All lacquered (not licquored) up and ready  to go. This has been a pretty satisfying reworking of the guitar.  I was able to get the bow out of the neck, reshape the neck profile, refret with slightly higher frets, change the color, and lower the action.  Pretty successful on all accounts. The final setup went well and I am very pleased […]

The refret went pretty well.  No more nibs, but I’m not a traditionalist.  I did come up with a nice trick to clean up the fret slots.  I did not have a fancy refret saw, so I picked up a $10 X-Acto laser saw kit at the local hardware store (the little red handled tools in the photo below).  It […]

It should be no surprise that the second time around is usually better than the first.  So many lessons are learned the first time around that can be corrected the next time around.  After playing my Les Paul style guitar for the summer and chatting with a local luthier it was clear that I needed to do some additional work […]

After six months or so with Tequila it’s time to fix what I got wrong up front.  Basically I never got the neck straight, it was a bit chunky, and I used fret wire that was not high enough.  So, a refret, neck reshape, and fingerboard leveling.   All part of the experience and learning process. Almost done with the big […]

The last major step, wiring the guitar.  It has been a long time since I soldered any wires.  And even then, it was just one or two wires every few years to fix a vacuum cleaner or toaster.  So I was a little nervous about messing this up somehow.  The Net is rife with stories about folks who have taken […]