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.

SG Party

Three Gibson SG's in the shop for repairs! One for some set-up work, one for a headstock break and one for a full re-fret.

I'm still chippin' away at the shop but so far the work brought to me has been very encouraging.

THANK YOU!

Shop is operational

Here's a peek at my shop and what you see when you walk in the door. I am operating officially from 1pm - 7pm Monday though Friday and 1pm - 5pm on Saturdays. I'm also available by appointment. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about my services.

I'm offering a $20 guitar set-up special for the month of December.

Estimates are free.

New shop on 46th and Nicollet

I moved into a place off of 46th and Nicollet in Minneapolis, MN on October 1st, 2011. Here's my first couple weeks of progress:

4534 Nicollet Avenue Minneapolis, MN

First bench.

Two benches.

Farewell to my job in North Carolina

Somewhere around 400 repair invoices for guitars, banjos, bouzoukis, cellos, upright basses, mandolins, ukes, dulcimers, a sitar and more.

A good start.

I've been back in Minnesota for 2 months now getting ready for winter and setting up shop.

Thanks Acoustic Corner and all the folks that trusted me with their fine instruments! It was truly an adventure.

Shen Bass Golf Cart Accident

This bass neck hit a tree while riding in the back of a golf cart. The owner wants a new neck installed.

My assistant, Matt Hannafin, in the background.

Fingerboard removal.

New neck from Shen. Hot off their CNC and the slow boat from China.

The new neck from Shen was very beefy and needed quite a bit of work to match the shape of the old neck.

Cleaning things up.

Matthew Hannafin did a great job of cleaning up the mortise, as seen here.

I had to use a shim to achieve the correct overstand with the new neck that was sent to the shop. I was hesitant to use a shim for a new neck, but after talking to the Shen people on the phone I was assured by them that a shim for a new Shen bass neck is standard practice. Samuel Shen said so himself.

I don't want to say how many shims I made until I had just the right fit, but it was a lot.

Here's the new neck freshly glued into the body after lots of time was spent fitting.

I glued the fingerboard on with the instrument still in the white, which isn't what you're supposed to do; but due to time constraints and keeping costs down for the customer I glued the fingerboard down and cleaned everything up before applying a thin finish. Can't say I regretted it too much, but I'll do what I can to avoid ever doing it that way again.

I think I took this picture at 4 in the morning.

I won't give away Shen's finishing recipe, but here's the bass with finish applied.

And here we are, all set up! Customer told me that the bass sounds (and looks) better than ever.

Thanks, Hannafin, for helping out. I really couldn't have done it by myself.

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.