Slingerland / May Bell Banjo Uke Restoration

New fingerboard, new frets, new nut, new skin head, new bridge, new nylon strings and a set-up.

Martin Binding Re-glue

The plastic binding on this Martin has shrunk slightly and become loose.

The customer told me that she had the binding re-glued by another luthier, but it had started to come back off in less than a year's time. I decided to fix it right by removing all of the binding, cleaning it up with a scraper, then re-gluing it using acetone to soften the celluloid plastic before gluing it back with PVA glue.

A little bit of touch up work and it's lookin' real good.

Bridge Re-glue

Another bridge ready to be re-glued. This one is for a nice Larrivee from the late 80's.

Plied Headstock Repair

I repaired this headstock by building up several thin layers of maple over the break to reinforce the crack resulting in an extremely durable repair. It turned out great.

Guild "Ghost" Label Guitar

This sweet small body acoustic made in Hoboken, NJ Guild came in for a new nut and saddle as well as some brace and crack repair. I would have loved to do a partial re-fret on it, but the customer was only in town for five days and just wanted me to make it "playable".

The original saddle was melted and warped with the saddle slot. Making a new saddle for a distorted saddle slot is a little more work than usual, but the new one fits nice and snug.

Vintage Chiquita sticker

The nut slots were extremely low and the strings were fretting out. Whatever the nut was glued on with, wouldn't let go. Pieces of the bottom of the nut had to be cleaned off of the nut shelf.

Made in Hoboken, NJ "ghost" label

Modified Harmony Stratotone

The body comes from a 60's Harmony Stratotone.
I finger painted the knobs and pick guard before I went to school and received my professional training in instrument repair.
The neck was beyond repair (I think it got run over) so I made a new neck and turned it into 4-string for my own use.
String gauges are 52 - 42 - 24 - 12