The Guitar Doctor

This week has been all about shielding. I’ve had several guitars in all suffering from residual noise...common in single coil guitars. I cover the entire cavity and where possible, the scratchplate and/or cavity covers. It reduces outside interference and cyclic hum from electrical appliances on the same mains ring.
Also...Copper tape also acts as a Snail barrier so if those pesky critters are making their way toward your nice warm guitar, then this will work like Kryptonite does on Superman, albeit at a much slower pace.
Beware the snails though, they’re crafty, conniving little beggars. They’ll remove their shells just to squeeze inside your guitar and the only sign is when your playing becomes a little sluggish....

FM - Mr Overland’s trusty Seafoam Strat in for pre-tour work and a set up. It had become unstable in tuning over the last few gigs. This was traced to the neck screws which were no longer providing adequate grip to the neck, allowing it to shift side to side with pressure, also forcing the strings off the treble side. The neck was removed (exposing mismatched screws), then the worn threads filled and new matching screws fitted with a slightly larger thread (as an extra security measure). The neck is now rock solid.

No idea what this extra rear route is for behind the Floyd Rose on this Kramer Pacer, but adding a trem setter becomes a less than straightforward job. Routing it down to meet would weaken the area in my opinion and with the trem forces against the trem setter, it could split the body. I could shape and glue a piece in, but it’s more work/added cost.... it seems a pointless factory measure as it’s not even for spring clearance to the trem block...baffled.

This has been trying my will to say the least...presented with a common problem (on older guitars), although this is relatively young itself. The “tongue” of the fretboard (the section that runs over the body) rises in relation to the neck, creating a hump that causes notes to fret out all the way up. This can be due to storage issues or environmental changes such as heat and damp, or just a manufacturing issue where the Guitar was constructed in less than perfect conditions ...and it then settles over time. I must have skimmed this tongue section 4 times in total because I didn’t want to go too crazy. The hump was prominent here and the frets would have ended up very low in theory, but by carefully balancing the truss rod, the action and the fret levelling I’ve managed to get a great result where the guitar plays with a low action and doesn’t fret out and the frets have not been ground down too much. It cost more time, but the result was greater.
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Whisking the HRH guitars through for Josh Tabbie Williams - Session Bass Player and Johnny Miller.

God knows what was attempted here but not surprisingly, the pickups don’t work.

Well there’s a first for everything. I guess from the distortion of the scratch plate and the signs of wax in the routes, someone has heat gunned these pickups in an attempt to stop the microphony. Whether this is extra wax that’s been added or it’s the wax from the pickups that has melted out, is unclear. DIY guitar fixes...they get worse.

2 f***ing dremels dead in 2 years...they certainly don't make them very durable these days. Luckily they're sending a replacement FOC but as I'm about out of warranty I'd better get a back up. At least the replacement lands Monday so it only puts me back a couple of days.....

Excuse me Doctor but my fingerboard fell off and the school glued it on with hot glue....
Oh the joys of DIY fixes. Luckily heat gets hot glue all “moist” 😉 again so it didn’t take a tonne of persuading to let go fully.
Following this it was a case of cleaning up both surfaces. The neck seemed to have bowed but as there’s only the fingerboard to provide strength, I hoped it would pull back. As you can see...it did.
... After that strat stressing me I was prone to Violins...but luckily I kept my cool. Thank you, I’m here all week....
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Well this one tested my nerves a little...simple job it seemed to swap the neck and all the hardware and electrics from one heavy ass guitar body (natural) to one much lighter body (cream) even though it needed all the holes drilling bar the 4 through the heel.
This isn’t a genuine Fender body, and as I discovered, it’s given away by the fact that the neck holes are 2mm out top to bottom and the route puts the neck at a slightly off centre angle to the body. (See photo).
Th...is meant that I had 2 options..plug and re-drill the holes through the body for the neck and alter the route, thus leaving a gap at one side of the neck, OR tilt the trem slightly toward the bass side to compensate. I’m a firm believer in doing the job that retains the best overall strength and visibly looks more pleasing. Since plugging the body may wear over time and lead to poor string run, etc, I opted to compensate via the trem as you can only tell it’s been done by removing the backplate....
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Firstly, it's been a long week or two, so I'm catching a nap in the photo.
Anyway, thanks to Miles Harrison Troy Meakin for letting me loose on this. Firstly it was turned from Gloss Black to a fiery Gloss Red (Shaun Bould) and then handed to me for the following....
Replace smoked chrome ESP tuning keys and ream mount holes to accommodate Dimarzio Planet Waves Auto trim tuning keys in black.
... Remove EMG and circuitry and replace with black covered Dimarzio ToneZone and Air Norton - this meant rewiring completely as the actives use 25k pots and the passives use 500k pots. I also added a push/push coil tap option on both pickups via the tone control. The tone control was also fitted with a Sprague Orange Drop .047 capacitor for huge tone sweeps and topped off with a Switchcraft jack for reliability. Added to this was the full tone pickup mount system - a heavy brass direct mount to add sustain and tone. The neck pickup had a chunk of hand shaped dense mahogany to help that achieve the same.
Remove smoked chrome ESP ABR-1 bridge and inserts and drill out post holes to accommodate Babicz posts and Babicz full contact ABR-1 bridge (aluminium cams were swapped out for brass at this point again to add tone/sustain). The post inserts were also set very slightly forward to attain the maximum contact (the guitar top is shaped rather than arched like a Les Paul...it steps down to form a slimmer border around the entire body) and with one curved spacer added to the base, this provided 100% contact to add tone/sustain.
String up with D'Addario NYXL 9-46 in D (Midnite City tuning) and Babicz cams set to match radius of the fretboard and then intonated to pitch.
Anyway if you haven't heard of Midnite City...where have you been...?? Here you go, no need to thank me. https://www.facebook.com/midnitecityuk/