Hi there my friends,

2020 has been the busiest year of my life. I've just done the numbers and jobs this year are about 30-40% up on last year (which was also busy!). 

That might not sound like much compared to what many retailers experienced but, given that I only have a fixed number of hours in the week to do the work, it was a pretty big jump. I did a LOT of overtime!

The increase was spread across two "financial years" so hopefully I won't get hit too hard by the tax office! 

The increased business was, of course, Covid-related. The entire industry boomed as folk stayed home and played their guitars. I also got lots of people getting back into it after 20 years or more, lots of new players, and guitars that had clearly been in the attic or the shed for decades coming in for restoration.

So.

I always take two weeks off at the end of the year so that I can do the family stuff and re-charge my batteries. This year I'm going to treat myself to an extra week.

The shop will be back open on Tuesday 19th January.

Best wishes to all of you, take care, be safe, and we'll catch up in 2021.

Andrew

 

 Hi Everyone,

well, it's flood time again! Actually, from the weather bureau's predictions it doesn't look like we'll have another disaster like 2017 but if there's one thing about predictions it's that they are unpredictable. I just heard on the radio that Lismore has had 180mm of rain so far today - the bureau predicted 30mm...

But even that much rain, plus what we've received over the last few days, is still less than we got in 24 hours back in'17. So fingers crossed.

Just letting you know that all completed but un-collected repairs, all repairs yet to be finished, and all consignment guitars are safe and dry on higher ground.

I don't take chances - at the slightest risk of flooding I start moving stuff out of the shop. 

Every time this happens (and it's probably the tenth time I've emptied the place) I wonder if I should move the shop to a higher location. But each time I decide that the idea of being in the centre of town is SO convenient (for me as well as you guys) that I decide to stay. I like my little shop! And have a very good landlord, too.

Stay dry,

Andrew

 

Hi everyone,

it goes without saying that 2020 has been a weird year.

When Covid kicked off, and none of us knew what that would really mean, I had a huge in-coming of work. Lots of big jobs: major restorations and re-builds, lots of regular jobs - refrets, set-ups etc; and lots of guitars that had clearly been stored in the loft for 20 years or more.

During April and May I booked in more work than I have ever seen. At that time, the powers-that-be were suggesting that we'd all be "locked-down" for six months and that we'd all better find some kind of indoor activity to replace the outdoor and social stuff that we were used to.

Clearly guitar-playing was a popular choice!

I booked in work to cover the possibility of this extended lockdown.

But, as "lockdowns" were lifted, my shop went back to "normal". "Normal" for me is "constantly busy", and I've been at least as busy these last few months as I've ever been, so consequently many of those long-term jobs are still on the bench.

I appreciate your trust in me, and the acknowledgement that after almost 40 years doing this gig I’m actually pretty good at it, but this DID leave me with a big backlog of work.

Now I have two options:

Plan A: Take advantage of the situation, cut down on the work I take in, and charge a lot more for each job.

Or, Plan B: don’t take ANY new work in for a month or so and spend the time catching up on the backlog.

Plan B will take us through Christmas and my usual two week break. This break is essential for family and recuperation reasons, and is non-negotiable! Plan B is also the ethically and professionally correct option!

At this point, three weeks or so out from Christmas, the likelihood of me getting any but the smallest jobs done before the break is pretty small.

As always I will give priority to those of you who are working musicians or students, but all (or most) of you should have back-up instruments.

So, for the most part, we are looking at early 2021 for most new bookings.

If you have repair work that you require then please call me. I will have some time available before Christmas, but it will be limited.

Hopefully 2021 will be a bit more regular, predictable, and “normal” than 2020!

Andrew

 

 

 

 

LITTLE WING

Hi,

here is a link to a YouTube clip my good friend Alex sent to me. He called it "Bird Song" (after the Grateful Dead tune) and suggested that it would paste well into a version of "Dark Star" (the legendary trippy Dead improvisation). He's right!

Other folk have responded to the clip on YouTube with their own ideas.

Either way, for any of us that have found regular electric guitar playing to have become somewhat predictable this may be a new inspiration...

It's an "art installation" by a chap that clearly has no shortage of imagination, and there are related clips on YouTube if you want to follow them up.

I might try this on my next album - the noisy miner birds around here will gang-up and attack anything!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=89Kz8Nxb-Bg        

   

 

 

Hi Everyone,

I’d like to give you a glimpse into Guitar Repair World from a personal perspective.

Today I lost one of my favourite customers. He died after a long illness.

He was pedantic to the point of obsessiveness about string-spacing at the nut, to the point that he bought a Stewmac Spacing-gauge so that we could talk on equal terms!

During the fifteen years that I knew him he must have bought at least thirty guitars, and brought them all into me to make new bone nuts according to his own specifications. Sometimes he’d come back the next day and ask me to cut a new nut with 0.020” difference between E strings.

He had a collection of various 000-size guitars (Martin, Larrivee, Mills, Fylde, Eastman etc.) that he was forever getting me to tweak and modify. Eventually I realised that he was hoping that I could somehow morph them all into one single guitar, presumably the guitar of his desires...

He was in my shop at least once a week, always with some almost, but also perhaps not quite, sensible idea about modification or about a possible new guitar that he sought my opinion on.

He was what almost every other business on Planet Earth would describe as a "pain in the proverbial", and would send the staff scattering to the tea room!

It was mainly a dialog thing - he spoke in riddles and aphorisms whilst I tried to converse in elementary physics, so there was always going to be some essential disjoint there. But we somehow, always seemed to reach some kind of understanding.

He was hard work, but good work! At some point in the weird dialog would find common ground! And, importantly, after I did what we agreed on, he would then enjoy playing his guitar.

Very eccentric, individual to the extreme, but he always laughed when I pointed out any possible folly that his ponderings had uncovered.

This is an obituary of sorts.

I miss him already.

Farewell my crazy friend.

EWAN JAMES R.I.P

 

 

 Hi Everyone,

ok, my shop is back "open" again after two weeks "closed" catching up on the backlog of repairs.

I caught up a lot in the last two weeks, but I've still got a way to go before I'm back up-to-date. I'm going to have to either slow down on new bookings, or advise a longer time-frame until completion for the next month or two.

I'm not going to compromise and try to rush through the work- this has never been my way. I will work through the jobs as methodically as I always have.

As always, if you need a repair to be completed by a particular date, for a gig or an exam or similar, then I will jump your guitar up the queue past the ones that I've been given an open time-frame for.

I'll try to call you regarding completed repairs, but I tend to do this in a batch at the end of the week. So if you haven't heard from me, and you're thinking about your guitar, please give me a call or send me an email.

It's an unprecedented time.

I think I've also figured out how to update my website's "Shop" page, thanks to instructions from my dear ex-website lady. So, with luck, in a day or two you  should be able to see my shop's inventory of very nice and interesting guitars for sale!

Keep well out there, be sensible and cautious, and keep on playing!

Andrew

Hi Everyone,

following up on my last post - I'm so busy that in fairness to those folk who already have an instrument booked in for repair, my shop will be closed this week and next so that I can catch up.

It's this COVID thing. When it kicked off in March/April a lot of people brought repairs in to me - a lot of them biggish jobs that the owners had been putting off for years (such as gigging musicians finally getting around to that refret, given that they were no longer gigging). Some folk brought in three or four guitars, saying "won't be needing these for a while".

 

The government at the time was hinting at a six-month lockdown so I took on everything I could, figuring that I'd need the work. But then they instead gave us these semi-lockdown conditions, and indoor activities (such as guitar-playing) have boomed. I'm getting people who haven't played in years getting back into it, and guitars that haven't been out of the attic for decades coming in for refurbishment. The government stimulus money seems to be part of it - I'm sure they're paying for more than a few Martin and Gibson restorations!

I'm always busy, but this thing has sent it ballistic. I know a lot of folk have been adversely affected by COVID, and it certainly makes me feel a bit weird to be busier than ever because of it, but I've seen lots of people re-inventing (or re-discovering) themselves because of the limitations imposed. Lots of people getting back into playing guitar! So in some ways it's been a good thing, albeit in a strange way.

So thanks for your patience. I'll be back to "normal" in a week or two, but will still have to book most repairs in on a longer turn-around time than usual until I get back up to date. 

Andrew

 

 Hi there my friends,

trust that you're all fine and well during these very, very odd days.

I'm incredibly busy with work. Thanks to all of you for that, but it's going to require some patience (on both your part and mine) to get through the work. I won't compromise quality for speed, so things may take a little longer than usual to get done. I'll try to keep you all posted.

Fact is: I've never been busier. I've never had more work booked in, and never had more people trusting me with their instruments. And this is the start of my 40th year doing this gig...!

Strange days indeed.

So.

With respect to those of you who already have an instrument booked in with me for repair, so that I can get your job done I won't be taking any new work in for at least a couple of weeks, probably until at least mid-September. Which is actually just two weeks away...

If you haven't called me yet, and you'd like me to work on your instrument, then I'll be more than happy to do so - but it will be a few weeks at least before I can do so.

Thank you all for your support (and your patience) and please keep well during these crazy times.

Andrew

 Hi Everyone,

trusting that you're all well and dealing with this strange new world in the best way that you can.

This month sees me start my 16th year with my shop in Lismore, and my 40th year as a professional guitar-repairer. 40 years! People have received less for murder!

But it has been good. Almost every day for 40 years I have made someone's guitar play better. And usually several people's. Often several people's...

When I left school I had no idea what I wanted to do, apart from becoming a rock-star (of course). My first job was as an accounts clerk at a Building Society in Sydney. My parents, and the management of the Building-Society, all wanted me to become an accountant. Given my subsequent hopeless understanding of money that would surely have been a positive move, but then my future guitar clients wouldn't have  benefited from my modest pricing!

OK. The technical bit.

In the last two or three months I have seen four or five American Fender Stratocasters with their truss-rod nuts wrecked. I have seen this many times over the years, but four in a month is too many.

Here is the reason: many USA truss-rod nuts (including the late-'60s bullet version, and the post '85 new Fender Company version) all use a 1/8" allen key. 1/8" is approximately 3.2mm.

A 3mm allen key is more common than a 1/8", and is used on guitars fitted with a Floyd Rose-type system, including the millions of Asian-made versions. More of these guitars have been made than American Fenders, and the common 3mm key ALMOST fits the USA 1/8" nut.

HERE IS THE THING: a 3mm allen key will ALMOST fit a 1/8" nut. But not quite. If you try to use a 3m key in a 1/8" nut you will WRECK THE NUT!

Given the recent spate, I'm hoping that there isn't someone locally who has taken it upon themselves to "fix" some local Fenders without knowing which key to use.

The metric system was invented about 100 years ago by the French, in an attempt to simplify measurements, but all it actually did was reduce the accuracy of small measurements!

The engineering world still uses imperial measurements for larger numbers, and decimal imperial (ie: based on one-thousands of an inch) for small measurements. The French system's seemingly "tiny" millimetre is actually 0.040" (forty thousandths of an inch). That means that there are forty accurate imperial measurements within the range of the giant metric millimetre!

When working with guitars, which are devices that have to be set to very fine tolerances, millimetres are simply way too big !

Andrew

21.7.20


Hi everyone,

I just crossed a milestone. This week makes it 15 years since I opened my shop in Lismore!


Thanks to every one of you who have trusted your guitars to me. Best wishes to you all.

For 25 years before I moved here I worked out of other people's shops in Sydney - Guitar City, Guitar Factory, Guitar World. Learning, and doing the repairs for established shops like that was a serious responsibility.

When I moved to Lismore I wanted to have a repair-shop that would serve the guitar players of the north coast, and also be independent in such a way that I could have a positive relationship with the music stores of the region. I had plenty of experience with the poisonous relationship between Sydney guitar shops, even if they had no brands or stock lines in common!

This worked out well almost immediately! I continue to have great relationships with the shops in our region - Planet Music Lismore, Byron Music, Valiant Music Brunswick Heads, Russell's Music Lismore. I was also in communication with the Mullumbimby guys when the crazy covid disruption occurred. We are blessed to have great music stores in our region - I trust that you will continue to support them all.


Moving here was a leap-of-faith. I know I'm good at what I do - after 40 years I would have no excuse otherwise - but almost every single one of you, for whom I have been privileged to work for, has trusted that leap of faith.

The majority of what I do depends upon "word-of-mouth". I had a typical thing happen today. Two customers thought that they had recognized each other, but couldn't figure out from where. They back-tracked through gigs, college, school and McDonalds and it turned out that they had previously met HERE (!) at my shop.

So. My guitar-repair shop continues. Obeying government space and distance protocols, hand-cleaners at the ready.

Been a weird anniversary, but otherwise than being VERY busy, no serious change to standard AK procedures!

Keep well my crazy friends,
and play your dear guitars until they simply have to be fixed!


Andrew

Hi everyone,

trusting that you are all fine and dealing well with the current weirdness.

My shop is back open regular hours: 1.00pm - 5.00pm Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. You are welcome to drop by at any of those times. I will be observing advised space and distance protocols.

I will continue to post stuff on this journal page that should be of interest.

Over the last month or so I have seen four American Fender Strats that have had wrecked truss-rod nuts. In the previous 30 years or more I have seen this a few times, but 4 in a month is a bit of a pandemic (please excuse the term).

Here's the thing: USA-made Fenders use a truss-rod nut that is adjustable with a 1/8" allen key (American Fenders are made to "imperial" measurements). Many Asian-made guitars use metric allen keys to adjust various components. Most Asian truss-rods are either 4mm or 5mm, but some early Chinese Squiers use the same 3/16" truss rod as Mexican Fenders do.


Floyd Rose lock-nuts and bridges use a 3mm key, and these are plentiful. Imperial tools are a little harder to find in dear old Metric Australia.


Using a 3mm key in a 1/8" truss rod will wreck the truss rod nut. 1/8" is approximately 3.2mm, and will "almost" fit . But the tiny difference means that using a 3mm key in a 1/8"" nut will round-over the edges of the nut and render it un-useable.

Have these guitars with wrecked truss-rod nuts been "adjusted" by folk in isolation/lockdown  who just wanted their guitars to play better and didn't know the difference between the imperial and metric measurements? Good question.


In the 1970s, when Australia converted to metric, it became illegal for a short while to make or sell items or tools graduated in Imperial measurements! After a brief review, Mr.Fraser's government realised that Australia's entire manufacturing industry was based on imperial measurements, and they repealed that law!

For many years afterwards (and in some cases still) the metric-measured things that you bought were still manufactured in Imperial measurements and sold as "metric". The 6mm dowel that you bought from Mitre 10 was actually 1/4" dowel. There was no point in completely re-tooling every manufacturing industry, so they all basically fudged the numbers a bit! Even now if you buy a sheet of  Melamine chipboard from Bunnings, it will be sold as 1200 x 600mm but is actually 4 foot x 2 foot!


So.

Some metric measurements are very close to the imperial ones, but NONE are close enough that the wrong toll will work.

If you fit a 3mm key in a 1/8" USA Fender truss-rod nut it will feel almost "right". But if you try to tighten the truss-rod (which is under tension) you will round over the truss-rod nut and wreck it. This immediately ruins the shape of the nut and prevents any further adjustments. I'm pretty sure that this has been the cause of these recent Fender truss-rod problems that I have been tasked with.

I'm guessing that the recent spate of 1/8" versus 3mm problems have arised because more people have been trying to do DIY fixes at home.

Golden Rule is that if you're not absolutely 100% sure what you're doing, then don't do it!

Very soon I will post a journal entry explaining and simplifying the imperial measurement system. When clearly explained and understood, it is much simpler and more accurate than the metric system!

Hi Everyone,

from this week on I will have my shop open regular hours - 1.00pm - 5.00pm Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. So effectively back to "normal".

In accordance with the ongoing medical situation I ask everyone to follow advised protocols, and as my shop is a small space, in accordance with the 4sqm rule, my shop is open to no more than two customers at a time. Please don't be offended if I ask you to wait in the corridor for a minute or two.

Strange days indeed. But regardless of this, I am back to normal trading.

Everything (ok, almost everything) is how it was before COVID19. Some parts supplies have been interrupted, especially those from the US, but this should shake down over the next few weeks.

Biggest problem is that most small parcel freight always came via passenger flights (ie: the 300 people in the passenger section subsidized the parcels downstairs) and this clearly isn't happening at the moment, so small freight has to wait until it can be added to BIG freight shipments. This is going to both slow down, and increase cost, of small parcel freight.

I have trade deals with the Australian distributors, as well as several of the US ones, and should be able to keep most supply lines open.. The plummeting dollar, as well as the restricted supply, might make some things a little more expensive - but an extra five dollars on the cost of a CRL switch shouldn't be too much to bear.

I will keep you all informed as best as I can.

AK

Hi everyone,

strange days continue...!

April, which went by under the heavy restrictions, was quiet as far as in-coming work was concerned. I caught up on a lot of the backlog of repairs, but mainly just the regular weekly and fortnightly stuff.

When the virus hit, it seemed  as if we'd all be locked away for a few months.  A hassle for almost everyone, but an opportunity for me to get a lot of the long-term repairs and restorations done!

Strangely, it didn't work out like that. Aargh!

As soon as dear Gladys announced that restrictions would be lifted in May, it was like a switch was thrown.  A LOT or work came in! Chaos! I am more-or-less back on the usual schedule for the week-by-week stuff such as set-ups, wiring etc.; but still rather swamped by the long-term bigger jobs.

I have the shop open on Tuesdays and Thursdays 1.00-pm - 5.00pm at the moment, but will re-instate Fridays soon as well. I/m keeping Fridays for the moment as an extra workshop day to catch up on the backlog!

Keep well everyone, my next post will have a bunch of interesting facts and figures, stories and anecdotal stuff for you to dwell upon!

Hi my friends,

my shop is open Tuesday and Thursday 1.00pm - 5.00pm.

There is a real possibility that I will be going back to "normal" shop hours soon.

I've been thinking about doing a weekly or fortnightly journal entry regardless of all of this, so here is the latest!


PAPER SHORTAGE

We all saw (and laughed at) the inexplicable panic over toilet paper during the onset of this coronavirus thing.

Yesterday, when I went to Woolworths to buy a few groceries, their toilet-paper aisle was fully stocked (brimming over in fact). Phew!

I went into Bunnings today, to buy (among other stuff) the rolls of sandpaper that I use almost constantly in my job. But no - there is a worldwide SANDPAPER shortage (!) as folks staying at home decide to renovate and re-paint.

Ha!

Is there anything that is not weird about these current events?!

Andrew

Hi Everyone,

for the time being, my shop will be open Tuesday and Thursday, 1.00pm - 5.00pm

If those times don't suit, then please call or email and we'll work something out.

Meanwhile, I'm going to share some repair stories and guitar knowledge with you. I've always intended to do this (with perhaps a weekly post) but never quite got around to it. Hopefully this new situation that we're all in will spur me on to doing it! So here's the first installment, and it's a pretty dramatic one...

BROKEN HEADSTOCK ON A GIBSON OR GIBSON-STYLE GUITAR

Some of you will know that this is pretty common, but it's still pretty horrifying when it happens to your Gibson. The good news is that in at least 90% of cases the guitar is repairable, and will play, sound, and tune just like it did before the break. I use jigs and clamps to align the two halves of the break, apply a VERY strong wood-glue and a lot of clamping pressure, and it almost always works out fine.

Breaks that can't be fixed by aligning and gluing like this can often still be fixed, but may require a serious amount of work.

I've done at least one headstock repair, and perhaps quite on average more than that, every week since I started this gig forty years ago. That adds up to thousands of headstock repairs! None of them are quite the same - the way the wood splinters at the break point is different for each one - but they almost always go back together.

Not all of them are Gibsons, of course, but 99% of them have a Gibson-style angled headstock.

BUT!

Here is the point of this particular blog: This week I repaired a 2017 Gibson SG with a broken headstock. The guitar had "Grover" locking tuners.

Here's the thing: a guitar strung with 10-46 light-gauge strings has about 120 lbs of tension applied by the strings. OK. If this guitar was to fall, that tension would be a factor in how much force would be applied to that narrow bit of wood up by the headstock. But so would the weight of the tuning keys (machine heads).

I weighed the separated headstock. It weighed 87 grams. I then weighed the "Grover" locking tuners and they weighed 266 grams! That is, more than three times the weight of the headstock.

My recommendation is, that if you have a Gibson (or a Gibson-style) guitar that has these tuners, that you replace them with a vintage-style tuner set (such as Gotoh SD90). Your guitar has been drilled to 3/8" (10mm) and you will also need step-down collars. It's a lot cheaper than having a broken headstock fixed.

The SG photos are shown below.

Hi everyone,

it would seem to be that my shop is eligible to be open to the public (ie: you guys!).

I have been working via appointment for the last two weeks, and this has been ok. But I suspect that there have been more than a few folk who have arrived at the shop, seen the sign advising 'phone or email contact, and just gone home.

So.

From next week my shop will be open Tuesday and Thursday  1.00pm - 5.00pm,, and you are welcome to drop by at any of those times. In accordance with the current rules regarding social-distancing, I will probably have to see you one-at-a-time, but if we all act sensible, and in accordance with advised protocols, this shouldn't be too hard.

Over the next few months I will be using this Journal page to post all kinds of interesting guitar-repair stuff that I'm sure you'll be interested in.

Keep in touch!

Andrew

Hi Everyone,

for the time being my little shop will be closed other than by appointment. I have to do this for a couple of reasons - firstly, I had bronchitis last year and can't risk another infection, and secondly, I think that this current health situation warrants us all being exceptionally careful and cautious.

I have lots of jobs booked in and I will continue to work through them.

At this point, I am looking at finishing the repairs as normal, calling you and requesting internet payment, and then either delivering the guitars to your door or meeting you in the carpark at the back of my shop. I still have EFTPOS but will only use it via Paywave for the time being. For more distant clients, the freight companies should still be operating.

All of you who know my place will understand that it doesn't quite meet the governments four-square-metre requirement! And the crazy draconian government fine would send me to the wall. But in certain cases I will be able to see you at the shop.

If you have new repairs that you'd like me to do, then please call and we'll work it out. There are several options available.

Strange days, my friends, but I will continue to be here to keep you playing! Please email me with ANY questions.

I will also ALWAYS be available online if you have any technical questions, or are thinking about tackling some repairs on your own. My advice is free!

Keep well, be sensible etc.

Andrew