Chubbuck Guitars / Kevin Chubbuck, making & repairing guitars in an old building just north of Boston, Massachusetts.
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takamine
Check out those gouges!!! The player of this freshly refretted Takamine uses metal picks and seems to keep the pick wear to very localized areas. I love seeing this stuff - unique legitimate player wear.
The video below is pulled from my Snapchat nonsense. Make sure you add me (@chubbuckguitars) so we can hook up!
Here I'm polishing out the frets on a freshly refretted Takamine. Check out the video below for shininess.
A Takamine Santa Fe in for new frets. This fancy contraption is Stew Mac's improved version of a Taylor Fret Buck. When hammering frets I use a heavy lead shot bag under the neck to make the frets go in easier. The trouble with hammering in frets over the body is that there is no mass to absorb the hammer blows. This fret buck has a tongue that goes inside of the soundhole and is tightened up against the bracing under the fingerboard. I have had great results using this fret buck method. In the past I would hand hold a heavy steel block under the extension with one hand and knock the frets in with the other. Awkward, but worked well.
Check out the video below where I'm preparing the new frets for installation.
A Takamine cutaway in for new frets. Check out the video below for the removal of the old frets and the above photo is truing of the fingerboard in preparation of the new frets.
2004 Takamine AN10 [4.5 lbs] :: new bone split saddles.
Let's start by saying I am not a big fan of split saddles or pin-less bridges (on a steel string). They do look cool, but this combination makes setups take a little longer and pin-less bridges on steel string guitars always seem to fail faster. Pin-less bridge designs are asking the glue joint alone to bear the weight of roughly 180 lbs of shear force from string tension. Traditional pinned bridges allow the top to help relieve some of that tension from the glue joint. As you can see from the photo, the two black dots on the rear of the bridge conceal bolts that many production manufacturers use to help keep the bridge on (but still fail eventually). The bolts help locate the bridge during glue-up and also prevent catastrophic failure*.
This bridge has a slight gap forming behind the bridge, but nothing serious at the moment. Ideally it should have been removed and re-glued but I wanted to keep this in budget. It may have to visit the bench again in the future. All in all, this guitar sounds great for a production dreadnought.
*Speaking of catastrophic failure, I was at a guitar show years ago. While everyone was setting up in the morning getting ready for the public, someone's classical bridge let go and the bridge came flying off of the guitar. Wow, it was a gut-wrenching sound that made me feel for the builder.
![Seriously deep pick wear :: 2008 Takamine Santa Fe TSF48C [5.5 lbs]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53dfcee2e4b0c0da377c65c7/1466233168767-CNFK13J36PIZ0R5P9BXP/20160617_Takamine_Santa_Fe_pickwear.jpg)
