The Hub

I finished levelling frets on a mandolin last week, and was surprised that the frets with the worst divots worked down to .020" Had I known that I'd go that low, I might have replaced them, but it's hard to measure divot height, especially those caused by thin strings. I haven't seen much discussion on standards for fret height or guidelines to know at what point should I switch from levelling to replacement. What standards are peop…

I've got a PRS SE A50E acoustic in with complaints of high action. Checked the relief and it was sky high. Tried to flatten it, and it wouldn't go, so I started experimenting. When there's no string tension and the (single action) truss rod is slack, there's loads of relief. Tightening the truss rod works fine and the nut turns easily until the neck is flat, then resistance goes up but the neck won't go past dead flat. It behaves as…

Hello, One of my commissions is coming down the pike and it's going to be my first time using bar frets. I could use a once over for any helpful tips if you have any. About the guitar: Aged HD-28 but mahogany back and sides. I think Martin called this a HD-28 M? Skipping the truss-rod and using two carbon fiber strips. My process for Frets: 1: I CNC my fingerboards to a 16" radius and for T-frets I use a .023" to cut slots with a mat…

Any suggestions if this can be saved? It is a neck I received for free upon replacing it for a customer. The wood was missing and the rod is missing the adjusting nut. The truss rod had pushed the inlay out as well as the wood damage . I wasn't sure if it could be a structurally sound repair. I have no idea of the neck rigidity or action with strings. I wont be online because of a previous dr. appointment but I figured it would be a go…

Hello, I replaced a nut with a tusq nut. Nut slot height is correct, neck relief is good, action is good. But I’m still getting buzzing on low E and A strings on frets 1-3 primarily. I checked the fret height on fret 1 and it is sitting lower in that area specifically .038 inches. Vs .040 inches for the rest of the frets. I’m thinking this is what’s causing the buzz. Is my thinking correct? Is there something I can do other than a fret lev…

Hi folks, I thought you might be interested in this approach to having easy height adjustment for a GoBar deck. I learned this tip from my buddy, Don Parker. He lurks around here too from time to time. :) The basic idea is rather than having a booster platform on the base for use when gluing braces to plates you bring the roof down lower. There is a 3D printed spacer in black in the pics. I linked to a downloadable STL and 3MF of…

I’ve had a customer come to me wanting to electrify the guitar without any modifications to it. No drilling, routing etc. I did convince him an end pin jack would be the only mod I would make, and he was ok with that. After a little thought, I thought, a K&K with a microphone (K&K Mini Pro) might work, using the transducers on the six string side and the microphone on the ten string side. I have no doubt the transducers would work fine.…

I've had a customer come to me wanting to electrify the guitar without any modifications to it. No drilling, routing etc. I did convince him an end pin jack would be the only option, and he was ok with that. After a little thought I thought a K&K with a microphone (K&K Mini Pro) might work, using the transducers on the six string side and the microphone on the ten string side. I have no doubt the transducers would work fine. My concern…

Hi everyone - I recently ran into trouble making new nut for one of my necks that needed to be trued and re-fretted. I roughed in the nut as usual and then, with the bass guitar fully assembled and strung up, I started cutting the slots to depth. I use the StewMac digital nut slot depth gauge and have had good results in the past. I marked the nut's lowest points (radiused) using the guitar nut scribe tool (first time using this!) and c…

Just wondering how normal the following is on Gibsons. When I run a straight edge from the 7th to the 15th fret on this modern J45 the 12 fret (and neighboring frets) are 3-4 thousands low. The result is fret buzz on the 9th to the 14th fret on the wound strings. Picture attached. Guitar is around 5 years old and otherwise in very good condition.

Working through my first refret. Trying to straighten the neck before radius sanding. What should the natural relief look like when straight? Using a straight edge there’s always slight gaps somewhere. Does natural neck relief start at a certain fret?

I'm reading the Design book of the Gilet/Gore set (2nd Edition) and ran across something that surprised me. Under "Top bracing layout - guidelines" (Section 4.4.8, pp 4-52) Gore writes, "Brace ends that are housed into the linings stiffen the edge of the soundbard considerably and so constrain its mobility. Unless you are chasing a particular effect, it is generally not very beneficial to house the lower bout braces into the linings." My…

Hey everyone, I have a Vaccaro bass guitar and I'm getting a lot of open note buzz on it. In truth, the bass could stand a refret but that may or may not be in the cards. Additionally, the truss rod nut is stripped. I'm also wondering if this nut is designed to come out? I imagine it is but it's kind of funky. A 1/4" Allen wrench is still too small to grip it. So the questions: 1. How would you deal with the zero fret and the nut? The st…

I recently picked up a Sterling Atlas 12 string that is in excellent shape except for some bellying, which once I get into setting action, may determine if I need to add a ‘bridge doctor’ to remediate some of it. However, I noticed that the saddle (adjustable but set to lowest point) has no curvature and there is not much down pressure on the center sets of strings which is causing some buzzing. My question is this (my first 12 string p…

I work in guitar repair for over 20 years and this strange buzz happen only 3 times and i really going crazy. Five years ago a all parts strat neck in G string, change string, leveling frets twice thinking i made a mistake, in some point i made a rudimentar neck jig to tried to repair that neck. Work in that guitar for 3 weeks and string heigth like 3.5mm and yeat, buzzing with not so hard picking just the G, even in other tuning like F…

We install a lot of LR Baggs pickups, but nobody has ever gotten more excited about their new pickup than Andy Wood. If you don't know Andy, watch this fun video.

I have a Yamaha Classical on my bench that's giving me a run for my money with a mystery intonation issue. All but the B string are perfectly intonated with the usual compensations we see. The B string however is almost an entire 1/2 step off (sharp) at the 12th. Right from the get go the scale starts going sharp incrementally at every fret. I can find the fundamental harmonic on that string but it's sitting halfway between the 11th and…

when setting up acoustic guitars, from time to time I have a lot of trouble with getting the G string to ring true when fretted. Starting from lower frets and at its worst at about the 5/6th fret, the G string buzzes when plucked "heavily" (when no other string does so)...most recently a Taylor 724 which had a neck adjustment to reduce action (to 5/64-4/64), relief about 0.003 or 0.004. Increasing relief to about 8-9 helps somewhat.…