Ovation Celebrity CC057 [4.6 lbs] :: setup

July 19, 2016

What should have been a straight forward setup was complicated by the undersaddle pickup design. This Ovation's saddle is machined into the pickup so I could not just remove material off the bottom like usual. The material had to be removed from the top of the saddle in order to lower the action. Ideally I would have liked to disconnect the pickup and re-profile the top of the saddle but that would have taken longer than the time allotted to this while-you-wait setup (she had an upcoming gig). The saddle is made of a softer synthetic material with significant string bite so I treated it like a nut and filed the grooves deeper.

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Seagull S6 Quantum I [4.9 lbs] :: setup

July 18, 2016

A Canadian built Seagull acoustic in for some tweaks. After straightening the neck, the saddle had to be shimmed up to improve the action. There is an undersaddle pickup so any modifications to the saddle require the consistent string-to-string output be verified and corrected if necessary.

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Peghead & body damage :: 2002 Tacoma Thunderchief CB28C [6.7 lbs]

January 20, 2016

This guy was finally picked up after 2 years (!). I reglued the bridge, repaired a split in the headstock and glued up a loose tailblock-to-top seam. There was also a loose top brace and the undersaddle pickup was humming so it needed to be replaced.

Quick video originally posted on my snapchat (@chubbuckguitars) and shared to IG:

A video posted by Kevin Chubbuck (@chubbuckguitars) on Jan 4, 2016 at 10:02am PST

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Getting lucky with a dead pickup :: Yamaha FGX-412SC [5.2 lbs]

November 16, 2015

This pickup hasn't worked in years and the player decided to let me give it a shot. I got lucky on this one. First thing to check on acoustic pickup issues is the power. A fresh battery didn't solve the issue so I started checking connections with a multimeter set to continuity (beeps when a connection is good). The culprit turned out to be the battery box. All of the connections were good, but their wasn't enough pressure to hold the battery leads up against the contacts in the battery tray. I used some foam to take up the slack and push the battery forward in the tray and voila!