Brockway Guitars Official Website

I've got a "real" website now.

www.brockwayguitars.com

Check out the blog page for updates on shop happenings.

Volute Headstock Repair

I tend to use splines only when it is a 2nd break or if the break is on the scarf joint.

This was a first break on a Tanglewood acoustic guitar. I used hot hide glue and did some minimal touch up with cyanoacrylate and a french polish so that the break area was smooth to the touch.

August 2012

 4534 Nicollet August 8th, 2012. 

Here's a Martin that was on one of my benches last week. Crack repair, partial re-fret, new bone nut & saddle plus a K & K Pure Mini pickup. I use the sound hole pickup (made by Seymour Duncan) to set intonation. The K & K pickup is installed inside the instrument  at the bridge plate and goes out through an end button jack. Pretty nice.

I've started carrying both K & K and L.R. Baggs pickups for acoustic instruments. Check them out if you are not familiar:

http://www.kksound.com/

http://www.lrbaggs.com/

Jazz Bass Style Pick-ups

Until recently I've stuck to repairing and rewinding pickups; but the original Jazz Bass style pickups in this "Grande" bass were so corroded that I decided to try my hand at making a new pair for the customer.

Old Pickup

New Pickups

 

I fit the new pickups to the old covers.

I was fascinated by the name of this bass.

Tuning Machine Hole Repair

 Before

After

Fret Press

My new setup for pressing in frets. These are going into a Rickenbacker that had delamination issues with the finish on it's bubinga fretboard.

Silvertone 1410L Converted To Lefty

P.A. brought me a nice Silvertone 1410L specimen for some structural repairs including a new nut and a new bridge to be cut & set up for a left handed player.

This instrument was suffering from "rising tongue" (upward sloping of the fingerboard after the 14th fret) which caused the notes to fret out badly after the 15th.

Rising tongue profile shot w/ frets removed.

The frets were not friendly about being removed from their slots.

No more rising tongue. Hard to tell from the picture, but trust me it's gone.

I put the old frets backs in and gave them a level n crown. No more fretting out.

Lefty nut and ebony truss cover

Lefty bridge made from rosewood.

Silvertone 1410L

Worst D.I.Y. headstock repair ever?

Since I've moved back north I see a lot more electric guitars from rock n' rollers which means I see a lot more headstock breaks. This Dot Epiphone was repaired not so well by the owner with epoxy and then carelessly doused with wood glue. I'll keep his name confidential, but he really loves his guitar and wanted me to make sure the headstock would not break again.

Before.

After.New veneer added for cosmetic and structural purposes.

A structurally sound memory.

I steamed the old glue joint apart and cleaned everything up. Obviously it was a mess but I glued everything back w/ epoxy (used for it's gap filling properties) and reinforced the break with my splint routing jig. I made a new veneer, sanded all the contours, sealed everything up and showed it to the owner. He was very happy with the repair and insisted that I not refinish the area exclaiming, "It looks like it's been in a fire!"

Said owner plays in a "noise rock" band.