News and Updates
Guitar Restoration Part 18
With the bolt style screws and backplate reattached, we now use some precision levelling tools to adjust the neck and body. A few twists and turns of the bolts and we are good as gold… Perfect alignment ensures perfect tuning!
Guitar Restoration Part 17
Piecing it back together. This is the fun part after all the hard work is done, to watch the new look components reattached to their former glory.
Guitar Restoration Part 16
I love these locking tuning pegs and keys. Never used them before, but they will make it much easier for my son to keep his guitar in tune. He has a sensory need to touch, feel and turn everything, so this will assist and make it easier to retune and sounding great.
Sound Check
Testing out my new Bose L1 Pro8 Portable Line Array PA System. This thing has an amazing sound. Using my Martin DCXE Dreadnought and Shure SM58 Microphone, this setup will be good for an audience of up to 200 people…
Guitar Restoration Part 15
Connecting the locking pegs and tuning keys can be a real nuisance. The engineering of the pegs is such that it needs a bit of Mafia style engineering (i.e. Cover with cloth and beat with rubber hammer) to correctly fit them.
Recording Demo Tunes
Just finished recording some more demo tunes from Foo Fighters, The Cure, Green Day, Dave Matthews Band and INXS. Very happy with the quality considering I'm using a stripped back setup…
Guitar Restoration Part 14
Before you pick up the guitar and start shredding like Eddie Van Helen, just take a chill pill. Allow it to stand for about 2-3 hours to ensure the oil has completely absorbed.
Guitar Restoration Part 13
Oiling the neck to bring the wood back to life is important. Without the oil the neck the wood dries out and has a propensity to warp, therefore the guitar will not stay in tune.
Guitar Restoration Part 12
Soldering is fun and I managed not to burn myself (Yay!). Replaced the old volume pot, earth wire, single coil pickup and jack input. Took about an hour to rewire…
Guitar Restoration Part 11
Not much in the way of electronics on this little 3/4 Guitar. Simple set up with volume pot, jack input and single-coil pickup. Should be easy to fix even with my rudimentary electronics skills.
Guitar Restoration Part 10
I painted a pretty cool monogram ‘M’ on the headstock and sprayed the back and head with a gloss lacquer. Several coats with varying degrees of sanding between each coat with lighter and lighter sandpaper…
Guitar Restoration Part 9
Now that the neck is sanded and brushed with steel wool, I wanted to respray it with a semi-gloss lacquer. Too much gloss and your fingers stick, but a matt finish just wouldn’t have the right look…
Split Ends
Split finger tips and thumbs are unfortunately part of playing. It sucks and there is really nothing you can do except wait for them to heal…
Piano Practice
Spending the afternoon going over some songs. Recording myself so I can listen back and fix parts which are not sounding right.
Bose L1 Pro8
Just purchased a new Bose L1 Pro8 Portable Line Array PA System. It’s so easy to move around it only weighs 18kg. Packing Bose Professional performance…
Recording Sessions
Spent the past few days recording demo tracks for the website and achieved some really great results considering I’m recording with an iPad and GarageBand connected to a condenser Mic…
Guitar Restoration Part 8
Spray painting the body of this beast is time consuming. My son picked a cherry red colour which looks very striking. I sprayed first coat, waited for it to dry then sanded lightly back…
Guitar Restoration Part 7
Stripped and sanded, so now the real work begins. Painting and trying to get the body smooth and avoid that orange peel look from inconsistent spraying.
Demo Cover Tunes Update
Just uploaded some new demo tunes to the cover setlist. Check them out on the Songs page… Still working on editing the videos for the YouTube…
Guitar Restoration Part 6
Steel wool on the neck instead of sandpaper protects the fingerboard, inlays and frets. It’s coming up nice and will be functional, but will be hard to get it back to new look…