Manchester Guitar Tech
When you’re shopping for pickup covers it’s essential you know the pole-piece spacing of your pickup. Measuring centre to centre is hit and miss and it’s easy to be a mm out which can make all the difference! An idea occurred to me that it doesn’t need to be so hard. Here’s the trick if …
I spent just about all of today rewiring this jazz-style guitar. It was made by Skiffle Cat who may well now be defunct? It’s not the greatest guitar in the world but it is very servicable and now sounds the business. Last time it was here I dressed the frets, gave it a new Tusq …
Over the last few weeks I’ve been fortunate to have some unusual 70s basses in the workshop. It was a coincidence that they were all here at the same time, although the two fretless basses were brought in by the same person. Wal Pro II Bass The Wal Pro series of basses was introduced …
The owner of this Gibson Lucille wanted to get a better sound from his guitar. Although position “1” on the Gibson Varitone switch is supposed to be bypass, it does leave the choke in the circuit which loses volume and precious tone. As the guitar’s owner didn’t find the stereo feature of the guitar useful, …
This Höfner Model 4575 “65-3” guitar which dates to 1965/66 and I’ve just rewired it as the controls were unreliable. despite a good clean. Alan at Project Guitar Parts supplied the switches and also a reproduction pickguard and bracket. The pickguard needed to be cut to accommodate the pickups. Eagle-eyed aficionados will spot that the …
I just made this pickguard for a Tele fanatic. He’s making (another) Esquire, this time using the body from a Baja Telecaster. I cut the pickguard to accurate Fender dimensions (of course) and lacquered with clear gloss nitrocellulose lacquer and buffed it to a shine just like the originals. I also fitted a Texas Special …
This Australian-built Maton Supreme 777 is getting on for 50 years old and has seen some action! It came to me needing a refret, a new nut and a general fettle. The Bigsby vibrato was in a sorry state and needed rebuilding with a new arm and spring. The pickups had been cut off at some …
A couple of tours ago I did some work on Jared Followill’s basses, and today the Kings of Leon brought me a couple more to work on before tonight’s gig at the Lancashire County Cricket Ground. I shielded both bases with copper foil and rewired them using CTS pots, Teflon coated wire and a solid copper …
This beautiful 1989 Gibson L4 CES was brought in with a bad electrical buzz. I traced the buzz to a disconnected bridge earth wire which I reconnected. I noticed however that at some point early in its life the guitar had been rewired with different pots. The pots have solid shafts and whoever did the work …
Here’s a lefty Epiphone Les Paul that I upgraded the other day. The list of upgrades is: Tusq nut fret dress rewire setup Tusq nut The nut on the guitar was a cheap hollow plastic replacement that had poorly cut string slots causing tuning problems. A new Tusq nut sorted that out. Rewire The existing …