It was this vintage 1974 Fender Strat with the original case and a Silverface Fender Princeton (not sure how that little Gibson amp photo-bombed us, but anyway…) Most of our donations – ALL of which are appreciated – are less expensive instruments that just aren’t being used. We spruce them up and give them to Intonation Music Workshop for their work teaching Chicago youth to play and write music together. It made sense to sell these pieces and use the proceeds to buy lots of instruments better suited to young learners. Both needed some attention and with big thanks to pickup repair expert Tom Brantley and the staff at Chicago Music Exchange, we were able to

turn this donation into enough funds to buy lots of instruments for IMW.

Even the original owner’s manual was in the case!

The Strat had two bum pickups, so we called on the great Tom Brantley Electric Guitar Pickup Rewinds who generously donated his time to re-wind them.

The amp sounded pretty bad, so we spruced it up with some new tubes and a thorough cleaning.

With both pieces looking and sounding their best, we passed them on to Chicago Music Exchange who listed them on reverb.com . When the amp sells this donation will have raised nearly $3000 that will be used to buy instruments for the IMW kids. If you have an instrument in working or close to working condition that you’d like to donate, bring it in any time. We’ll get it into the anxious hands of a youngster just getting started playing music.

How about a look at some of those IMW kids performing with none other than Wilco bassist John Stirratt?

This Taylor GS7 was accidentally dropped and unfortunately landed in an unforgiving spot. Sometimes a guitar takes a fall and a small dent or two is the only result; you chalk it up to wear and tear, and move on. This one wasn’t that lucky. The result was a series of breaks and splits in the spruce top, a number of loose braces, separated binding, and a missing chunk on the edge of the top. We decided to repair the structural damage, then remove the neck and bridge to refinish the entire top. But to make it look great, we took it one step further. When it was all done, we knew we made the right choice.

We started by repairing the top cracks themselves and cleaning up the binding channel to re-glue the edge binding.

Next, came the large areas of missing top material. Joe decided that rather than having two sections to patch, it would be a better looking and easier repair to clear a single section and fit one replacement piece.

He chose a piece of spruce with similar looking grain patterns and used a Dremel tool to carefully open and clean up the edges of the fracture.

With the spruce patch in place, he was ready to replace the binding that had completely broken off in that area, smoothing the edge with a sharp chisel.

Next he removed the bridge and completely sanded away the finish down to the bare wood.

Next a few sealing coats of clear paint. The patch was still visible and fairly conspicuous – so we had an idea…

…how about a sunburst?

It turned out beautifully and masked a complex series of repairs to the point that the owner can forget about it completely and return to making music with a new/old friend.

We’ve been privileged to do some work with Chicago’s hometown heroes, Wilco. This National Duolian dates to the mid 1930’s and is an interesting companion piece to our earlier post about a 30’s National neck reset. A design feature that made that one especially challenging, is remedied in this model – with great results. This guitar was a bit of a surprise to us because one rarely sees resophonic guitars as part of a Wilco set. It was used quite a bit though while recording the new Jeff Tweedy-produced Mavis Staples record “One True Vine.” . To play comfortably, it needed the neck angle reset and the biscuit bridge replaced, but Jeff requested that the modifications stop there to preserve all of the tonal characteristics that drew him to it in the first place. It’s a rather dark-sounding instrument with a richer bass sound than lots of metal-body guitars. Beyond that, the green/gold finish is just beautiful to look at.

So back to that design characteristic I just mentioned – right? Take a close look at the F holes, and you’ll notice that the edges are rounded or rolled – a metal working technique that stiffens the material considerably. This makes the top more stable and able to withstand the pressure and pull of string tension. The two steel supports that hang from the top at right angles (pictured below) help a lot too – replacing the earlier model’s two wooden supports. All in all, it’s a big improvement over the non-rolled design from just a couple of years earlier.

To reset the neck, we removed the resonator cone and neck – which is held in place by an extension stick that runs the length of the body inside.

To kick the angle back to the correct spot, we’ll need to carefully remove some material from both the neck stick (above) and the neck heel (below.)

Next, Dan installs a new National biscuit bridge. The original had been lowered to get the action more playable but at some point one runs out of bridge to lower; that’s when it’s time to reset the neck.

There’s some stringing, unstringing, and restringing involved with getting the neck and bridge aligned correctly. When it’s just right, the cover plate can go back into place.

The playing action is nice and smooth now, with all of the warmth and depth that the guitar had before. Hopefully, Wilco fans will be hearing more from this guitar in the future!

We see a lot of Rickenbacker basses and guitars in our shop. They are beautiful and unique sounding instruments that also happen to have some quirks that can drive repairmen crazy. For example, modern Rics use two truss rods to make the bass and treble sides of the neck independently adjustable. It’s useful, but the one additional adjustment can be time consuming because the oversized truss rod cover, engraved with the name Rickenbacker, requires loosening the strings to get it on and off the guitar. To make matters worse, those two rods are often bent underneath the truss cover, making them impossible to even fit with a truss rod wrench. Any experienced guitar tech, and most Rickenbacker owners, can name several other unusual characteristics that make them a challenge to work on. The payoff though, is that it all adds up to make one of the more recognizable sounds among electric guitars.

This 1960 (we think) model 360 pre-dates the dual truss rod design. But it suffers from that same buried truss rod condition we see in more recent guitars. Here’s a look underneath the nameplate/ truss-rod cover at thetruss rod and adjustment nut. You can see that it’s angled downward (the result of 50-plus years of string tension.) There’s no way to easily slip an adjustment wrench over the nut when this happens.

The culprit is the very week and thin washer just below the nut. It doesn’t offer enough leverage to keep the rod straight. That’s the part we’re going to change. You can also see how the factory created this cavity – by making three holes with a brad-point drill bit – a practice that has been long-since abandoned.

The good news is that a skilled repairman can carefully – but rather easily – remove the entire truss rod. (To discourage you from trying it yourself, we’re not going to show that step. We don’t recommend it even if you find photos elsewhere.)

We then fabricated an aluminum block that is larger and stronger than that washer and fits perfectly into the existing space.

Once the block is properly fitted, we can center-tap it for the original truss rod, and fit it with a fresh brass nut. This improvement should last for many many years.

Once the truss rod repair is complete, we gave it The Works set-up and put the gold truss cover back into place.

The wear mark to the left of the “R” is a result of the old rod nut. The cover is clear plastic which has been painted gold from underneath. It’s a beautiful old guitar that sounds just amazing. We’re glad it’s got another lifetime of music ahead of it.

When you really think about it, it’s a wonder there’s any clean and unaltered guitars from the 50’s and 60’s anymore. With the style tastes we saw in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, it’s kind of amazing that they weren’t all converted into chartreuse, flat-necked, jumbo-fretted, locking-trem-equiped metal machines! Maybe if there were more guitar repair & refinishing shops around 30 years ago – when vintage guitars were called “used” or “old,” there’d be even fewer to choose from. Compared to some craziness we’ve seen, this 1968 Fender Strat isn’t too bad. It’s been refinished and had the pickguard as well as some other parts replaced. But luckily, the owner held onto most of the original parts. He asked us to put the original parts back on, strip the black paint away and refinish it back to its original 3-tone sunburst, and bring it back to the way it once looked. Of course, one of the major obstacles to that is that the Kahler installation required a body rout that we’ll need to make disappear.

While we’re at it, we’ll want to fill the screw holes from the nut lock, and make it look as normal as possible without sacrificing all of the original finish and the headstock logo.

You might also notice the updated, non-original tuning machines. Those will have to go too.

Once we removed the blue mirror pickguard, we could see the Kahler rout in all its glory, as well as some very rough modifications to the pickup routs. It looks like they were opened up to fit humbuckers at one time – and the work may have been done with a hammer and chisel! We made sure we cleaned up the pickup rout, before filling the more critical bridge rout and magically making it disappear.

Looks pretty good, eh? The incredible vanishing bridge rout went away with the help of a hardwood plug – custom made to fill that hole, some opaque backing paint, and some deft work with drawn-in grain lines.

The original pickguard, tuners, and bridge went back in place, along with one new Lollar Special S bridge pickup, it’s starting to look just about right. One aside about vintage pickguards – they shrink. We were lucky to get this one to fit pretty well, but recommend mounting one onto a spare piece of plywood or some scrap piece if you anticipate it being off for a length of time.

If you peek under the hood a little, it will be evident that this guitar is not in its original condition. But it’s a lot closer after some careful work.

The 80’s were pretty rough on lots of old guitars. But that doesn’t mean they can’t return to their original glory with a little help from Chicago Fret Works!

Chicago winters kill guitars. The weather gets dry and cold, so we turn on our furnaces – drying out the air in our homes even further. Many will see their indoor relative humidity drop below 20% . That’s 25-30% lower than the factories where guitars are made and the wood just doesn’t like it. Like the skin on our fingertips and the seams on our hardwood floors, dry guitars can split open without ever being dropped or otherwise mishandled. Other symptoms we see include:

• rough fret ends that stick out past the edge of a fretboard
• loose bridges and braces
• loose neck joints
• separations along the many glue joints that hold a guitar together
• dramatic changes in playing ‘action’

So what can you do to prevent costly repairs to these problems? There’s so many choices hanging in guitar stores that it can be hard to tell which one to buy. Here’s a look at the products that will best help you keep your guitar healthy and happy this winter. You’ll also find a simple formula for how to effectively use them.

We’ve heard some interesting home remedies over the 15 or so years we’ve been working on guitars – from leaving a baggie with a wet sponge in a guitar case to putting an apple or potato inside a case (NOT recommended by this shop!) And we’ve seen lots of products too -from film canister size humidifiers with clay inside to rubber tubes with a sponge inside to space-age devices that  can offer protection for months. We’re always looking for answers to this problem and as of 2012, this is our prescription for keeping your guitar properly humidified:

1. Use a good sized room humidifier

We’ are of the opinion that case humidifiers are not enough for many guitars. Create an environment that is healthier for you and your guitar by humidifying your home or at least the room where your guitars live. We’ve grown fond of the Lasko humidifiers like the one above because they hold lots of water – enough for a couple of days at least. 40-50% is ideal, but if you can keep the room’s relative humidity over 30%, you will sleep and breathe better, and your guitar-case humidifiers will be able to do the rest. So how do I know if it’s over 30% then, you ask. A digital hygrometer placed near the case will tell you.

2. Use a guitar case humidifier. Below are our favorites.

First Choice for Acoustic Guitars – Oasis

($20) We really like these humidifiers. They hold enough distilled water to last from one to two weeks without needing to be refilled. Special crystals inside expand into a super absorbent paste that should be replaced each year (replacement kits are available at CFW for $6.) One advantage Oasis holds over every other product is that it will tell you when it’s time to refill by collapsing into a raisin-like appearance that says “Yo! Gettin’ a little dry over here!”

Runner-up Choice for Guitars:  Planet Waves Humidipak*

($30) When used with a room humidifier, the Humidipak is a great product that will keep a constant level of humidity inside your case. Three removable packets hang in black mesh pockets (two for the soundhole and one for behind the headstock,) releasing just enough moisture to keep the inside of your guitar case at a comfortable 48% for up to 3 months. Because there is moisture is all in those packets, there’s no need for constant refilling with water. We do have a couple of concerns about the Humidipak, however. First, it cannot do all of the “heavy lifting” when it comes to humidifying the guitar. If the room it lives in is a dry one, it’s going to work much harder and those packets will dry up within a month. Second, while there’s no refilling a water reservoir every week, the packets need to be replaced when they dry out and the cost is about $20 for three. We strongly recommend that it be used in conjunction with a regularly maintained furnace or room humidifier.  Read more about it at www.planetwaves.com . While you’re there, be sure to check out the video of Bob Taylor from Taylor Guitars to see what he thinks.

For the tight budget – Planet Waves Humidifier

($8) If you play your guitar every day or two and don’t mind refilling a sponge that often, Planet Waves’ original guitar humidifier is the least expensive option. It’ll work as well as the others but will need more attention.

Humidifying F-hole guitars – Humitron/Dampit tube

($8) Finally, we do keep a few of the old-style tube humidifiers for guitars and mandolins that have F-holes or for those who just like this style. Fill them up every one to two days.

The Recipe For Keeping A Guitar Properly Humidified:

• A FULL humidifer
• Inside the guitar
• Inside the case   (NOT hanging on the wall or on a stand.)
• From October through April (or as long as the heat is on in your home)

…Or ignore this advice and come see us in the spring for the best structural repairs anywhere!

Once upon a time, a buddy of ours found a listing on Craigslist for a Gretsch Corvette “project.” It turned out to be this body/neck that had been stripped,  routed for different and additional pickups, then filled in with a putty/paste, and eventually became another project that the previous owner just wasn’t going to get around to. So our friend bought it and began thinking about what it could become. There was very little left of the “original” guitar apart from its structural components – neck, body, fretboard – and there were no breaks or egregious modifications to its shape. With a blank canvass to work with, what direction to go…?

While most of the finish was sanded away, a bit of the original bright red paint remained behind.

The headstock logo on the bright red background told us that this was probably not a cherry red Corvette, but actually the rare Twist model. It probably looked a lot like this one:

But in a search for old models online, this image below appeared and suddenly there was another option.  A history of the Corvette line shows that in 1962, Gretsch designed the “Princess” model, designed to attract young women to the electric guitar. There are some that were painted pink, some a creamy white with pink pickguard, but most were the off-white color with a gold pickguard and hardware seen below.

So this was the new plan. But we decided on some modern touches to improve its playability and sound to suit the owner’s tastes. We would use a permanently affixed Schaller rolling bridge instead of the floating vintage style, add a Bigsby vibrato, and a TV Jones Classic Plus pickup. We started by planing the fretboard perfectly level and installing new frets.

Then we re-shaped the old bridge pickup rout to fit the TV Jones size and shape, sanded and pore-filled the body, and added a clear plastic Corvette shaped pickguard and truss rod cover. We’ll paint them gold on the underside.

Then it was into the spray-booth. We worked off of as many online photos of original Princesses as we could find to get the color just right.

Fully dressed, this Princess is ready for the… Ugh! Enough with the Disney crap; it looks killer and sounds even better! The TV Jones pickup gives you a great range from almost Tele-like when lightly picked, to a nasty growl when you dig into chords a little.

The Schaller roller bridge added sustain and power to the notes, while helping to keep the strings in tune with the new Bigsby B5 vibrato. At the customer’s request, we dulled the finish slightly to take the edge off all this gold bling.

We have a great decal-maker who provides us with customized vintage logos that are spot-on perfect. We think it was a great call to go with the less-common Princess design for this restoration and the modern touches turned it into a great sounding players’ guitar.

The Rokes were a mid-1960’s English band that found their greatest success when they relocated to Italy. There, the Italian guitar maker EKO developed this awesome, futuristic design for The Rokes that resembled both the Gibson Flying V, and a rocket ship! This particular guitar had a rough road that included a rather rough refinish in gold and the addition of what appears to have been a Kahler or similar style locking tremolo at some point. With its single Dearmond pickup, it seemed like it would make a good single pickup / LP Jr. style guitar. We decided to fill the bridge rout and refinish in a new col0r too. Check it out.

One of the requirements of locking tremolo bridges, is a corresponding locking nut. This one obviously had one once upon a time. We wound up filling the back of the enlarged nut slot and making a new bone nut.

We filled the bridge rout with an epoxied hardwood block.

Then sanded it level and stripped the rest of the guitar.

Here, Dan begins re-painting by shooting the body with sanding sealer.

Then an intermediate white coat to give the final color a solid background.

And finally the new color! It’s a medium, slightly metallic green. Once we saw it on the guitar, we started to get excited about how this one could turn out.

And here’s the final product. We installed a wraparound single piece bridge which gives it a very solid, rock tone.

In this light, it starts to look closer to blue. A nice effect.

And if you’re wondering about the Rokes, you can read about them here.

And you can listen to their original Italian version of their biggest hit Piangi Con Me below. Recognize the tune? The English translation became “Live For Today” by The Grass Roots a few years later. This was a fun guitar to work on and it gave us a little rock history too. Can’t beat that!

We don’t see many sitars around here, so it bears mentioning this interesting electric model. It’s made by Indian builder  Rikhi Ram and features a top set of six main strings and a set of 11 sympathetic vibrating strings underneath. When we received it , the original factory-made pickup had been replaced rather clumsily with a Duncan Dimebucker – which is a very good pickup and, using rail magnets, not a bad choice for an instrument with non-guitar string spacing. However the pickup itself needs to sit between the two courses of strings and be able to amplify both sides and the Duncan was so thick that it touched the strings on both sides – without amplifying the lower set. We needed to find a slim pickup to sit between the two sets of strings and amplify both. Here’s the solution we came up with.

Here’s a look at the Dimebucker installation. The lower strings are touching the bottom of the pickup and the upper strings are actually sitting on the pole pieces. That’s not going to work! We’ve done several successful installations of the very thin National Slimline humbucker pickup on resophonic guitars like Dobro’s and Nationals. We decided that was a better choice here too. As it’s name suggests, it’s only about 1/4″ thick, and once we put a couple of rosewood lifts on either side of the lower string set, it not only fit right, but offered just the right amount of volume from that sympathetic course. The tone of these pickups is very clear and clean, which keeps it sounding like an actual sitar rather than an electric guitar.

After some failed attempts at actually playing this instrument, we decided to leave it to someone more qualified. Mr. Harrison, take it away…

Not long ago, Elvis – or at least the actor who plays him in Chicago’s Million Dollar Quartet – brought his guitar in for a new K&K Pure Mini pickup and a set-up. We’ve had the pleasure of working on guitars for Elvis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash from the show and can not recommend it enough. Great music, played by skilled musicians who channel the pioneers of rock & roll like you won’t believe.

This Martin D-28M happens to be the first of four prototypes made for that model. It sounds brilliant with an adirondack spruce top, Madigascar rosewood back and sides, and some of the coolest inlays you’ll see. For the full technical specs – including the tooled leather cover, check out the profile on Martin Guitar’s website. In the meantime, here’s some closer looks.

The inside label, reading Prototype # 1 of 4.

Headstock inlay.

Autograph inlay at the 12th fret.

The iconic photo that inspired the headstock inlay.