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That looks more like a kitchen junk drawer than the inside of a guitar!

Man I love that guitar and the sound JJ got from it!

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"Practice enough till the results aren't hopes but expectations" forum member Peter Havriluk

Pretty hard to compete with what has been posted but a while back a fellow brought his luthier built guitar in for a pickup. This may have been the secret to the builders signature sound.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Man Terry that one might make for a rough go at installing a K&K with three transducers that get glued in front of the pin holes....

"Luthier built" is being kind.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

Necessity truly is the mother of invention. I love these types of threads!

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George :-)

The sad thing was I saw another guitar by the same builder with an identical problem. He had left town by that time for points unknown.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Wherever he was headed, he probably wound up in the next town over by accident.

Ya know drilling through braces to install a pup is something that we see pretty commonly, sadly. One way to avoid this is to use rare earth magnets with something thin on the top to protect it.

Set up two sets of magnets along the inner (toward the center seam of the guitar top) edge of the X brace and then you have a visual reference that you can mark with masking tape on the top for where the X leg begins.

For some pups such as the Baggs stuff we are not keen to make a hard right angle in the element and instead like to drill the hole for the pass through and the extra hole for the element tip at an angle. This of course takes more space and has additional risk of hitting the X leg.

But with magnets to find and then tape to mark the location of the X leg on the guitar top we know what we have and were we can drill.

I just did this yesterday installing an Anthem in an OOOO Martin and it went fine.

BTW the tip of the element gets a pocket of it's own since the tip of the element is fairly dead as a pickup so we tuck it away to expose more of the active part of the element under the treble strings.

Let's see some more Don't Do stuff

If the women don/t find you handsome. at least you can be handy e.g. (duct tape ) quote by red green cdn TV show and comedian

This. And the pile of epoxy that had drooled all over the back.


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"It is easier to fool a man, than it is to convince him that he has been fooled"
Mark Twain

This guy I met at a luthier get together started visiting me. Every time me pretends its social. He however always brings a new creation. He brought this electric guitar he designed and built after he pain-ted it. I asked what happened. He looked confused and mentioned he touched the paint to see if it was dry, pointing to the finger prints in the paint. I said I thought it was a logo.
I then said I always remove the hardware and taped what could not be removed. He said he was in a hurry. After much laughter at it I said it was horrible. But it gets worse.
So a month later he visits with it repainted. He stripped it and had it repainted professionally but said the electrics were faulty, could I fix it.
The humbucker pickups were s/c and during opening by unsoldering my skin felt like it was being eaten away. I washed up and called him, he said he had soaked everything in paint stripper. I asked what he thought it would do to the pickups?!!
Long silence. He was lucky that after washing in water isopropyl alcohol mix when I opened the pickups only parts of the top layer were destroyed, the rest saved by the potting wax. After replacing all the rest of the circuitry like connection wires, and pots it worked. I told him never to bring another guitar for me to repair again.

We had to put our foot down and as policy we now refuse to work on anything unless it's been a successful guitar already. Weekly folks ask us to assemble parts guitars that they bought the stuff and now can't figure out where things go.

Regardless of the marketing hype the parts rarely fit together as advertised and piggybacking on the schlock house, amateur work of anyone else is asking for a bad reputation since no one will know where our work ends and the client's began.

Anyway Mike there is a saying in the repair business - no one brings us anything unless it's fffffed up.....

Do you know Rusty from Oz? He's coming to our shop day after tomorrow, can't wait to meet him.

Hesh, on that BC Rich shaped thing..... I would have it declared a Super Fund site, or arrange to have it disposed of by burning in a crematorium. Next time he shows up, treat him like you've never met before.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Don't eat glue...

A super fund site it is indeed!

I don't think its unfair to turn away work where it's hazardous to you as a professional... Especially so in a situation where the person appears to be witholding disclosure of key information.....

And Mr. BC Rich clone showed he doesn't have the decency to warn a professional what may lie beneath... At that point full stop - its too dangerous to allow him to continue on as a customer... The guy is going to kill somebody springing traps like that on people...

A full disclosure that it had been soaked in stripper assembled - you probably would have just chopped out the entire package of electronics and wiring - and started from scratch.... Or just burned it in a trash can out back...... As it is - trying to do the guy a favor almost got you hurt bad. Its lucky nothing caught you on fire or caused serious reactions with your skin/lungs....

As a business I can understand having a rule set. I started this as a hobby after my son wanted a new guitar while at school, and a Vietnam war vet donated one to a deserving player. My son had to return for a setup, he was happy for me to and see his workshop and fired up an interest. Since then I meet up with professional and hobbyists who became luthiers or are going down that road. The guitar in my post is always very critical of others work, so when he asked for help I thought it would be something worth seeing. I later discovered he had already destroyed willingness to help of others.

Sorry Hesh, don't know Rusty. I was away on a short trip so sorry for the delay in response.

The Butterfly on the Washburn was trying to fly away.

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Round of applause for the man putting a stinkin' great puddle of epoxy 2/3 of the way across under the nut to stop it falling off -

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I can relate..... Just one little drop folks on the fret board end, just one.... little.... drop...... AND ep*xy is not necessary either...

Colin perhaps we need to start a support group for traumatized Luthiers?

You'd think every once in a while you'd get a little cocaine or a message for help getting out of a sweatshop or something. But every time I crack one of these fortune cookies off a neck...........nothing.

See you and raise you a cautious $0.05.
Good job I had my suspicions and scored firmly along the finish at the back the nut, tapping it back and forward - I could have lifted half the headplate and/or the lacquer with it.
Next one I get a bad feeling about gets a saw cut or two first then some chisel work.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Ive seen that guitar in my shop several times .... uggg

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
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Have to wonder why they don't use a couple of finish nails to hold them in place while the epoxy sets.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker