Shimming a Gypsy Guitar's Bridge

This guitar came into my shop with very low action (1/32" on the bass and treble) and, of course, some fret buzz.

The only way to get this guitar's action up to where it needed to be was to pop the bridge off and put some shims underneath. I masked off the top so as not to scratch the finish, and tapped the bridge out of the center with a couple of light taps with a mallet.

Luckily, I had some ebony around and was able to make shims of the proper sizes. I labelled them and marked the fronts, to avoid confusion in the future during string changes, etc. This was a job where I didn't want to glue the shims in place, because there were some obvious humidity issues with the guitar. It could still move some more, so we might be re-visiting this job in the future (hopefully not).

This bridge's edges were not completely square, so that the center section could be pressure-fitted. To add to this weirdness, the width of the center and the edges were different. These shims aren't going to be invisible due to these factors, but at least they're ebony and aren't an eyesore. The action's where it should be now, with no buzzing!

Bringing a '68 Fender Bronco Back to Life: Part One

I picked up a '68 Fender Bronco a while ago, and started working on it yesterday after putting it off for a few months.

I really like the tremolos on these guitars- one of the reasons I bought it- but this one's got a busted-off mounting screw. That's gonna be a fun one.

Somebody sprayed some cheap-o clear coat (I'm thinking it's polyurethane) over the fretboard and neck, so the fretboard was the first thing I decided to attack. I measured this stuff at being nearly 1/16" thick in some places - gross.

Getting the clear coat out of the spaces between the frets wasn't too bad, just a pretty time-consuming process.

 What I found to be most difficult here was to get the nasty buildup next to the frets.

I noticed when I bought it the pickup wasn't adjustable. Think I found the problem there (in the picture, the springs are just hangin' out on the bottom of the pickup). I put 'em where they should be.

There was a shim in the neck pocket that looks like it could be as old as the guitar. Fixing an oopsy at the factory maybe? I'm not sure, but that was interesting. Here's a picture of the electronics, just 'cause I always like to look at those in different guitars. .05 tone cap? Weird.

Continuing my Lutherie Education

About a month ago, I started working with one of the most awesome guitar builders in the nation, Ryan Thorell. Although it's only been a short time, I can already see some of my skills improving. Watching and learning at Thorell's shop has been a huge help to me, and I hope to be here for a while. I can only imagine how much I'll learn in the future.

I recently built a set of custom pickups for a Thorell guitar, which has 3 bass strings and 4 guitar strings. The pickups are in sort of a P-Bass configuration, and are RWRP in respect to neck and bridge positions. You can see the pickups here:

I'm pretty excited to see how they sound, and what the customer thinks!

On my own time, I'm working on building a pretty interesting guitar - I'd call it a mostly hollow (instead of semi hollow). It's got a redwood body with a douglas fir top plate, mesquite bridge and fretboard, redwood neck with carbon fiber reinforcements, a pickup I designed in the neck position, and will have an under saddle piezo pickup. The pickups will be run through a blend pot, volume, and tone. Can't wait to get it done and play it!