Electronic Surgery

I feel like a surgeon when I work on electronics on guitars. Protecting the finish is so much easier than repairing the finish if the solder splashes and melts the finish, or any other surprises that may occur!

Grand Canyon on my Zebra Wood Strat

I have a Zebra Wood Strat body I bought around 1977, it is a Schecter body, back when Schecter used to make parts, and what great parts they made too. The bridge, the jack plate and the knob all were bought about the same time, all Schecter parts too. Great stuff.

I got plexi-glass material and made a pickguard. I made this about 11 years ago. I used to have a Beatles picture under the plexi. I recently put a Grand Canyon picture, one of my calandar pictures. It is the North rim of the Grand Canyon with snow in it. I love how the brown and white stripes match the Zebra Wood. You can now buy plexi pickguard material. Mine was originally just a sheet of plexi.

I love this strat. The neck is an All Parts neck, big frets, Fender roller nut with roller string trees. The pickup is a Duncan JB with a volume knob and a single, series, parallel switch. Oh, and the bridge is a non tremelo bridge, strings through the body. No tuning issues here, you can bend the notes like crazy and it always returns to proper tuning. The headstock has a decal that is my name.

Years ago this guitar had three strat pickups, real sweet sounding.

Epiphone SG With Broken Headstock

This Epiphone SG was dropped at a music store and was thrown in the junk pile where my lucky brother picked it up and bought it for very little money to salvage the parts. He is a huge SG fan and has many so he figured spare parts would be good to have. When I caught wind of this I said "don't touch it, don't do anything, I will fixed it for you....."  He said "ok.....?!" I picked it up with the strings still attached and the head taped together to hold it near where it should be.  




Nice clean break makes for a good glue joint.

Fender Jazz Bass with Uneven Action and Back Buzz

Got a Fender Jazz Bass in the other day....the action, (height of strings) got higher as it went up the neck, (toward the body). The truss rod was tightened all the way. The owner wanted the strings level all the way up the neck. What do you do? I heat the neck to reshape it so that the neck does not have what I call a "ski jump" at the end of the neck, (end is frets 21+).  Once it is level then I can use the truss rod again and have plenty of travel left in the rod after it is adjusted.

When there is a "ski jump" at the end it causes fret buzz when played between frets 12 through 15, when the strings, or action, is lowered. It is because the fingerboard is higher around fret 20 and lower around fret 12, or in other words fret 12 area is in a valley, and fret 20 is higher than 12.

The way to cure that is to tighten the truss rod, which raised the valley, or straightens out the neck. If the truss rod is already tightened all the way, then you can't get rid of the valley. There may be a compound problem, the truss rod may make the area between frets one and twelve too straight or give it a back bow and will not "raise the valley" in the area of frets twelve through twenty one. That is where the heating comes in.

Les Paul Hits the Dirt

Gibson Les Paul with a cracked peg head that someone had  screwed together and did not use any glue. Filler was used to hide crack line and then painted over with a house type paint.

The guitar was dropped a second time and a crack ran down the neck a couple inches parallel to the truss rod. A couple hose clamps do a great job of holding it together. 

Paint scraped off and clamped and glued in the right places. Wood dowels were glued into the two screw holes.

Couple clamps and hose clamps and glue go a long way! You can see the dowels  sticking out of the neck.

Penco Acoustic Bridge Repair

This Penco Acoustic had a bridge with a crack that ran from end to end, through the bridge pin holes. Normally if glued back together and glued to guitar it will not hold due to string tension pushing forward on the crack.

The owner wanted to keep the guitar, it had played well in the past and wished to keep it in good playing condition. It was near impossible to find a new bridge that looked like the original.

Lots to Come

Sorry there has been no activity on my blog.  I have been very busy with music projects. Have lots of stories and interesting repairs to talk about, I also have been taking photos of the repairs, which I will be adding to the blog. By the end of May there should be some new activity. Thank you for being patient. Good things come to those who wait! Happy Spring!       -Dianne

It Goes Out Of Tune While I Am Playing!

STRING STRETCHING

I haven't mentioned the most basic and easiest problem to eliminate? I don't think so.

If you are playing and the guitar starts in tune then it goes out after a while, it is a symptom of string slippage, or what some people call string stretching.

Classical guitar strings 1, 2, and 3 do stretch. They take hours of tuning and pulling before they stay in tune. Metal strings do not continue to stretch. Once they are up to pitch they do not stretch out, they remain at that tension unless you bend a note.

What does give you impression that something is stretching is the string wraps around the tuner post are not tight and the string wrap is getting tighter when you either bend a note or they very gradually get tighter as you play, due to string tension.

How to solve this problem is to neatly wrap the string around the post by wrapping each new wrap below the previous wrap. In some instances you may need to wrap above the previous, we'll save that explanation for another day!

Locking the string has amazing results. I have been locking my stings since I was about 19 years old, and let me tell you, I would have it no other way. For example when I do a gig I can put new strings on right before the gig and have no tuning issues. I bend almost every other note and never have to re-tune.

Locking the strings basically means you have one wrap cross over another and have only about 3 or 4 wraps then pull the string taught till it stops slipping when pulled or bent.

One other method, which I prefer, is a locking locking wrap. If I can get a picture posted here I will. In the meantime I will explain in words. If you wish to experiment and try this use a piece of twine so you are not wasting guitar sting.

Things That Make You Go Aaaarrrrggggghhhhhh!!

MAGNETIC PULL

More talk on tuning......Yea more, so much can effect your tuning. Pick ups can make your guitar play sharp (higher note) or even cause vibrato (note shakes). Original style Stratocaster (Strat) pick ups have magnets for pole pieces. Six of them, one for each string. Other style of guitars may have the same.

When these magnets/pole pieces get too close to the metal string it pulls on the string. The strings with more mass or size, get pulled easier than the thin strings. If you use a tuner and you see the note fluctuating a couple cents higher and lower from the in tune mark, that means the magnets are pulling on the string. Usually it is a fast fluctuating. Than is when you can sometimes hear the note shaking like a vibrato sound.

The G or third string is thick enough to get magnetic pull. I haven't heard vibrato sounds form that string, but I have heard string rattle. I believe the magnet is making the string vibrate in a larger sweep, causing it to hit the fret tops on the upper end of the neck (15-21st fret and higher). That will create a nasty annoying buzzy rattle in the notes.

I came to this conclusion when I had to remove pick guards in order to adjust truss rods while doing a set up. The guitar played great with out the pick guard then buzzed when I put it back on. Lowering the pick ups made the buzz go away.

I had the customer come in and play it with out the pick guard then put it on and they would play it again. Then they experienced it for themselves.

When I have any metal tool next to the pick ups the tool gets pulled to the pick up. Unfortunately I am seeing more of those guitars than I want to.

What Does It Mean when Your Guitar Won't Tune?

I want to talk about " What does it mean when your guitar won't tune".

People bring guitars to me all the time and say, "It won't tune...." OK, I can sympathize with that, I go nuts when my guitar won't tune properly.

There are many different factors in keeping your axe in tune. First thing to consider is, " Does it get tuned up and play OK for a time, then, go out of tune?" Or does it, "Never get properly in tune" ?

If it is the second, never gets in tune, the next question is....."Do only the bar chords (closed chords with no open strings) tune up properly, and the open chords, (chords with open strings) play out of tune?"

If that is the case, then that is a symptom of an intonation problem. The open string (non-fretted) is not in relationship with fretted note, or in other words, the scale length (or length of string) is not relative to the frets. The length of the string does effect the tuning, so does the age of the strings, and how much dirt or anything that translates to extra weight on the string. If the nut end of the string is not at proper length there is nothing you can do to make the open string play in tune with the fretted note.

How does that happen you ask? Improper wear in the nut grooves changes the scale length.

Now, don't all rush out and buy tools and try to improve your guitar nut, believe me when I tell you, It is not easy to "cut nuts". Really, you need the exact tool and technique or it will not work right and there will be a rush on guitar nut repairs. Cutting the nut properly is difficult and must be done with great precision.

Inaccurate cuts can create a whole new batch of problems, such as a rattling sound when the string is played open, this occurs when the string is loose in the slot and is moving around.

Clicking when the notes in fret area 1 through 4 are bent. That occurs when the string is being pushed to the side of a too wide nut slot.

Clicking when bending the string, or clicking when you tune the string is caused by the string slot being too tight and the string releases after being held back (or pinched) in the very tight nut slot. When the tension gets high enough, the nut slot cannot hold back the string any more, and the string finally releases and makes a click, that is when the string usually goes too far in the direction you were going in.

Have I lost you yet? If not, continue, if I have, move down to the third paragraph!

When the nut slot is too low the open string hits the first fret, causing noise with that note or worse, there is no open note because it will sound like the first fret note because the string is pressing on the first fret.

If the slot is too high, the first fret or two, sometimes three, will play sharp because you are actually stretching the string to reach the fret. May sound silly or unbelievable, but the guitar string changes tension very easily, which changes the tuning.

My First Blog

As you can see this is my first blog, and my first post. I am Dianne Redstone, I have been repairing guitars and basses since about 1978 when I was hired as an apprentice to Eddie Murray, owner of Euco Fretts, at E.U.Wurlitzer Music store in Boston.

After a couple of years working right next to Eddie and receiving daily training, I also diagnosed up to ten guitars a day, sometimes more. We were situated one block from Berklee College of Music which enabled us to repair up to 15 guitars a day, sometimes more.

One think for sure is that I have seen many guitars, some amazing, some terribly not so amazing. I have looked down many-a-necks! I have one reply to that......it is a crazy world of guitars out there! Sometimes it's scary when you realize how many guitars are made in one day. That's a lot of wood. " where has all the good wood gone, long time passing....." (sung to "Blowing in the Wind").

For now, bottom line is I do a lot of diagnosing, so I enjoy a good set-up.

I think where I will go with this is I want to talk about the repairs I get in my shop which is Located about 50 miles from Boston. We don't get "Superstar's guitars" out here, but believe me, I have had my share. Which bring me to thought I would like to share......I don't feel as if a "Superstar's" guitar (or National Recording Artist's guitar) deserves any more special treatment than the plain ol' Joe down the street, (with all due respect...).

I will do the same amount of special treatment on everyone.

Stay Tuned!

Hope to have my first post soon, stay tuned, in the mean time!

Site under construction.

The first post is the hardest.........

I recommend to everyone who reads this....... go out and support your local music store and purchase a nice new set of strings and give that axe a new fresh sound.......... then jam on!

-Dianne Redstone