Well finally, a long awaited repair is complete.  I tackled a neck reset on this Gretsch New Yorker, which I took in 6 months ago.  It was the first attempt to steam off a dovetail neck and reset with the proper neck angle.  I must say that it is a fine result, and it sounds and plays much finer than what I started with.

There was the unfortunate issue of a new side crack due to the removal of the neck (previous neck reset was glued much too muchly).  But I was able to reset the crack and repaint the sides to hide the slight damage done with the neck removal.

A little black lacquer after careful crack filling made this unfortunate blemish disappear.

The previous neck reset added lots of shims and such, but eventually the neck bowed and the guitar became unplayable.  I was able to restore the proper neck angle, yet there’s still a bit of a down movement to the fretboard from 14 to 20.

The end result is a guitar that plays very well, with a reasonable clean up of the mishkabibble from the new crack from the neck removal.

I’m hoping the owner will find it eminently playable.  Not necessarily beautiful, but better than it arrived.

I was in Dusty Strings Saturday picking up a few odds and ends and ogling the stock.  I overheard that ukes are big sellers.  The fastest growth in sales over any other item within the store.  I’ve often considered building ukes, and get plenty of signals that this would be a good endeavor.  Not that a uke would be that much faster to build (it’s just a tiny guitar after all), but there may be a larger market out there to support sales.

So, I’m on the hunt for some quality uke plans as a starting point, then going to look into what it would take to create a production line for quick turnaround.

A lot of time this week has been spent on the building of a router table.  I have a router table that sat in my garage (the room for all my power tools) and was made of MDF which sat directly under the largest leak in the garage.  Needless to say, there are several leaks in my garage (circa 1910, cracked concrete, mostly below ground level).  All sorts of effort has been made to stop the leaks, but none successfully.  I’ve resigned myself to draping plastic garbage bags over all my power tools.  The MDF router table was unusable as it bulged from all the absorbed water over the past year.  I used it as a template and constructed a new one out of 3/4″ birch ply finished with lacquer.

I’ve been aware for some time that a router table with certain jigs is used quite a bit in luthier’s shops.  The first use is to radius bracing.  By building a jig that holds the brace blanks and has interchangeable radius templates, one can quickly and accurately radius braces and tonebars.  I’ve designed the jig, but haven’t constructed as of yet.  My design will allow for any width of brace and any radius that I have a template for (right now I have 40, 28, 20, 15, and 12).  I use 28 for the top and 15 for the back on my current guitar models.

I’ll post a few pics of the router table and jig once complete.

I completed the fret dress on the Rickenbacker bass.  It cleaned up real nice.  The frets were pitted in several positions from the 3rd up through the 9th frets.  I was able to dress down the frets leaving only one small deviation.  These frets are now down as far as they should go before a refret.

After filing the frets, the fretboard is protected with tape.  Each fret is then sanded and buffed.

The nut was removed prior to filing.  The nut is glued (lightly) back in place after the frets have been polished.  New strings were strung, took it for a test drive, and it’s a fine result.

Tom donated a semi-operational espresso machine which produces steam but no espresso.  I rigged up a hose and needle and use it to free up the glued dovetail joint in the neck.

Two holes were drilled at the 14th fret into the cavity where (hopefully) the dovetail joint resides.  It’s a bit of a crap shoot not knowing the width of the dovetail, but as luck would have it, I drilled into the cavity first time through.

It took quite some time to steam this sucker loose, as the previous neck reset was overglued (neck heel to body, bad jujus).  Some damage was done to the neck heel and the sides, but cleanup and fill will mask the damage.

The previous neck reset added extra wedges underneath the fretboard moving it farther away from the body, and a whole lot of shims.

I chiselled out all the excess shims and wedge under the fretboard and glued on two new shims, a bit oversized, but ready to be shaved down until a fine fit is achieved.

I’m doing this repair for a colleague who bought it on eBay.  Seller claimed it was “only a finish crack”.  Right.  The guitar obviously fell face first and the neck blunt forced the body into two cracks from the neck joint down through the body about two inches.  I’ll need to remove the neck, clean up the cracked finish, then glue and clamp the cracks.

So first, remove the neck.  Simple, 4 screws released, then neck pops out.

Neck has a tech’s signature and date of 3.20.03.

The cracks start at each side of the neck well and go down the back about two inches.

I applied CA glue to the back cracks, turned over then flooded the neck well with CA glue in the corners, then clamped.

While this was drying, I removed the bridge pickup to fix a loose adjusting screw.  The screw which adjusts the height of the pickup became unseated, so it just needed to be reattached.

Kristina is either the tech who installed the pickup, or the previous owner’s girlfriend wanted to mark his guitar.

Next, fill the cracked lacquer, sand, polish, then bolt the neck back on.

This little monster is going to take some effort.  A previous neck reset was done and a block was augmented or inserted between the body and the fretboard.

It’s too thick, it’s not uniform, and I suspect I will need to remove it and determine what kind of replacement block is needed.

The heel is coming away from the body, so to correct the neck angle and devise the right dimensioned block under the fretboard, I’ll need to steam this sucker off.  I quoted a “not to exceed” price to the customer, and I may have bit off a bit more than what I can get for this job.

I should have gotten this one out of the way a long time ago.  It’s a small job, fix ebony nut by repairing missing piece on the low E side.  I cleaned up the surface and glued on an oversized piece of ebony.  Once this has dried, it’s a simple matter of trimming and smoothing.

To wrap up, I need to straighten a bent tuning peg, then Larry can have his Classical guitar back into inventory.

There appears to be a neglected backlog of repair jobs to tackle.  For example:

A Rickenbacker Bass fret dress.

A Paul Reed Smith in need of a crack repair.

A New Yorker for a neck reset.

A couple of Parlors needing the same major rework/restoration.

And a classical needing a nut replacement.

Time to squeeze these in and make some progress.

Well, today was my last hurrah at my day job.  I’ve had a day job for as long as I can remember.  You know, a day job is one that pays the bills and allows you to pursue working at what you love.  Because generally, working at what you love doesn’t feed the babies.  Not that I have babies anymore, just savings sucking college tuitions that need to be fed.  Even with health care reform, the cost of medical insurance is way beyond our means, so I’ve got to find ways of bringing in bucks to cover costs.

I have a big wad of backlogged repairs, some of which are paid through barter, some of which are paying.  Now I’ve got the opportunity (time) to tackle those in earnest.

Two new repair jobs have come in:  1) a Rickenbacker bass that needs a fret dressing, and 2) a Paul Reed Smith electric which has a body crack at the neck joint.  Stand by for photo documentation of those repairs.

The backlog consists of 1) a Gretsch New Yorker that needs a neck reset, 2) a Parlor that MAY need a neck reset, 3) another Parlor which needs the top to be rebraced, 4) a classical that looks like the surface of the ocean (wavy), and 5) a classical that needs some tuner/headstock work.

I just finished another minor cosmetic repair on a Paul Reed Smith electric for a colleague, which was good practice for repairing and hiding lacquer blemishes.  He liked it so much, he brought me his other Paul Reed Smith (see above) for work.

I left my day job in good standing, AND got a ton of leads on repair work.

Oh yes, all this and finishing 905 and 906 and starting 1001 and 1002.  Better go mow the lawn and get that out of the way before I get started.