Chubbuck Guitars / Kevin Chubbuck, making & repairing guitars in an old building just north of Boston, Massachusetts.
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epoxy
A noisy pickup that needs to be replaced. This pickguard assembly is super clean, but the pickup is epoxied and screwed to the ebony making it difficult to remove. The tiny screws stripped and/or broke on me so out comes the heat lamp to soften things up. Aluminum foil helps direct the heat to only the pickup mounting tab, though some heat does transfer via the metal tab to the pickup. Not a big deal since the pickup is bad.
This 1960's Aria Barney Kessel is back in for another neck set issue. I re-glued the top to the block a few weeks ago but the plywood neck block decided delaminate through one of the plies. I ended up filling the gap with epoxy in an attempt to stabilize the neck joint (video below). Fingers crossed!
Removable side repair :: 1999 Luthier Music Corp TRVL01 Travel Guitar [2.1 lbs]
This was an interesting project that made me feel more like a boat builder than a guitar guy. The sides on this travel classical are removable and over time the tabs that fit into the body had become damaged and previously repaired. One of the tabs was even cut off and super-glue-lap-joined to the side. All of the tabs needed to be repaired, so each tab was epoxied and wrapped with fiberglass and mahogany veneer on each side. I used InstaMorph (moldable plastic pellets) to make inner and outer molds for each tab (eight molds in total) to maintain the shape during glue-up. The lap-joined tab was removed and notched into the side before reinforcing. After cleaning up and fitting each tab, the repairs were sealed with a light coat of shellac and waxed. Many, many hours on this seemingly simple project.
Repairing removable sides :: 1999 Luthier Music Corp TRVL01 travel classical
Let's see how this goes. Here's a travel classical with removable sides and the tabs have been repaired numerous times in the past. I made two cauls out of InstaMorph, along with fiberglass and mahogany veneers to sandwich the tabs. The trick will be pulling this off somewhat cleanly as I'm using epoxy. If this turns out well, I get to repeat this three more times.
1983 Ibanez AM-255 Artist :: reglue top to center block.
This was just in the shop recently for finish repairs, inlay and setup. The owner decided to swap out the neck pickup when he got it back. While having the guitar gutted, he noticed that there was a large gap between the top and the center block around the neck pickup that extended to the bridge pickup.
He brought the guitar back to have the gap checked out. I used epoxy for it’s strength, open working time and gap-filling properties. The entire top was masked off to prevent any epoxy from making a mess of the finish. Also worth noting is that I plugged the pickup ring screw holes to prevent hydraulic pressure from forcing the epoxy up and onto the top.
This was a first for me. I will be pulling the pickups on all semi-hollow guitars that come across my bench to check for this in the future!
![Removable side repair :: 1999 Luthier Music Corp TRVL01 Travel Guitar [2.1 lbs]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dfcee2e4b0c0da377c65c7/1430976695580-0SCO2MTVSPMTI6UMN7M2/image-asset.jpeg)
