitar repair – Sundari gets some much needed TLC!
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 […]
Guitar repair is back, as am I!!!!
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 […]
Guitar repair – Shims vis-a-vis action & sound!
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. […]
Guitar repair – Never say never!
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 […]
Guitar repair – NOW is the time for those glue-up jobs!
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 […]
Guitar repair – Bridgeplates: Introduction and functions!
Wonder if you all remember me saying that instruments come to me in twos or threes. Either two or three of the same brand, or, two or three with the same problem. After I finished working on two instruments with a belly bulge and lifting bridge, I thought it was time to talk about the […]
Guitar repair – Spalted beauty gets bone-embellished!
Recently, I had the pleasure of working on a Fender auditorium-style guitar (all-laminate construction) sporting a spalted maple top. It had the same beautiful spalted maple as headplate. For those interested in these things, the model no. was FA-345CE SP MPL FSR LR and the serial no. was IWA1913137. I’ll talk about its problems later […]