Fret level & dress :: 1989 Sadowsky Jazz Bass [8.8 lbs]

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This sweet 27 year old Sadowsky J-bass has been through the shop before and this time in for some high / loose frets.  Before leveling the frets, I glued and clamped down all of the frets to ensure they did not move.  On rosewood fingerboards my glue of choice is thin superglue.  This was a finished maple fingerboard so superglue can make a mess quickly.  I opted for slightly thinned down yellow glue to penetrate down into the slot and easily clean up.  Now the frets are ready to be leveled, crowned and polished.  This player prefers electric guitar action (ie low) so precise fretwork is critical.

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Floating bridge & broken strap button :: 1960's Harmony H22

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A recent NYC acquisition of a full-hollow Harmony bass for a Boston area player in the shop for a couple issues.  The plastic tail strap button broke off which makes playing while standing on stage a little difficult (duh).  I removed the broken piece of the acoustic-style endpin, plugged the hole and installed a set of Fender strap buttons.  Another issue was that the floating bridge was skating all over the top so we decided to lock it down with double-sided tape.  The tape should keep the intonation in check and will release with a little naptha if necessary.  Cool bass for sure.

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2010 Gibson Les Paul Studio [7.9 lbs] :: switch issues

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A nice little Les Paul Studio in for a bone new nut and some switching issues.  The toggle switch had been replaced and the solder connections were rather poor.  This style switch is designed to break the connection as opposed to making a connection.  The pickups would cut in and out and there was no neck-only position.  The neck position was not properly kicking away the bridge pickup connection so the contacts needed to be physically adjusted to allow the neck-only pickup.

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1994 Heritage H-535 ASB [7.7 lbs] :: new bone nut

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A beautify 335-style offering from Heritage in for a setup.  One concern was the truss rod threads were extended well past the adjustment nut.  The truss rod nut was previously tightened so much that it had compressed and lifted the area around the access cavity.  So I started off with stabilizing this area with glue and flattening the nut slot.

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The original nut was now sitting too low due to the nut slot repair so a new bone nut was made.  This would also help with the tuning issues the player was having with the old nut.

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The player bought this guitar used so he was interested in checking out the pickups.  I'm not a Heritage expert, but I believe these are the originals (though I'm not sure on the signature).

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Lefty 2003/2012 Fender American Deluxe Stratocater [8.0 lbs] :: setup

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Here's a left handed 2003 Fender Deluxe Strat body with a 2012 Custom Shop neck.  This came in with a very high neck set over the body.  The Micro Tilt screw in the neck pocket was engaged which allows you to quickly dial in the neck angle if necessary.  I am not a fan of the Micro Tilt as it is a single screw that pushes up the rear of the neck and acts as a single-point shim.  The better alternative is to use a traditional wood shim with as much contact in the joint as possible.  This guitar did not require the neck to be shimmed as I backed off of the Micro Tilt and dropped the bridge down.  Lefties are always a trip to play test!

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