I've been repairing and building guitars for 2 years now and after the first month I've never had to do any marketing/ advertising. Just do good work for a fair price and people will send you every guitar they own. Especially things like a good fret job can really get players to appreciate your work so if you just do a proper one for less then the local guitar store (who usually half ass it for a couple hundred😳) you would be surprised how many people end up wanting every guitar they owned fixed by you.

@robertpalmer4806

2 жыл бұрын

My experience exactly.

@captainchaos3053

Жыл бұрын

Hey who doest want a good job at a fair price. Good luck and I hope your business remains successful. To many guitar shops are charging to much for mediocre at best work.

One of the top banjo restorers, repairers, rebuilders and mechanics anywhere is Renee Karnes. She has been restoring and repairing banjos for a very long time. This supports your statement about women in the guitar repair biz.

Recently, i got my Cort G series (solid body electric) refretted at local luthier.. he got good rating at google maps review.. so i got my guitar stays a week on him. But end results are not satisfy me.. there are still some fret buzz.. later i found that the original luthier was deceased, and the nephew has taken his place to keep the business on.. so, i was reluctant to bring back my guitar to him, and i watched youtube (including your channel) and i encourage my self to refretted my guitar.. now my guitar is better then it was.. ;) its not perfect fret job, but it is better than before.

@scaredycat8685

3 жыл бұрын

That’s shady lol

My brother dropped his D-18 50th Anniversary Edition and cracked it once. The way he he found a guy was to ask his best friend, who happens to be Bob Dylan's guitar tech. Needless to say, he was pleased with the repair.

Thank you for your professional tips especially not cutting into cedar,

Union Scale USWA was my gig watch RUNNING MAN staring Arnold Swartzenegger. The Blast Furnace was the prison I worked on 29.plus years and it was not a very nice winter in 1993-94 and 2013-14 on Detroit River working in -52 below on a 2700 degree blast furnace with water pipes to cold freezing and bursting like glass. The work I did was the impossible job every single day to feed my boys. One copper sleeve lining inside the cast pipes weight 500lbs. By hand the furnace has taken apart and by hand 500 lb solid copper linings were loaded into the cast pipes for more iron to flow.

Fantastic. I learn SO much on these videos. Much appreciated!

There exists a tool shaped like a jack that, when inserted into these connectors, allows you to lock into two holes in the threaded barrel. These holes are located underneath the strap nut that you tried to unscrew. This way you can grab the connector from inside when unscrewing the nut.

If I recall correctly from some light research I did years ago, "piezo" has Greek roots. Its meaning has to do with pressure, and it would traditionally be pronounced pee-AY-zoh. Anyway, your videos are my absolute favorite guitar-repair content out there. Thanks for passing along your knowledge and taking the time to shoot and explain it all so well. Because of you and others like you, many of us are able to get our guitars back up and running ourselves, at least some of the time.

@HBSuccess

5 жыл бұрын

Correct pronunciation. PeeAYEzoh and it is Grk.

Well, finally found the most annoying sound in the world. Scraping poly finish off a cedar top. Great video. You rock, Ted!

So here we go. 11 people didn't like this bit of honesty. They're the kind of people who think that good work can't come cheaper than $1000 an hour. Do not give those suckers an even break. Bankrupt them. Keep it up, pal.

Very nice! Thank you from the UK.

Greetings from Salt Lake City! You are a fine craftsman and a born instructor. My own guitars are nothing special and I've had repair people tell me they're not worth involved repairs. Your videos are very close to inspiring me to clean off my workbench and attempt some things myself. Many thanks!

We take our abilities for granted and many people who never try for fear of failure. Thanks for your help with my guitar repairs now they play and sound like guitars! Thanks 😊

Because of these videos i don't have to find someone to fix it, i did it myself and i thank you kindly for your knowledge sir

Really appreciate your videos and especially this FAQs.

Had a thought, re jammed jack. As it is basically a nut around a tube and to be disposed, rather than drill it what about an "easy out" in the plug hole then you can work two wrenches against each other with no stress on the instrument. It works to get broken pipe fittings apart. If it is going to work it takes about 10 seconds.

@mikecurtin9831

5 жыл бұрын

I was thinking to make some kind of expanding collet to go inside the jack, but I like your idea a lot better. Thanks for this tip.

Great video. Word of mouth is definitely the way to find a repair person. But trial and error still applies; I brought a guitar to someone I'd heard good things about and was really unimpressed. Mentioned it to a friend who had a similar experience, and he recommended his guy - who did a great job.

That classical guitar sounds so steely and high pitched... i love it!

Awesome video as always and Great advice !! Thank You

Great videos, man! I love your handwork.

A great video again. This kinda reminded me of ThisOldTony's videos, especially the bit around 8:30

Wonderful and instructive as always. Wrt the Guild, if you ever hit that again, try using Klein-style wire stripper/cutters to bite into the narrow part of the strap button while wedging in the opposite direction with a jack-the-gripper or something similar. The bite of the irregular wire cutter surface allows for exerting a lot of torque often enough to loosen anything that’s not glued on....(and yes, I gave seen those glued on. yecch)

Love your videos and skill thank you 👍🇬🇧

Those forearms tho...! Cool licks at the end too. Thanks for sharing this stuff.

I especially liked your own self correction..."a trick", edited into, "a warning". I do something quite similar with my own music/guitar students (which includes me, of course). I hate the phrase, "tricks of the trade"...I offer, "advice from previous musical travelers"...it gets a chuckle, and seems to make a point...on occasion, even several. Another nice video, thanks.

I believe I know who you are talking about. She works up on the mountain. She fixed my Ibanez ags hollowbody that had a caved in input jack. Beautiful work.

Man, the shoutout to women in luthery is one of the coolest things I've heard on this channel. This is true of so many traditionally masculine trades, since women have to be incredibly resilient and talented to withstand all of the macho insecurity projected their way. My amp tech is a woman, too, and she's phenomenal.

@ileutur6863

3 жыл бұрын

I get it but I also don't. The guitar world can be very snobbish and gatekeeping, but no one can tell a woman "you can't do this job because you're a woman". And if they do, they're most likely a nobody that no one likes in the first place

A couple of options to remove that barrel jack is to use an easy out or a dremel cut off wheel to split the frozen nut. Cheers

Top Gear in San Diego. My go to. They are always busy! Great bunch of guys.. do amps too

I love your videos. Thank you so much.

Just found your channel and im chuffed that i found it. It would be awsome if you made a video describing the life of a guitar repairman. Cheers luka

Thanks you for your tutorials 👍👍👍👍

Excellent video! Thanks !!

Don't comment normally on channels but, after your statement of support for female luthiers I had to just say good for you. I think the world is only now beginning to scratch the surface (bad pun for a luthier sorry) of what female craftswomen are capable of in all skills. Leave it at the door like he said guys.

@xdoctorblindx

3 жыл бұрын

My thoughts exactly.

@amandahugankiss4110

4 ай бұрын

yeah guys! fucking men!! agggggghhhhh!!!! sheesh.. there is no opposition to women. i've met a few and they were alright. stop faning a dead fire.

Great.video. Liked the information, thanks!

"looked kinda clunky and cheesy" You mean Looked like a practical craftsman getting on with the work !

Girls gonna love you! Great and useful video as usual. Ever tried taking a video of the inside of a guitar with your smartphone? Works much better than mirror and light...

Nice work Friend! I have a 50's Martin tenor that needs some work.. Might have to take a vaca up your way!

Great vids my friend, you have some very informative content. I’ve found some water thin super glue seals bridges really well. You just have to be very careful that is doesn’t get under the bridge. But it dries super fast and you can sand and shellac it really quickly. Saludos from Texas. 👍🏼✌🏼

Excellent videos. I gain something new every time I watch these. Although, I still feel that my setups are far from great…. Also, I’m tired of paying the only guy around that does this kind of work (and he’s extremely lacking, at best) too do setups, etc. and pickup the guitar to actually believe the only thing he did to it was polish it? Again, thanks for these videos, I need to hone my setup skills and more… ✌🏼

That was some great playing twoodfrd. I would love to hear an album from you. Playing the guitars you repair.

Thanks for the reply. I’ve tried various epoxies but none seemed to work. I may try JB Weld.

Love your videos!!!!

In general I agree about word of mouth approach, with one caveat: I've met "local legend" kind of techs and luthiers with years of experience that I think at one point can get a little overconfident, stop paying attention to detail and make mistakes, and then dismiss any signs of the customer being disappointed, with the vibe of "I'm so much smarter so you can't question my authority, if you have any doubts then I'm fine with you not coming back". Stay positive man and don't be one of those old, jaded, burnt out guys that act like they're forced to fix guitars. After a few cases of unexpected disappointment I'm at the point of never fully trusting overwhelmingly positive opinions (of course nobody tries out a guy that everybody complains about). When I try out somebody that never worked on my guitars, I tend to start with a "recon" cheap guitar that has some pretty standard thing to be done, if not a specific problem to be fixed then I come up with an upgrade that I've been considering anyway. Sometimes they were even surprised I want to put in brand tuners and a boutique pickup in a cheap Asian guitar as the parts and work can cost more than the guitar, but then if the tuner pin holes are drilled all crooked or the soldering is messed up on the first try, I have the option to not come back with the expensive instruments or more complicated repairs where a botched job would hurt much more.

@bgilley8199

4 жыл бұрын

Where I live there's literally only one real guitar luthier in a reasonable driving distance, and he's been working for the local music store for a long time, probably 20 years or so. He builds guitars and certainly knows what he's doing, but I feel like the price for minor repairs is way too expensive sometimes. I paid 175$ to have my frets leveled and supposedly crowned on my strat. He did a good job getting the playability back in order, but I felt like there wasn't a great deal of time spent crowning the frets after leveling, and my fret board took some hits, scratches and such. It cost $50 just to get a couple nut slots filed down to the right depth, on another guitar. That one really seemed rediculous.

One time I removed a bridge on an Ohana concert ukulele that had the bridge glued thick. I found that I could lift the whole layer of glue from the bottom of the bridge with a single edge razor. Using my micrometers I measured that layer of glue and it was thirty thousanths of an inch thick. The old cohesion/ adhesion dilemma!!

I've had great success with nuts like that using a cutting wheel in a Dremel. Just cut across the stuck nut on one side, then a flat head screwdriver in the slot to pry it wider and off the bolt, or in this case, the jack.

@gsxerwhite

4 жыл бұрын

Yvan Shank yea I'd be too nervous with that big ass drill bit

@IrisGalaxis

3 жыл бұрын

My thoughts exactly.

This video really helped me thank you.

I had a Fender classical, maybe the same model. Very playable with a nice balanced tone. I'd say it was a 'good quality student model'. The shoddy machine heads let it down however - split barrels and shredded gears - I remember having to use pliers to assist tuning. I hope they've been replaced by whoever stole it.

Similar to the Hohoner MC-01 from about the same time. Well they look similar to me but i suppose they all do. My Hohoner is a bit road worn but it keeps going, very well made. The only con is it's a little to thick on the sound board. I think the Spruce is cut to thick and it kind of flattens the sound, dulls the sustain. It would have been a student model in it's day, i'm interested in seeing the little differences . Thanks for your uploads man their great.

i had a couple of loose back braces on a martin knock-off, so on a whim and because i'm lazy i went to the local musical instrument store where they sell band instruments and a few guitars and asked them if they could fix it. they said they 'had a guy' and said to bring it in. it was fixed (sloppily IMO) for a reasonable price, i guess, and within a couple of weeks. BTW, i don't recommend finding someone to fix your guitar like it did. it's just that it wasn't a really expensive guitar (< 1000) and wanted it done in a hurry and figured even a luthier with less than average skills and/or ambition could do the job. that was at least seven years ago and the braces are still solid, AFAIK.

@ 5:36 Tutorial begins for "How to Find Someone To Fix Your Guitar!"

I love the phrase you use"Polish Polish Polish.😂

I made a nut from a plastic toothbrush once. It worked great, but the pink color was slightly odd-looking.

@kevinsnyder4425

4 жыл бұрын

I'm gonna do the same thing with a transparent green t.brush handle! Hope it works good ! Great minds think alike !

hi, great video, you could try an expanding concrete plug in the hole where the jack goes to get hold of it next time, just an idea. Love your work!

@bills6093

5 жыл бұрын

@Silver Back I think he meant a concrete anchor bolt. They go in and expand to grip the hole.

Very good direction. A gunsmith is the same, same. An individual that is hanging with other shooters will ask around & be "referred" to a gunsmith (just as a Luther) by someone else and the results will be better by far.

I think you should add a nut splitter to your toolbox, for the next time you have an uncooperative jack. They can be had for about ten bucks and would have kept you on track and on time with your jack replacement. With no risk of damaging the instrument like dremels or drills or other powered implements of destruction

Great episode! Gutsy move drilling out the jack with a handheld drill. One snag/catch and it’s game over. There is no reason for you to take the entire hit on those in the future - just add a line item for “machining” or similar to your price list and explain why sometimes that (or any) pickup job could be $50( 75ca$) more than other times. “Machining out old hardware if required...add $50. etc.

I loved your shout out to female luthiers and techs. I took my Taylor to Dagna at Silesia Guitars in Seattle for a partial refret and a new bone saddle, and I recommend her highly.

Not scribing the lacquer all the way to the edge of the bridge is not only common on cheaper guitars, large expensive brands also use this cost cutting method. I am currently resetting a Taylor Baritone bridge and the same issue was under the bridge; lacquer that should have not been there, reducing the bonded area.

You 'Italian' version of the word piezo is correct.

10:27 king moment

Another great, informative video. Coming from an electronics background, I've always pronounced piezo as 'pie-zo'. That may just be me, though.

@mikecurtin9831

5 жыл бұрын

This is how I always heard it, too.

Nice work

That's actually an automotive repair tool first. Likely used to heat up things like body side molding for removal.

i had to swap out bridges for 6 out of 10 brand new classical guitars from a single manufacturer that all had the same problem as in your video. they had jammed a saddle that was too big for the slot and as soon as you tuned it broke the front of the bridge off.

Great video bro! If anyone is from the Boston area they can bring there guitar to me! 🎸🎸👍

Just stumbled on your channel and have been on a marathon watching all your vids. Awesome content. I have a question that maybe you could answer for your next Q&A vid (or if anyone else has any thoughts on this would love to hear them), what would be the best way to acclimatize a guitar that's lived in a tropical environment for all of it's life and moving to Canada. I have 2 Hofner guitars (1 electric, 1 archtop acoustic, both circa 1950-s) and I want to bring to Canada (I'm in BC). Thoughts?

so finding a good repair guy (gal) is kinda like getting your quest in a role playing game :) (makes sense though) when the "easy" job turns into a nightmare, especially because of something the customer obviously did (like gluing on a strapjack nut) we should be able to call them and revise the estimate accordingly. that's not always how it works out but it's on us repair people to always push for getting the proper value for our time. as for the stuck strapjack outer nut, stewmac sells a fancy gripper-thing which i could never justify buying, i just jam a beat-up tapered reamer into the hole to grip it from the inside while i turn the nut around it. i have to think that unless it was completely cross-threaded, with enough soldering iron heat that outer nut would eventually come off.

What an outstanding pickup! I don't know how much of that is Fender tone (my experience with Fender steel acoustics is mixed) and how much is the piezo, but it sounds fantastic!

I have a classical with a cedar top and the 1st thing that occurred to me is that pencils are made of cedar. I thought the guitar was sure to fall apart but it's 30 years old and its the only acoustic I have that hasn't fallen apart and the action is still low as can be. Must be the nylon strings.

Thanks

Speaking of female luthiers, isn't Linda Manzer, Pay Metheny's luthier, based in Toronto? I have also met Shelley Park when she was working with Webber Guitars in Vancouver. On my first tour of Webber Guitars, Shelley demoed the guitars in their various states of build. She is very skilled.

Hello from the UK. I actually have a very very similar Fender classical acoustic to that one. Mine is an fc40 I've no idea what the difference is in model numbers as the bridge, top etc all looks identical. My mum bought me mine in 1977.

If you were to re glue a bridge on a Martin HPL guitar, what kind of glue would you use? I've tried several epoxies and other glue but I've had no success. Love the videos. Very informative.

@twoodfrd

3 жыл бұрын

I'd use epoxy, but make sure the surface is scored with a knife or 60 grit paper or something to give it a lot of tooth for the adhesive to grab on to. Also, be sure to degrease first with alcohol. There's probably a high-tech epoxy designed for this purpose not commercially available to the public.

Sorry, Ted. I cracked up at 16:50. But only because I felt that.

YOUR THOUGHTS PLEASE...:I used a Master, Internationally renowned Luthier that I followed in Vintage Guitar magazine that is in Ohio that has a very long association with StewMac. I am several states away. Although his work was fabulous, his concept of time simply doesn't exist. On a WWII Gibson ...To make a bridge, glue several braces, reset the neck and add new tuners, he kept the guitar nearly 14 months. Yes, 14 months. I told him I was going to pickup the guitar finished or not, otherwise this would have gone on another half year or longer. A friend of his said I was lucky as one of his guitars has been with this Luthier for 2 1/2 years. How long would others keep the guitar for these repairs? I hear two weeks. Keep in mind, he only had about ten guitars at most ahead of mine. Any responses?

@denisbotha8408

3 жыл бұрын

Haha, if it was a good instrument I’ll keep it forever (no I won’t 😂)

Oh Ted. You should've just cut the strap button/jack cover thing off with a dremel in just a couple of minutes. Since you were replacing it anyway, it wouldn't matter and it's faster than, drilling it out.

Great vid, and excellent comment about female repairers, who are a lot rarer than makers. Chelsea Clark has a great site. So, at 4.30 your point about scribing through wood fibres is that doing this basically isolates the area under the bridge from the rest of the top? If you do this by mistake presumably you would have to scrape/sand away down to below where you had scribed in order restore the top's integrity. Sounds messy.

@ClipperDays

5 жыл бұрын

I believe that once the wood fibers are cut the strength is gone. Sanding down would not help. The wood would end up 75% or even 50% of the thickness of the original. I don't work with guitars but I do work extensively with wood.

Hi. Good vid. Good advice. If you need work done in the Los Angejes area, hit me up. Sloak's 6 Strangs in Culver City. Cheers!

LOOK! LOOK!!!! He’s tricking us!!!! I’m sure the number of likes he gets it’s not accurate..... SINCE MANY OF US KEEP COMING BACK AND LIKING IT AGAIN AND AGAIN!!! LOL love your videos brother!

What about before and after recording? Some of these repairs alter the sound quality and will be interesting to hear the effect

Recently took my guitar in for a fret dress to a guy who had good reviews on facebook and was recommended by my friends brothers (who is a musician). He managed to level the frets but also scratched the fretboard in 14 places in the process which he apparently didn't notice. So I then had to bring the guitar back for him to fix it which he did do however in one or two places you can still kind of see where the scratches were. Moral of the story, sometimes you just get unlucky.

use a eazie out? like for extracting a 1/4 -20 bolt right into the plug in hole.

@twoodfrd

5 жыл бұрын

That would be like trying to extract a bolt through a surface from the side opposite the head.

Hey slowly with France ;o) We are die hard romantics !

The naughty jack-end pin...Couldn't you've just cut it off? Like, cut the nut and threads off and the rest would fall out wouldn't it?

Though I had someone. They damaged my fretboard. Marked it up during a fret repair. Wouldn't take ownership. Not going back.

Yes Piezo the Italian way !!

Have ever used a nut splitter?

Do you own a "Jack the Gripper" from Sew Mac? I use one all the time in my shop. Tighten loose jacks without removing them, or in your case loosen a tight jack.

@twoodfrd

5 жыл бұрын

I do, and I tried it, to no avail!

@Artisan07

5 жыл бұрын

@@twoodfrd Bummer

For those without "power tools"...

I was the best because I was cheapest and I did qualify work but I retired from my job and I never worked on guitars and the people I know are music store owners and they are salesman not luthiers but I do my best and I shy away from big jobs.

Im gonna buying a Yamaha CG100A next week. Bridge wasnt atrached. want to know what kind of glue i need to attach it. Like is there a specific?

@twoodfrd

5 жыл бұрын

Yellow woodworking glue works fine.

@MrTommy4000

5 жыл бұрын

hot hide

pea ay zo

I say PEE-zo because it's easiest for me. I have heard it pronounced PEE-zo, PIE-zo, PAY-zo, PEE-AY-zo, PIE-AY-zo PEE-ET-zo and PIE-ET-zo so who knows-zo?

@markzockerzwerg8997

5 жыл бұрын

It is pronounced Pee-ay-tso. It is derived from a greek word which means "to press".

@rich1051414

4 жыл бұрын

Pee-aye-zo.

@bjustice

4 жыл бұрын

Let’s call the whole thing off 😎

@J__C__

4 жыл бұрын

It's Pea-ay-zo. They make things called dictionaries. In these dictionaries, they have things called pronunciations. Can you guess what they're for? Right. They tell you how to pronounce a word. Didn't they teach you this in 2nd grade? 🤷‍♂️ Jeez, man. I guess if it doesn't involve computers or video games, it's not important, huh? 👎

pee-AY-zo (US) or pee-zo (UK). Just don't call it pee-zee-oh.

@IrisGalaxis

3 жыл бұрын

Pee-why-zo

@gramursowanfaborden5820

3 жыл бұрын

pee-et-so is how the classical guys say it.

I would of thought in certain situations female guitar tech would be in possession of a couple of nice advantages gifted to them by mother nature. I do have a thing for a certain brand of strings made in England, found them by accident while working away from home. I came to the conclusion if they are good enough for Pete Townsend they are probably good enough for me and my unfortunately ham sized and shaped fists.

👍

I'd definitely go with the Italian pronunciation, but maybe without the pause. Pee-ay-zoe😉 Ciao!

You need a claw hammer to get those bridges off