Guitar repair – Bone nut, saddle & a set-up for Mr Fender!

The process of my blog posts is basically through photographs that I take of the job at hand and then try to spin a story out of them, trying my best to remember what happened and how. It had worked for me till now.

I must confess that in the best of times, recalling events, sometimes from two months ago, is no mean task. Today is Saturday, dinner time, and the fever I ran through the week has impaired my thought process terribly. As I sit down to look at the photographs, I am scratching my head – ‘Was it this’, or, ‘Was it that’???

Fair warning for a post full of inconsistencies! Here, I must appeal to the owner to write in and correct me wherever he feels I have gone wrong in documenting the facts.

On my part, I have decided, henceforth, not to rely only on photographs but to make more detailed notes while I am working.

With that out of the way, let us begin today’s saga.

This Fender CD-60 landed up on my counter almost a month back for a set-up and some new strings

Yeah! It wasn’t the cleanest guitar I have seen

but that could be remedied.

But paper shoved into the ‘e’ string hole to hold the bridgepin in, was a new one for me

And yeah, that is a plastic saddle

In the first photograph, you can see the cobwebs on the machineheads, but I failed to capture the nut there.

So, since the two had to go and were to be replaced by healthy, bone elements, let’s just cut to the chase and say that the swap took place without too much time or effort being wasted.

What I must mention here is that the owner decided to go for an unbleached nut (yellowish) instead of the usual bleached one (white). But before those got popped in, there was other work to be done. 

With the strings off, I cleaned up the fretboard, burnished the tarnished fretwires and oiled the fretboard and bridge.

Then came the fitting of the nut and the saddle: lots of measuring and sanding and measuring again before they sat in their respective slots.

With strings on, there came another few rounds of measurements and sandings. 

Finally, it was done

The issue of the paper stuck in the bridgepin hole of the ‘e’ string to keep the bridgepin from popping out, was simple enough. Once the ball end of the string sits right on the end of the bridgepin, the pin is bound to pop out as you tune up the string.

If it is ensured that the ball end is not caught on the end of the bridgepin, I see no reason why the pin should pop out.

I think I scored another happy customer!

 

Amit Newton

An experienced guitar tech with over 10 years of experience working on acoustic Gibsons and Martins in the Gulf region. There is nothing that cannot be repaired; the only consideration is the price at which it comes. And yet, if there is sentiment attached, no price is too high! WhatsApp/Call me: 7080475556 email me: guitarguyhelp@gmail.com

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