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Repair shop horrors, post em.

johnny mustang

New member
Joined
Nov 22, 2015
Messages
1
Horrors in the UK:

I took my new '98 SG to a shop in Harrow as the bridge was buzzing. The store owners wife lurched out from the store cupboard wielding a screwdriver and started jamming it under the wire and bending away like an Aztec priest trying extract a heart. Then she screwed all the saddles out of place and presented it back to me. The guitar was too scared to buzz after that. Intonation? Who needs intonation. At home the buzz was back and accompanied my out of tune playing nicely.

New '03 Les Paul Standard. Open low E string rattled. Took to a different shop in Harrow, owned by a couple of wannabe gangsters. Rather than diagnosing the obvious poorly cut nut slot, it was decided that the first fret was too high (measured by eye). After that was skimmed down and he 'set up' the guitar, it was chocking out and dead spots all over- a real mess. I said it doesn't play so well- and he started cranking at the truss rod like he was trying to start an antique car. I'll never forget that sound. I lied to get get my guitar out of there, "It's just perfect!!"

From all of this nonsense I found the guy that does all my guitars now and is a master repairman in the UK- Bill Puplett. He replaced the nut, dressed the frets and now 12 years later the guitar is still solid and has only needed a minor, loving, truss rod tweak in all that time. Plays like a dream.

Any nervous UK vintage guitar owners should track him down. He worked miracles on a '54 Martin of mine. He's in high demand though.




those "Gangsters" did a runner with a load of customers guitars inc my mates 68 jazz bass.....
 

K701

New member
Joined
Apr 10, 2015
Messages
466
those "Gangsters" did a runner with a load of customers guitars inc my mates 68 jazz bass.....

Ouch. One looked like the singer from Right Said Fred. At one point after a bizarre phone call where he misunderstood what I was saying, he threatened me, said he knew where I lived... It was all very strange. I called the police and they said they were aware of the brothers and their dodgy doings. His work on my LP cost me £90 to get fixed.
 

el84ster

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 10, 2001
Messages
1,420
This all goes to show, if you're at all serious about guitar, learn to at least do your own sets ups and wiring. It's not that hard and a good book like dan Erlwine's will tell you everything you need to know. It's not rocket science, and no one can set it up to your own personal feel like you can!
 

tooold

Active member
Joined
Jul 31, 2006
Messages
2,071
I might have the topper. Sorry, it's a bit long.

I do most of my work on my guitars and amps, but haven't made the jump to fretwork.

I'm American, but I married a British woman and moved over to the UK in 2001. We bought a house for retirement/vacations in SW France, and ended up moving there permanently (we thought - we wound up moving back to the UK a few years later) in 2008. It's way out in the country, almost nothing in the way of local repair people.

While we were living there, I fulfilled a long-standing dream by buying a '55 Goldtop from Canada. The only way I could afford it was because it was refinished and renecked, but both seriously nice work. Original fretboard, inlays, binding. However, the original frets were really worn and it wasn't playing well, and I bought it to play, not to look at (mostly:)).

I was making a big effort to make contacts in the local area, and after a lot of searching found a guy in the nearby "big" town (25,000 people) who built basses with a very good international reputation, and he did repair work as well. Went to see him, nice guy, nice shop, his basses were beautiful. We talked about which frets to use, everything was great. His main concern was that the inlays had been previously planed down and would it make them too thin to use again. I told him about the guitar, vintage Les Paul, it's worth a lot of money, need to keep the inlays, otherwise it loses value, blah blah blah. I wasn't sure he really understood, but, as I said, I was trying to build a life here, and it would be good to have a local guy who's good to do the stuff I'm not comfortable with, so I leave the guitar with him.

A couple of weeks go by, he calls and says it's all done, inlays are fine, so I go to get it. When I get there, I pop it out of the case, it plays great, I'm excited and relieved. Bear in mind I'm only looking closely at the fretboard from the front, checking the inlays and the frets - otherwise I'm playing and it feels great.

He says something in French that I sort of half understand (something that happens frequently, especially with technical terms or specialized vocabulary) and I sort of smile and continue (something that also happens frequently). I do get that he's saying something about something he couldn't do with the frets, but it doesn't seem important, because, hey, it plays great!

After a few minutes, I go to put the guitar back in the case, and look closely at the neck from the side for the first time, and my heart sinks - like a stone. He'd done the frets as though it was an unbound neck, with the fret tangs exposed - nicely polished down, mind you - but with the tangs showing through the binding. I was so shocked that I couldn't even think of anything to say. I just grabbed the guitar, paid him and ran. Fast.

The colossal level of not getting it that doing the frets that way revealed still boggles my mind. :hmm

If you look closely, you can see the tangs in this photo:

S1955Les-Paul-front-detail-crop.jpg


And that's the way the guitar is today - plays great, sounds amazing, and looks fantastic (see my avatar) unless you look closely at the neck. I'll eventually get it fixed, but for now, it's a reminder to get your guitar to someone good - and that even someone you think is good can turn into a nightmare. And also that, despite the many fools and scoundrels who "fix" guitars in the US, we're blessed with a bunch of amazing ones as well, and not every place is so lucky.

PS There are obviously good guitar repair guys in France. I just haven't found him (or her) yet.
 

dgsphil

New member
Joined
Feb 10, 2016
Messages
87
I might have the topper. Sorry, it's a bit long.

I do most of my work on my guitars and amps, but haven't made the jump to fretwork.

I'm American, but I married a British woman and moved over to the UK in 2001. We bought a house for retirement/vacations in SW France, and ended up moving there permanently (we thought - we wound up moving back to the UK a few years later) in 2008. It's way out in the country, almost nothing in the way of local repair people.

While we were living there, I fulfilled a long-standing dream by buying a '55 Goldtop from Canada. The only way I could afford it was because it was refinished and renecked, but both seriously nice work. Original fretboard, inlays, binding. However, the original frets were really worn and it wasn't playing well, and I bought it to play, not to look at (mostly:)).

I was making a big effort to make contacts in the local area, and after a lot of searching found a guy in the nearby "big" town (25,000 people) who built basses with a very good international reputation, and he did repair work as well. Went to see him, nice guy, nice shop, his basses were beautiful. We talked about which frets to use, everything was great. His main concern was that the inlays had been previously planed down and would it make them too thin to use again. I told him about the guitar, vintage Les Paul, it's worth a lot of money, need to keep the inlays, otherwise it loses value, blah blah blah. I wasn't sure he really understood, but, as I said, I was trying to build a life here, and it would be good to have a local guy who's good to do the stuff I'm not comfortable with, so I leave the guitar with him.

A couple of weeks go by, he calls and says it's all done, inlays are fine, so I go to get it. When I get there, I pop it out of the case, it plays great, I'm excited and relieved. Bear in mind I'm only looking closely at the fretboard from the front, checking the inlays and the frets - otherwise I'm playing and it feels great.

He says something in French that I sort of half understand (something that happens frequently, especially with technical terms or specialized vocabulary) and I sort of smile and continue (something that also happens frequently). I do get that he's saying something about something he couldn't do with the frets, but it doesn't seem important, because, hey, it plays great!

After a few minutes, I go to put the guitar back in the case, and look closely at the neck from the side for the first time, and my heart sinks - like a stone. He'd done the frets as though it was an unbound neck, with the fret tangs exposed - nicely polished down, mind you - but with the tangs showing through the binding. I was so shocked that I couldn't even think of anything to say. I just grabbed the guitar, paid him and ran. Fast.

The colossal level of not getting it that doing the frets that way revealed still boggles my mind. :hmm

If you look closely, you can see the tangs in this photo:

S1955Les-Paul-front-detail-crop.jpg


And that's the way the guitar is today - plays great, sounds amazing, and looks fantastic (see my avatar) unless you look closely at the neck. I'll eventually get it fixed, but for now, it's a reminder to get your guitar to someone good - and that even someone you think is good can turn into a nightmare. And also that, despite the many fools and scoundrels who "fix" guitars in the US, we're blessed with a bunch of amazing ones as well, and not every place is so lucky.

PS There are obviously good guitar repair guys in France. I just haven't found him (or her) yet.

Terrible that this happened but funny that you bring it up. We just had an early 80s Les Paul that had the same kind of fretwork done to it. Cut right through the binding and tore it up. Carl just got done re binding the neck and new frets and it turned out great! Can't tell that anything was ever done to it (minus the brand new frets of course) We have a picture of it up on our Instagram.
 

tooold

Active member
Joined
Jul 31, 2006
Messages
2,071
Terrible that this happened but funny that you bring it up. We just had an early 80s Les Paul that had the same kind of fretwork done to it. Cut right through the binding and tore it up. Carl just got done re binding the neck and new frets and it turned out great! Can't tell that anything was ever done to it (minus the brand new frets of course) We have a picture of it up on our Instagram.

Well, at least I'm not alone! :)
 

latestarter

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 9, 2009
Messages
4,173
That's a real shame to hear. Not that hard to fix, but still totally avoidable with a little extra time in cutting the tangs.
 

tooold

Active member
Joined
Jul 31, 2006
Messages
2,071
That's a real shame to hear. Not that hard to fix, but still totally avoidable with a little extra time in cutting the tangs.

Yep, that was the thing. Why not do it the right way? And if he felt like he couldn't do the job with the bindings, why not just say so? The whole thing was a head-scratcher. Among other things... :bigal
 
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