Hi there my friends,
I'm back open after the brief sickness, nothing sinister - just that famous bug that you have probably all had and which I, somehow, managed to avoid for four years.
So. Back to "Normal"! Whatever that means!
But my shop is open again for any and all of the repairs that you would trust me with.
Andrew
Hi Everyone,
trusting that you and your guitars are well and dealing with the extraordinary humidity. Been here for nineteen years now and this is the worst.
But finding ways to manage it, and side-track it! A few workshop modifications have worked well.
This year I'm going to post details of a lot of interesting repairs and restorations
Last year I received a '61 SG that had been refinished in white, over its original "cherry". Not a great job, and with holes drilled for a cheap Asian bridge and tailpiece. Aargh. The white-paint guy also sanded the bevels so that the edges were rounded over. Aargh. One of the nice thing about the first few years of SGs is how sharp those bevels and cutaways are. Over the years they became much less clear and defined,
The other thing (a warning sign) is that any Gibson refinished in a a solid colour (such as white) usually means that the new colour is there to cover a break, either headstock or heel. I stripped this guy back to wood and...no break!
So, after LOTS or work srtipping, sanding, plugging, patching, carving
and dressing I had the old Gibson ready for re-finishing back to the
"original" cherry-stained red. Worked nicely!
This very valuable guitar is still a "re-finish", but it is now a pretty-good refinish rather than the previous horrible one. This guitar would be worth about $25,000 in perfect original condition, and would have been worth maybe 20% of that at best after the BAD re-finish.
The new refinish will add significant value. Rule-of-thumb is that a guitar that is refinished well should be worth perhaps half to two-thirds of a perfect original one
But the best thing about this job is that the guitar looks as it should! Plays and sounds great!
I'm always happy to do even the smallest jobs to keep your guitars playing. But being able to bring a guitar like this back to how it should be is very rewarding and quite a privilege.
Andrew
Hi Everyone,
my shop will be closed for two weeks after Christmas, and will re-open on Tuesday 9th January.
As always, I try to get as up-to-date as possible in the weeks leading up to the break, and did pretty well this year. I still have a few major restorations to finish, but I am in the final stages of all each of them.
I still have a few flood victims on the workbench (almost two years after the event) and a couple of them are responding well. More than a few other jobs to complete as well.
But I will begin 2024 with a relatively clean sheet! Not completely, but close.
So you are most welcome to call me or bring in repairs from the 9th of January.
2024 will be my 44th year in the guitar industry. Yikes!
Happy holidays and I hope to see you in the future!
Andrew
Hi again my friends,
jeepers! This has been a nasty bug! Still no confirmation that it was the famous one, but it has certainly knocked me around...
They say that as you get older you become more susceptible or less defensive against bugs like this, and perhaps that is the case. It's been been about five years since I had even a tiny sniffle, so this thing came as a bit of a shock.
I am back in the shop this week, but I'm stuck between seconds and third gears.
Please bear with me as I fight this thing.
Andrew
Hi,
just in case you have visited my website rather than calling on the 'phone or dropping by my shop, here is an update:
I am currently off sick and the shop is closed.
Not a serious illness but a nasty bug that won't go away. Not "that" bug, by the way...
I was hoping to be back on track this week but that's not happening.
I'm going to follow doctor's orders and just make sure I recover as well as I can.
Hopefully back next week - Tuesday 28th.
AK