Straightening Out a Vintage Japanese Bass

That's a lot of vintage vibe.

Sometimes it takes a little extra work to get a neck straightened out.  Especially on one of these things.  This is a 60's Conrad Bass made in Japan and has many cousins probably made in the same factory with names like Lyle, Conquistador, etc etc.  They are pretty neat but can have some problems.  Jeff took the truss rod nut out, cleaned it up, lubed it, and installed a nylon washer so that the nut could get a few more turns, before the threads bottom out.  Even with all that he needed to straighten the neck a tiny bit.  So as you see below, using a stiff aluminum rail, with some clamps and cauls, he clamped it into a back-bow so he could put a few more turns on the rod without applying too much force and stripping it.  It did the trick and he had it setup and playing great later that day.  A word of warning to the DIY player who works on his instruments at home:  If you have any doubts while adjusting a truss rod, STOP, and take it to a professional.  If the truss rod nut becomes stripped it can be very hard to remove or adjust.  If the truss rod breaks, you may be looking at a very expensive repair that in many cases is more than the instrument is worth.  So be careful!

Clamped for adustment

Big Sounds From a Little Guitar!

     Our customer, Mark, asked Doc if it was possible to add a magnetic pickup to the existing factory installed undersaddle pickup and preamp to increase the versatility of his L.P. styled Traveler guitar.  A Duncan mini-humbucker with a Firebird mounting ring was the logical choice for the new pickup.  A routing template was fabricated in 1/4" Lexan and the pickup cavity was cut on our pin routing machine.  An existing round cavity on the back of the guitar, which was used for routing the undersaddle pickup leadwire to the side-mounted preamp, was modified to accept a mini 500k volume control for the new Duncan pickup. Locating this volume control in a more conventional spot on the lower bout was not possible due to the battery box on the back of the guitar.  A stereo output jack was used to allow the output signals for each pickup to run through a stereo y-cord to separate amps to optimize the very different sounds of the undersaddle piezo and the new mini-humbucker.  This arrangement also allows the use of different effects pedals for each pickup, which makes for some very creative sound possibility's from this little guitar.

The Result

Just a Beautiful Restring

This little beauty is a Wildwood Spec Featherweight Gibson Custom Les Paul.  The customer who owns this, comes through often to restring his many guitars and check that the setup adjustments are true.  We just thought we should post this beautiful guitar.  These are made special for Wildwood Guitars in Colorado by the Gibson Custom Shop.

Celluloid Gas Poisons Guitar

Our customer Jonathan was dismayed to open the case to his Yamaha jazz box one day and see this horrible sight.  Every piece of metal near his pickguard had corroded, the closer to the pickguard, the worse the corrosion.   What's happened here?

This particular pickguard is made of celluloid, one of the earliest forms of plastic.  It can look very beautiful and make imitations for tortoise shell and ivory, but is very unstable. Celluloid has been used in the past to make pickguards, binding, picks and other small plastic parts for guitars.  As it ages, celluloid begins to break down and emits a gas that can corrode metal parts like hardware and even frets.  When this happens inside of a guitar case that has been closed for sometime, the gas is trapped and therefore becomes more concentrated and causes the symptoms we see here.

This hardware was too far gone so Brad replaced these parts with new nickel plated components.  He installed a Seymour Duncan Jazz at the neck and '59 at the bridge, and modified the existing coil tap push/pull pot wiring so that Jonathan would have quiet operation when using both pickups tapped.  A new bridge, miscellaneous screws ,and hardware, a setup and this guitar is looking and playing beautiful again.  We left the pickguard off obviously because it will continue to gas up.   

If you know you have celluloid parts on your guitar, one thing to do is to air out the case and guitar often.  These gases need to dissipate so that they don't become concentrated.  If this has already happened to your guitar in the case, even after removing the celluloid parts, these corrosive elements can linger in your case.  You may not want to store it in that particular case anymore.

Parts, Strings, Accessories?

See that old card catalog, it's full of guitar parts.  Come on by and check with us if you need any.  If we don't have it we'll get it on order for you.  Need some strings?  We have those too.  You don't have to drive way out south or pay shipping online.  Picks, polish, lemon oil, or maybe just some conversation with your local techs.  Shop local with GTS or just say hi.   We'll be right here just west of Zieglers.

- Doc, Brad, and Jeff

Flippin' Tele Controls

Here is a pretty common and simple mod for a Tele.  Just flip the control plate.  Well it usually takes a little wiring to turn the switch and trade positions of the volume and tone control.  Some benefits of this mod are: to get the switch out of the way of a player who is hitting it while playing and changing their tone unexpectedly, or to bring the volume closer to the players hand to allow easier volume swells.  This Tele being a Japanese reissue seems like the perfect instrument to play Buck Owen's "Made in Japan."

Tone, Volume, Switch (Bridge, B/N Parallel, Neck)

Switch (Bridge, B/N Parallel, Neck), Tone, Volume