Hi - I'm a new member here. I've written my background into my profile, but I might as well type it out properly here too by way of introducing myself to the group.
I've played guitar since age 11, when my folks first got me a single-pickup Encore guitar shaped object from Argos in the UK. I took lessons for a few months, but I'm not a good student, so I learned on my own and with friends. I was always the person that fixed my mates guitars, and that was something that has never really left.
I was in a couple of bands, one in school and one shortly after, and we played numerous live gigs in school, later on in pubs and clubs, and things were good. But in my late teens, the motorcycling bug bit, and I stupidly sold off all my music gear, moved house a couple of times, got a "real" job, found a wife soon after that, then discovered international travel, and had several years unintentional break from music.
In 2007 I decided I had had enough of dealing with computers for a living, and went to informally apprentice with a furniture maker (Jonathan Shaw) and was quickly learning the skills and gaining the confidence to take on pretty challenging projects in timber. I spent several years with him, and went on to start my own sign carving business. I also at that time spent one day a week, for about one year, working alongside a luthier (Steve Kendall) learning the specific skills of the trade, using the specialist tools and so on. I learned lots of really helpful things, that went beyond my previous guitar-repair skills, such as refretting instruments, installing pickups into acoustics, wiring modifications, making bone saddles and nuts, how to do a professional setup on a guitar, not just twiddle the adjustments and hope for the best. And, on and on. I also got my hands on (but couldn't play at all!) all kinds of interesting new-to-me instruments such as a lute, bazouki, mandolin, basses and other stringed stuff I have forgotten by now. This was all about 15 years ago.
Fast forward 5 years and one migration later, and I've moved to the other side of the planet! When I migrated, I had a backpack full of electronics, hard drives, laptop etc. And an acoustic guitar with the body stuffed with my entire collection of clothes. I quickly discovered metalwork - machining and fabrication. Later on started a youtube channel (Craig's Workshop) to show some of that and learn and share info. This led to buying a house, with a big workshop and taking the time to set that up - which I will be doing for the next few years at least I'm sure.
Fast forward to a few months ago, and the music bug has bitten again, and by extension, the luthiery bug. Here I am buying fret crowning files, and radius gauges, and nut files, tooling up for guitar repair once again. I would love to make use of some of the lovely local timbers and build guitars from scratch.
I'm set up for woodworking here, and I've done ad-hoc guitar repairs and setups all along, including a headstock break on an acoustic, and before that, a smashed electo-acoustic jack entry-point, I've also upgraded tuners, tweaked nuts and saddles etc. Generally small stuff because I haven't had a dedicated guitar workspace. But now with the new workshop I have space and personal interest in getting back into it.
The latest guitar repairs I've done was some upgrade/setup work on a 1993 Epiphone Les Paul made in Korea. It had great bones, but needed a bit of love. I've replaced all the pots with CTS analogue taper, and the caps with Sprague orange drop caps. The pickups have been replaced with better and more recent Probuckers. The frets were divoted and corroded, action was high, and it was filthy and difficult to play. I levelled, crowned and polished the frets, rolled the fingerboard edges (binding) mildly, giving it a lived in feel, and a really comfy edge radius. Reduced the nut action slightly, cleaned up the slots, replaced all corroded screws, and cleaned up the corroded tune-o-matic bridge saddles, and that kind of thing. Now it looks clean, plays brilliantly, and sounds great. Somehow it has survived most of 3 decades with a pretty good cherry sunburst paint job. Now, it has had neck relief, action, and intonation sorted, and it plays like silk.
I can probably help to answer questions from people new to repairing/building, but I am sure I will have plenty of questions of my own to ask the real experts here too.
Sorry - I appear to have written a novel - hope you can make it through all that.
Cheers,
Craig
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). Maybe even a semi-hollow one! I have experimented this year with some teles. My real aim is that when I get some good wood, I will have a number of options for possible builds.
Originally Posted by craig9
