Scott's Guitar Blog

Weissenborn Ukulele Repair

This stunning little 1920s Weissenborn style 3 ukulele fell into my lap on Ebay. I'm very happy. There are so few of these in existence, that even most hardcore Weissenborn collectors have never seen one. It is said that only a couple dozen ukes were built by him.

This one was missing about 4 inches of the checkered maple and rosewood binding known as "rope binding".
I decided to make it myself using a glue-up of strips, trimming at an angle across the glue-up to get the check pattern, gluing the strip in place, then leveling it to the top. I then applied a light finish over the new strip to match. It is so close now you'd have to really look hard to tell at all. It plays and sounds amazing too!

Please feel free to contactme about any guitar repair issues, or if someone you know has a Weissenborn,
Kona, or other instrument needing rope binding repair!

The Natural Wonder is Finished!

I finished making "The Natural Wonder" this week, the guitar featured in some of my previous articles.
I'm very proud of it, and its owner Eric Weingrad of the Pittsburg band TheCause will be picking it up this week.

Here's how I describe it on my website:

This guitar glows with the natural beauty of the wood. Figured maple and mahogany join together to create an organic yet striking form. The figured grain cascades like a waterfall over the thick maple's curved edge.
Its warm, full background tone is tipped with clear bright highs. Custom made Lindy Fralin high-output humbuckers and locking Sperzel tuning machines. Volume and blend pots, 3-way switch and mini phase switch complete the electronics. Dial up the blend pot in phase mode to create a richer, thicker phase tone than traditionally possible. The figured maple pickup mounting rings add a sophisticated sculptural touch.

Please visit my website to see more of my work!

Electric Guitar Body Finishing

Hi everyone,

I'm back with more on the guitar I'm making for Eric Weingrad of TheCause
It should be complete in a week or two...Thes photos show my ultrviolet curing rig in use. (It is a hand-held unit, but I put it down in the photo to take the shot).

After several coats are srayed, the guitar is hit with the UV light for several minutes until the finish is hard.
Then the final wet-sand and buff out takes place.

I wanted to show the thick layers of wood used to make this body...you can see a dramatic "waterfall" effect as the flamed maple rolls over the top edge. This amazing depth and drama can't be acheived with a thin top.

Please viist my website for more on custom guitars!

Guitarist Melvin Miller Jr.

A couple weeks ago a player came to my shop with a nice old Gibson 335 with a broken headstock.
His name was Mel Miller, and he was soft-spoken, polite, and cared a great deal about his guitar. All good qualities. After I asked him a few questions, he shared some of his musical background.

Mel was the pit guitarist for Motown for one...He was also the guitarist for The Supremes in the mid 1970s, writing 2 songs on their last album. Mel was a staff songwriter with Holland Dozier Holland, and also worked with Funk Brothers bassist James Jamerson. In addition to that, he was the musical director for Motown's The Originals. The list of acts and artists Mel has played with is substantial.

These days Mel is the musical director for Dr. K's Motown Revue,a slammin band that I had the pleasure of hearing several years ago.

Mel was happy with the repair to his great guitar, played a bit, thanked me, and off he went! It's always great to meet and get to know artists who were there to help shape one of America's original art forms.

Please visit the S.B. MacDonald Custom Instruments website!

Mini Guitar Repair Camera!

I've been using this neat little guitar repair camera gizmo for several years now in my shop both for repairs, as well as showing clients the inside of their guitars so they can see what is going on. I put it together after a client had a horrible time trying to use a mirror to see into his guitar. Customers really like the "guit-tour" they get now when I do an evaluation of an instrument!

In these photos, I'm gluing two loose tone bars for a terrific writer and player named Josh Joffen, who has won multiple times at the famed Kerville Festival.

Typically when gluing loose braces, one has to feel around inside the guitar through the sound hole and attempt to guide the syringe under the loose brace by "feel". Even after getting the needle under the loose brace, it is tough to squeeze in the glue perfectly, as the tip may have gone under all the way and out the other side. You're flying blind so to speak, and it isn't terribly rare to poke yourself! You squeeze the syringe, hope it went where it should, pull out and look in with a mirror to see if all went well. That's how I USED to do it....

With this magical little ultra-low light cam, light filters through the guitar's top to provide illumination...that's right...no internal lights! I can watch real-time as I slide the needle exactly where it needs to be, and see the glue going where it should. It is a precise, clean way to do a perfect job.

You can see in the last photo, the squeeze-out of glue from the clamp!

Please visit my site CustomGuitars.com for more on repairs and custom guitar building.

All the best, Scott

New Electric Guitar

This great new customer did what none have before...He brought me a piece of wood he had under his bed for 10 years! Eric traveled from Philly with this amazing piece of flamed maple. We decided to make the body with thick wonderful slabs of mahogany for the back, and his maple for the top. 3/4" thick for both the back and the top. This creates a sculptural quality to the body, with a pronounced waterfall of flamed grain rolling over the top edge. I could have made three tops out of that piece, but I don't like to skimp!

The photos below show the mahogany being joined, then coated with glue for the glue-up with the top.
You can see the drawing on the blank prior to bandsawing out the body, and lastly, the final woodworking all completed, on my shop-stand from my previous blog article.

Please visit my websitefor more on guitarmaking!

Cool New Shop Stand

About a month ago I bought this very cool new tool from Stewart MacDonald Guitar Shop Supply that doubles as a shop stand and workbench. It is a pedestal stand which adjusts vertically, and also rotates on a ball bearing swivel 360 degrees. I also purchased a vise that fits it perfectly called an "angle vise" in the Stew Mac catalog. When joined to the stand, the vise/pedestal combo is amazing.

I've made several different fixtures which mount to the vise including a top with a hollow radiused form for acoustic guitar work, a smaller routing and carving table for electric bodies, and a vacuum dish that uses air to hold parts in front of me at any angle, rotation, and height I want. All the fixtures have a block mounted under them which drops into the vise for a secure hold, but just to be safe, I made a long pin that slips through the vise jaws and the block to hold the fixtures in case the vise comes loose. Nothing can fall this way.

It's compact footprint in my shop allows me to move freely around it, work from any side want to, and has
opened up my other benches for more work!

Please visit my website to see more on guitar making and repair at www.customguitars.com

-Scott

Newest Acoustic Finished!

Here's the guitar that was featured several times as it was being built. It belongs to Gerry McKeveny,
and he picked it up this morning. It is similar to a 000 body size, but a bit deeper. Back and sides are quilted mahogany, the top is cedar with "bear-claw" figuring. This guitar was finished in ultraviolet-cure lacquer; a thin, crisp, and very tough finish. The guitar is very well balanced, and has a full even tone. Perfect for fingerstyle. Gerry was here at several points as the guitar was being designed and built, and even helped out a bit!

Building for someone from the ground up, just for them, is a great way to have no two guitars be alike. Each instrument should really bring all the player's personality and spirit to the audience. I've noticed when a player has an instrument that really nails who they are, their songwriting and performance tends become even stronger.

Please visit customguitars.com to see more of my work!

Guitar neck underway

I thought I'd post a nice photo of the neck I'm building for Gerry McKeveny's guitar.
The body is completed, and I'm getting ready to wrap up the project in a couple of weeks.
This photo shows the mahogany neck, rosewood fingerboard trimmed to fit, the truss rod, the headplate veneer, a chisel, some shavings and some tools. Ah, woodworking......Gerry will be taking this guitar to a fingerstyle competition in Kansas in September. Best of luck down there Gerry, you of course don't need it!

Please visit my website for more on custom guitar making, and guitar repair!

Martin J-21 Train Wreck

This nice guitar was dropped hard on a treadmill by a visitor to his home, who then refused to help out with the repair... I have a hunch.... he'll never be back! The lower treble side was shattered very badly, with splits and cracks running 8" long in a rectangle the entire depth of the side. There were many pieces that were missing and the "fingers" of the splits didn't all line up correctly, as it wasn't sent to me for many months, and the guitar changed shape slightly.

This repair called for my ultraviolet technology. I glued up the cracks the best I could, and used rosewood powder and epoxy to fill in the holes.  I then sanded the entire area flush to recreate a perfect curve.

Markers and graining pens were used to "paint" in the illusion of grain where it was missing.  I then flashed a vinyl coat over the wood as UV cure finish doesn't stick to the oil in roseswood, then hit it with two coats of UV finish. One minute under the lamp, and it was cured completely. Wet-sand, buff out, and done!
The client was most pleased, and a fast, sound, and beautiful repair was done in a matter of days instead of weeks.

Please visit my guitar repair page at http://www.customguitars.com/guitarrepair.htm
to see more on guitar repair!