Guitar Repairman Pyrmont & Bermagui in Bermagui, New South Wales | Musical instrument store
Guitar Repairman Pyrmont & Bermagui
Locality: Bermagui, New South Wales
Phone: +61 455 272 962
Address: Central 2546 Bermagui, NSW, Australia
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24.01.2022 On the bench is a 1930’s Epiphone Blackstone, as is often the case with restoring old guitars, a big part of the work is cleaning up previous poor attempts to repair it. So far I’ve pulled all the frets, radiused the neck and cleaned all the gunk and epoxy from around the body joint and off the back of the neck. An unfortunate attempt to repair the neck binding by a previous owner resulted in the little ledge where the binding sits to be sanded away so attaching new binding is presenting quite a challenge. After a couple of failed attempts I’m going with this method using Titebond glue and my homemade body clamps, left for 24 hours to really set and eager now to see if it has worked.
23.01.2022 A good thing to keep in mind if you ever have a go at resetting a guitar neck. The owner of this old Gibson 12 string reset the neck on his guitar but unfortunately shimmed the gap between the end of the fret board and the guitar top a little too high resulting in all the strings buzzing. To get round this he raised the saddle so high the guitar became difficult to play. The option of chiselling out the shim and re gluing the fret board was not one I wanted to embark on so I dressed the last 8 frets down to wafer thin and then lowered the action to a nice playable height. No buzz and sounding sweet!
23.01.2022 I love Gibsons but drop one and you'll be lucky not to have this happen! Before and after
23.01.2022 SG restoration progress
23.01.2022 Situated on the far South Coast in Bermagui NSW but up and down to Sydney so can collect by arrangement
22.01.2022 A new custom made pickguard brings this old Ibanez Bass back to life!
21.01.2022 That's what I call a Father's day gift!
21.01.2022 Well that didn't work! (The method used in the last post) The binding just wont stay on there without a ledge for it to rest on. Last option is to make couple of thin mahogany strips and glue them on the neck thereby making a ledge for the binding to sit on. Hopefully I'll be able to blend the veneer strip into the rest of the mahogany neck once it's on there and all done.
20.01.2022 Yep, everything I expected! Took more than 2 days to strip, finally having to use a heat gun to soften the rock hard poly finish and then hit it with a carpenters wood scraper! Anyway all done now and looking good with the first few coats of sanding sealer applied
19.01.2022 Couple of completed projects with before and after pics. 1) The Explorer came as a separate body and neck I got indirectly from an ex-Gibson Kalamazoo employee who bought up a load of unfinished bodies and parts when the factory closed in 1984. It's not serial numbered unfortunately as it was incomplete but must have come from the 1976-79 'Limited Edition' batch of Explorers that were all mahogany made, as is this one. 2) The Strat was a combination of parts, 1983 Fender Squire body, 1972 neck with original tuners. Custom shop scratch plate and electrics and fitted with legendary Abigail Ybarra hand wound pickups
18.01.2022 Progress on that 1936 Epiphone Blackstone, neck finished! New binding added plus side dots installed New frets Back of neck refinished looking good! ... See more
18.01.2022 Finally, after 3 failed attempts to get the neck binding on I rebuilt the the sides of the neck with a couple of veneer strips and success, the binding held ... pheew that was lot of work!
18.01.2022 I got the screws out of the headstock and the epoxy repair separated fairly easily. Here's why it's best not to use epoxy to repair wood
18.01.2022 late 50's early 60's Framus Hollywood in for a refret and small repairs. The binding had been redone sometime in the past probably at the time of the last refret which is one way to refret a bound board ie: take off the binding do the refret then reapply or add new binding, Although this is the way it is done in the factory at the time the guitar is made, the frets are installed and then the binding, it is not necessarily the best technique for a refret as the binding often d...oesn't go back on perfectly. The traditional method is to nip and file smooth a small piece of the tang at each end of the prepared fret (Pic 1) so that it will overhang the binding. This makes a fair bit more work but finally all the frets are in and levelled (Pic 2). The binding at the top of the headstock was missing (Pic 3) so that has been replaced (Pic 4) I had to trim down some vintage binding to the correct thickness, heat it up in order to shape it to the curve of the headstock and then once it was installed use a small scraper blade to make it completely level and smooth. The best medium for gluing binding is acetone as it melts the binding onto the wood, but you have to be soooo careful it doesn't run onto the finish and spoil it. See more
17.01.2022 70's Greco Strat, poly removed and refinished in clear nitro. Worth the effort as it now looks, plays and sounds amazing!
16.01.2022 This Martin had a bump that caused the back to separate from the sides and a crack in the top. Repaired with my home made clamps and crack winch.
15.01.2022 The three refinishes/sprays I’ve been working on are complete and just need to wait for 2-3 weeks before I can flat sand and buff them. A lot of resprays I get are often home DIY’s that didn’t turn out so well and eventually the owner wants to get the job done properly. However if you want to try DIY and follow these few pointers you should also be able to get a pretty decent result. 1) You’ll probably be painting a body that was originally a polyurethane finish. If that’s t...he case get some 6 or 800 emery paper and lightly dry flat the entire body to key it for the first coat. Don’t use a rougher grit as it’ll scratch your body and that will show up unbelievably clearly once you lay your colour down. It’s unlikely you’ll have a professional spray set up so you will probably use Nitrocellulose cans which you can buy off ebay for about $35-40 AU per can including postage. 2) A lot of people will just spray the colour but that will not give you the best finish, you need to use colour and then spray several coats of clear on top for a proper finish. 3) Important! Nitrocellulose is nasty stuff so either wear a proper spray mask or spray outside. 4) Spray as many light coats of colour that you need to cover the entire body so that no old colour shows through. Allow 2 hours between coats. If you’re careful you might manage this with one can but may need two. If you do buy two cans just use them up and count how many coats you have applied. This is because you need to apply a total of 6-12 coats of colour and clear 5) You might need another 2-4 cans of clear Nitro lacquer to get the required amount of coats. 6) Once you have finished the spraying process leave it for 2-3 weeks to cure. ..... To be cont’d See more
15.01.2022 It's about 2 1/2 weeks since I finished respraying the 3 projects I had in the workshop, if you missed that one just scroll down a few posts to find tips on how to DIY a respray. Now the nitro cellulose lacquer has cured sufficiently it's time for the next and final stage of flat sanding and buffing. I start the flat sand with 600 grit wet and dry emery paper. Cut some small square pieces and put in water for a while with a drop of washing up liquid, this helps the sanding ...go a lot easier. Flat the entire guitar using a small flat pad to wrap your pre soaked emery paper round, periodically dry off the body (I use paper kitchen towel) and check the finish in the light, the finish needs to be matt, if there are still lots of little shiny bits you need to keep going until you have a nice uniform matt finish. Then repeat this process going up through the grits to 1000, this is to get rid of the scratch marks, you can go higher but I find 1000 is enough as I have a buffer which finishes the job up nicely. Pics show the process on the three guitars ending with the best and final part, the buffing ..... now all that remains is to assemble the guitar ! See more
14.01.2022 This 1970's Greco Strat is going to get a clear coat nitro refinish. From experience these old Japanese guitars are a nightmare to strip, impervious to paint stripper it's going to take a lot of elbow grease and sandpaper to get it done. I'm hoping as it's a neutral poly it might respond to stripper and be easier to strip down to the wood
14.01.2022 If you come across some old semitone piano keys, hang onto them! A guitar came in recently that needed a new nut and I found I had run out of my stock of camel bone blanks but then remembered a friend in the UK had a long time ago given me a handful of over 100 year old semitone piano keys. These were made from high quality, hard as nails aged Ebony and are a beautiful substitute for a quality nut which you'll also find on many vintage guitars like Gibson's Kalamazoo models from the 1930s
12.01.2022 In for restoration is this 1990's Gibson SG. In need of repairs as well as a refinish. It will undoubtedly be a nice slab of mahogany under that black goob so I'll redo it in traditional cherry red stain that will show the lovely mahogany grain
11.01.2022 Finished product!
08.01.2022 Addition to the last post .... if you're attempting a respray and get runs in the finish don't worry, just leave it to dry for 24 hours and then carefully dry sand out the runs with 400 grit paper, the next coat will melt in and the run should disappear
05.01.2022 Must be the season of the bridge! Quite a few guitars coming in with dodgy bridges. Maybe the change of weather?
05.01.2022 1967 Gibson SG in for refret. These guitars have that vibe and feel you just can't substitute. 1) Ready for surgery 2) When removing old frets I heat them first with a soldering Iron, the tip of which I have filed to fit the crown of the fret. This enables pulling the fret with the minimum of tear out to the board. 3) Stewmac plyers do a great job of pulling frets and snipping new fret ends. Well worth the investment. 4) All frets are out with no chipping, just need to cle...an the board up a bit before pressing in the new frets. 5) One of these days I'll buy a proper fret press but in the meantime my drill press does a great job! 6) A few more hours crowning and polishing and she looks and plays great! See more
03.01.2022 Selling a few guitars for a friend 1) 1997 Standard Strat USA, all original, comes with generic hard case. Price: $1350 2) Tele Deluxe Partscaster 70s Strat reissue MIM neck. The owner believes the body to be Tele Deluxe reissue MIJ. Bridge pickup is a Seymour Duncan Antiquity... Neck is a genuine Gretsch Filtertron. Price: $1050 3) Martin Travel Guitar with pickup and original Martin carry bag $350 See more
02.01.2022 This old Heritage Gibson was made in the early 70’s apparently a victim of the poor quality control that went on during that period. The bridge had been placed a full 6mm too close to the neck so never played in tune properly. The saddle had already been moved back as far as it would go to try and rectify the problem but it wasn’t enough and still it wouldn’t play in tune. To solve the problem we need to remove the bridge and reposition it correctly. I had planned on making a new bridge as the old one was splitting but got half way with the new one when I decided to repair the old one as a better option to keep the guitars originality. Repaired and stable the bridge is now where it should be and the intonation spot on, finally she can play in tune!
02.01.2022 Going to be in Sydney for a couple of weeks if anyone needs work done or needs to see me.
01.01.2022 Finally satisfied with the neck angle on the Explorer so with the frets in and neck lined up took the plunge and glued it in. Next job is to find the correct place for the bridge, if you don't do this the guitar will never play in tune. The general location is found by measuring from the nut to the 12th fret, then double that and add a bit more for intonation, that small amount can be determined by the scale length and going to Stew Macs website to get a detailed explanation of scale length: https://www.stewmac.com//Learn/Scale_Length_Explained.html The little scale tool you can see on the neck is a brilliant bit of gear by Stew Mac that makes this task of finding the bridge location considerably easier.
01.01.2022 A few more of the recent jobs that had to be done before completing the Vintage Epiphone: 1) Here’s how to fit your bridge to an archtop, place a strip of sandpaper on the top of the guitar and rub the bridge over it until you have the same profile as the guitar top, Simples! 2) Fixing the back binding: First warm up the binding with a heat gun then mould it round the guitar body, when it cools it’ll roughly keep the shape of the guitar. You can then glue the binding a sectio...n at a time by pressing it in place and securing it with low tack masking tape. I waited on refinishing the back and sides to do this job as I used acetone, the absolute best for binding as it melts it into the channel, however it also runs everywhere so if your guitar is finished you’ll want to use another glue or be very, very careful! 3) I did a ‘How To’ in a previous post but you can see the process once more for replacing the tuners with new vintage style buttons, available from StewMac. 4) Last of all after refinishing with clear Nitro lacquer, I leave it for a couple of weeks to cure before flat sanding and buffing. See more
