What am I working on?

I thought sharing some photos of my work on the bench and the process an instrument goes through during repair would help you understand. Here are some progress pics I’ve taken while working. Enjoy!

New JIG

I recently built a router sled to make radiusing a fretboard much quicker, easier and repeatable. All my fretboards I’ve made thus far have been done by sanding the radius in, which is very time consuming. I’ve gone from taking 2 or 3 days sanding a radius, to less than 5min. Best part is my arms don’t hurt for days!

I’m looking forward to using this many times in the future!

Replacing a '71 Les Paul Standard's nut with a new compensated nut I carved from a bone blank. This customer was suffering from the well-known G-string tuning issue Les Paul's typically have.

Roughing in the steps on the shelf that sits on the fretboard, where I'll fine tune (hah) the intonation by removing more bone. Starting at these roughed-in steps I can hone the nut to provide perfect tuning all over the fretboard.

The other side. It's starting to look like a nut, but you can see there's quite a bit of work to still do- deepen the string slots so the strings sit just proud of the first fret and forming the nut to a pleasing smooth state.

Here I'm checking the tuning and marking how much the intonation is off so I know how much, if at all, I have to remove to dial it right in.

This guitar has a bridge that was being pulled free from the top. I need to remove, clean up, and glue the bridge back on. Here I'm heating the bridge for removal. This softens the glue enough I can get my tool in under the bridge and work it free of the top.

The bridge didn't give much resistance, as it was partly separated already anyway. No blow out so that's good.

My jig for keeping the bridge aligned, there's a bar underside joining and distributing the pressure as it's tightened from the top

All done, looks great! No more vibrations lost from a bridge that was being pulled free from the top.

These frets no longer have enough material to provide a properly intonated note.. Strings are buzzing and dents are big. Prep the press and the fret wire!

Frets removed and I'm working on cleaning up the fretboard. Ebony is beautiful, but the dust is a nasty irritant if you inhale too much... Some minor tear out that will be addressed later.

Some minor tear out that will be addressed. Ebony is a very hard and brittle wood that's susceptible to tear out like this. Not too bad, but it will need some touch up.

setup done on this Epi Les Paul with a Floyd Rose bridge. Tricky job for those who don't have the experience. Turned out sounding amazing!

making a shim out of Maple veneer to adjust the angle of a neck

Sanding a radius into a fretboard for a guitar I'm making. Tedious work... ebony is VERY hard

A one piece neck with the fret slots cut and a 10" radius applied to the fretboard

next step on the one piece neck will be to use the rasp to round off the back of the neck. Gonna go with a 68' Tele profile.