06/02/2012

2 repairs, 1 job






A Fender CN-210 SCE Natural and a Yamaha AEX 500 N were brought to me together; The owner desired a lower action on both, re-stringing with Hannabach light tension strings, and the fitting of new nickel-coloured Schaller Lyra tuners -- same on both guitars.
Although the action and tuners on the Yamaha as they were, were quite good, the Fender had an almost unplayable action and unsatisfactory tuners.
So I first adjusted the action by loosening the truss-rod pull. On the Yamaha this was enough.
On the Fender, I had to lower the plastic bridge a little bit, and together with some truss-rod adjustment this was OK.
To fit both guitars with the Schallers, I had to fill the drill holes for the tiny screws that held the old tuners in place. This was done by clipping toothpicks to a fit, glueing them in with a run-of-the-mill powerglue, and sanding the protruding bits flush with the headstock. New drillholes were slightly prepared with a 1,5mm drill on my Dremel rotation tool.
The new low tension strings and tuners will help the owner play with a little more ease, like he wanted.

22/01/2012

Renewing a Spanish Classical






A long-time friend brought me his second-hand Vicente Sanchis (Valencia) guitar to renew.
The fingerboard had some bad, deep wear-and-tear marks on it. I filled it up with nitro cellulose resin, mixed with some dark wood sanding dust.
I refreshed the frets and polished the hardwear, cleaned the guitar and fitted it with some Savarez strings.
The most interesting bit of this repair was probably what was inside of the guitar case; some very old "capodasters", packets of unused strings, and a Spanish train ticket (probably to Valencia?) stating "95 pesetas" on it... The guitar obviously has a bit of history and has come a long way!
Most importantly, it's light, plays brilliantly (almost Flamenco-guitar-like) and has a very descent sound for a semi-handcrafted, semi-assembly line guitar!