Trade Secrets!

Dan Erlewine's working on a World War II era Gibson flattop. He explains that during wartime, some experienced factory guitar makers were replaced by temps. Maybe that's why this guitar's saddle was in the wrong place. Here's how he fixed it.

Time to install a saddle in this bridge. Where exactly to put it? Salvaging this original Gibson bridge required filling the saddle slot. You can’t assume the original factory placement was correct. Dan Erlewine shows how he located this saddle.

The tuners on this Kay Speed Demon are nearly 50 years old, and they're worn out. The old tuners are 6-in-line, but not Fender spacing. Matt Brooker shows how he's modifying the replacement tuners to fit the guitar.

The bridge on this old Gibson has an unusually low, flat profile. Dan Erlewine shows how he modified a bridge clamping caul for gluing the bridge to the guitar top.

Most Fender nuts have a curve on the bottom, so shaping them for a perfect fit is tricky. It can be the toughest part of making a new nut. Erick Coleman shows you some troubles to avoid, and a neat trick for good results.

A really unusual guitar just came in to Dan Erlewine’s shop. Something Dan’s never seen before: a kiln-fired, ceramic guitar. Erick Coleman helps Dan do some sleuthing on this oddball, and they uncover the surprising story.

Dan Erlewine made a black walnut guitar for Jerry Garcia in 1970. Recently a Grateful Dead fan asked Dan to make a replica of that guitar. In this Trade Secret, Dan shows how he made the pickguard out of laminated wood veneers.

Visiting Blue Eagle Music Shop, Dan Erlewine comes across an unusual instrument from the 1970s: a foot bass. While he’s in the shop, Dan checks in to see what’s happening with Blue Eagle’s young setup tech, Raj.

All wired up, but no sound! It can happen to anybody: you do some wiring or change your electronics, then find you’ve got no sound coming out of the amp. In this Trade Secret video, Matt Brooker helps you troubleshoot.

High action turned out to be a symptom of trouble for this guitar. The owner felt the strings were a little high. Taking a closer look, Dan Erlewine finds that the bridge is just about to pop off! A hump had formed under the bridge, and Dan comes up with an interesting solution.

Will you need to drill holes in your guitar if you put new tuners on it? How do you figure out which tuners are an easy fit, and which require more work? What about keeping the old tuners for resale value? We get questions, and Erick Coleman has answers.

Dan Erlewine just moved into a new shop! In this video he finishes work on the Mike Bloomfield Telecaster, a guitar with a lot of history. We’ve been following this guitar for several videos; now Dan wraps it up with an assist from Erick Coleman.

The rosewood fretboard on this 1963 Telecaster has some nasty chips from old fret jobs. Dan Erlewine uses three methods to fix fretboard chips, including some serious surgery for the worst cases: grafting in new rosewood!

Matt Brooker has a neck with some buzzing frets. He traces the problem to some poorly seated frets and shows two ways to clamp them down. Matt shows why seating the frets is the first thing to do before taking a file to your fretboard.

There was a load of glue and grunge under these frets. With scrapers, wipers and heat from an alcohol lamp, it’s amazing how much gunk Dan Erlewine extracted from Mike Bloomfield’s old fretboard!

The Mike Bloomfield Tele is back in Dan’s shop. It's in for a refret, and that means working very carefully on this historic guitar. As Dan pulls all the frets, does he manage to avoid chipping the old rosewood fingerboard?

Lots of low-cost guitars play great, even though the manufacturers cut costs on hardware and electronics. Swapping out your control pots is an easy mod with big results. Erick Coleman shows you how to avoid trouble…

Two braces popped loose inside this Epiphone acoustic. Dan makes some do-it-yourself glue scrapers and shares a ton of ideas. With his brace gluing wedge and see-thru plastic guitar, Dan turns this fix into a guitar repair class!

This fretboard binding caught on somebody’s sweater. The missing piece was never found, and the guitar is in Dan Erlewine’s shop for repair. This kind of quick fix is familiar to guitar shops everywhere!

BANG! While this guitar was being played, the bridge popped off with a sound like a gunshot. Before Dan Erlewine glues it back on, he explains the likely cause of this trouble: grain runout in the guitar’s cedar top.

A small finishing job like this is easy. After the bridge popped off this classical guitar, Dan Erlewine replaced it with a new one. In this short video, he shows how simple it was to put a finish on the new bridge before gluing it on.

There’s a knack to using a StewMac 3-Corner Fret Dressing File, and Erick Coleman shows you what that’s about. He demonstrates the rolling motion that creates a nice rounded fret with an accurate “land” down the center.

Dan Erlewine visits backstage with the great blues guitarist, Joe Bonamassa and his highly experienced tech, Mike Hickey. Joe talks guitars with Dan, and Mike shares two guitar setup tips.

The string spacing on this old Gibson is uneven. Dan Erlewine shows how he made the E-to-E string spacing wider, then located the other four strings with proportional spacing, not equal spacing.

Did you know you can tap the truss rods right out of a Rickenbacker neck? Erick Coleman shows how, and he removes the fingerboard from a troubled RIC guitar neck using a household iron!

Dan Erlewine learned this trick at Gibson’s factory back in the 60s: Three jars, three mixes of lacquer and thinner always ready for “flash coat” touch-up spraying. This finish repair hides a batch of punctures in a Gibson archtop.

When a local music venue burned down, this Strat was in the blaze. The neck burned like a candle, but Erick Coleman has salvaged the body. This is a good opportunity to show how to install a Fender style neck.

After an unsuccessful finish repair, this guitar’s owner sent it to Dan Erlewine to fix the damage. Using a neat trick he learned from Erick Coleman, Dan builds the finish fast with films of dried lacquer. Then he polishes it with a hand drill and foam pads.

This little parlor guitar was found in a trash can and Dan Erlewine is doing a quick fix on the bridge. The pin holes were entirely chewed up. Dan’s drilling them out with a peg hole reamer then plugging them with peg-shaped plugs of hardwood.

Dan Erlewine first saw this Tele back in the 1960s, before Mike Bloomfield recorded with it on Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited album. That was also before Bloomfield and Dylan were booed for going electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. And before Bloomfield recorded the first Paul Butterfield Blues Band album with this guitar. There’s a lot of history in this Telecaster!

Six tuners lined up perfectly straight, and no chips in the finish.
The last step in building this beautiful electric guitar is installing the tuners.
Brazilian luthier Rod Gomes visited Dan Erlewine's shop to show how he does it.

Learn the right way to install nylon strings so they don’t stretch for a month before you can start playing.
Brazilian luthier Rodrigo Gomes visits Dan Erlewine’s shop and sets up a classical guitar for Dan to start learning to play bossa nova.

Over fifty years, this amp’s seen a lot of gigs and garages. Dan Erlewine’s fixing it up for a friend who wants to play it again. While the amp’s out for repair, Dan patches the torn up blue diamond tolex.

You’ve got to see this German guitar from the 1830s! Dan removed the back to repair it, and now he needs to duplicate the wood binding that’s nearly 200 years old. He shows how he started from a plank of walnut to create custom-sized wood binding strips.

Typically classical necks don’t have side dots, but Dan Erlewine’s adding them to this guitar. He shows the fast easy method, and explains why he’s using a different technique this time. Dan also shares some neat do-it-yourself jigs.

Making a beginner-friendly fingerboard: Dan Erlewine’s sister-in-law is learning to play, and her guitar has rough, sharp fret ends. The fingerboard edge is also too sharp, but Dan quickly makes this guitar more beginner-friendly.

These classical tuners aren’t turning freely — they’re sticking. The holes for the tuner barrels were never drilled quite right, so Dan Erlewine re-drills them, using our Tuning Machine Drill Jig for Slotted Pegheads.

From Dan Erlewine: “My friend Sui Keung Ho aka Carl, was visiting from Hong Kong, and spent a couple days in my shop. I was making this Trade Secret about gluing a bridge, and Carl chipped in with an additional tip. Thanks, Carl!”

High action and a badly shaped nut: That’s the situation with the nut on this old May Bell guitar. Dan Erlewine lowers the nut slots while also “back filing” the nut so the strings angle down properly to the tuners.

Dan Erlewine found a 1935 May Bell and fell in love with her. She has some fret buzz due to worn frets that are flat and wide. Dan shows how a little leveling and filing got her playing again.

How to clamp a guitar bridge without crushing the braces inside: Dan Erlewine uses a chunk of insulation from the home improvement center. In this short video, Dan shares a trick for custom-shaping the foam to fit any guitar.

A different sort of Erlewine Neck Jig: Dan’s building guitars out of black walnut that he’s saved for forty years. For carving and shaping, he comes up with an easy-to-make jig to hold a neck at just the right working angle. It spins and tilts too!

Making new pickups look old: Brand new pickups looked too shiny in this guitar that had seen a lot of gigs. So Dan Erlewine opened the old pickup and put its cover on the new one. This meant cutting the solder joint and resoldering.

This bridge is in the wrong spot, so the guitar can’t play in tune. Rather than drill new holes in a vintage guitar body, Dan Erlewine comes up with a clever solution.

Dan Erlewine’s building a guitar for a tattoo artist. It’s solid black walnut, with a fancy peghead inlay: a tiger image drawn by the customer.

In this Trade Secret, Dan tells about that inlay and shares a neat trick for exactly sizing the binding that goes around the peghead.

If you turn the truss rod and nothing happens, the trouble could have been built into the neck at the factory. The time to avoid it is when you glue on the fingerboard. Dan Erlewine shows how to fix this problem before it happens.

A customer asked me how to avoid breaking tiny router bits. I answer this question from time to time on the phone, and it makes a good Trade Secrets topic. I talked to Dan Erlewine and Dan made us this video. Check it out!
—Matt Brooker, StewMac Tech Support

Dan Erlewine's got a nasty broken peghead on a yard sale guitar.
He shows how to fix it, and shares his thinking on which glue to use and how he does a glue test. This is actually a double break needing two repairs at once.

Dakota Dave Hull is a pro touring guitarist, a veteran of years on the road. Lugging a half dozen heavy guitar cases, he stopped by Dan Erlewine’s shop and answered some questions, starting with “Why so many?!"

Whether he's performing at the renowned Caffe Lena or at a house concert in the Midwest, Dave carries a lot of guitars. We’re pleased that all of these guitars have Waverly tuners, available exclusively from Stewart-MacDonald!

Dan Erlewine's homemade dust collection system: Dan used to go outdoors to trim binding, because without dust collection the job got really messy. That’s all changed now: Dan's homemade dust collection system is a simple plastic storage bucket turned into a downdraft routing table!

A P-Bass with fret buzz: Dan Erlewine fixes his brother’s bass, and answers the question, “To get rid of this fret buzz, should I adjust the saddles or the truss rod?”

Whip tips are for pinpoint gluing. These are skinny little tube-tips, but sometimes you want them even skinnier. Elliot John-Conry of EJC Guitars squashes, cuts and modifies tips and pipettes to get drops of super glue and accelerator exactly where he wants them.

Dan Erlewine has a quick tip for sanding anything truly flat. He demonstrates with a guitar neck and fingerboard that he's prepping for glue-up.

If you're not careful, installing new strings can create a problem that throws you out of tune or damages your bridge pin holes. Elliot John-Conry of EJC Guitars shows us an easy fix.

A little bit of glue hides imperfections... Dan Erlewine personalizes a fretboard with the customer's name in pearl: "Hoss." There are small gaps around the inlays, and dan shows how to make those gaps disappear. Dan also shows a neat magnet trick for cutting thin slices off the end of a fretboard.

Dan Erlewine needs to pull the tuner grommets/bushings from the peghead of this old Gibson. The lacquer is already damaged, and pulling the bushings can yank finish off too. Dan rigs a jig that holds the finish down while the bushing comes up.

Working on a 1938 Gibson lap steel, Dan Erlewine needs to clamp the neck way more tightly than usual. He comes up with a special jig by modifying a Rock-n-Roller neck rest.

How do you set the tension on a banjo head? If you're more familiar with guitars than banjos, Dan Erlewine has a few quick tips for you.

Dirty tuners filled with dried gunk: Dan Erlewine's working on a guitar that's been sitting untouched for over fifty years. The tuners are too stiff to use, but he gets them going again by using heat, naphtha and an injection of lubricant. He makes a nifty little tuner-holder jig, too.

We've watched Dan Erlewine repair this 1930s Kay over the previous 3 Trade Secrets. It's time to finish it up. Elliot John-Conry of EJC Guitars ages Dan's patch of new plastic binding so it blends in with the old binding around it. About the guitar in this video: This 1930s Kay Deluxe is a fixer-upper that Dan Erlewine repaired in order to sell. Now that it's in great shape again, maybe Dan'll keep it!

Replacing a section of this binding from the 1930s requires thicknesses that are no longer available. Dan Erlewine has to custom-size some new wood bindings on his drill press. It's not hard to do: watch the new pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Titebond or hide glue? Hot glue or bottled? Dan Erlewine uses three glues for this repair, and each has different properties. He explains why one glue can't cover all the bases. And he's created some pretty interesting cauls for clamping this job together while it dries!

Dan Erlewine went to the Columbus Guitar Show to sell some fixer-uppers. Nobody bought this beautiful 1930s Kay Deluxe; its neck joint problem must have seemed like too much work. The guitar came back home and volunteered for this Trade Secret about making a tiny saw for cleaning old glue joints!

Lindy Fralin, of Lindy Fralin Pickups, shows how he sets pickup heights. Lindy shows it's not about measuring, it's about listening. Recorded at last summer's Northwoods Seminar in Michigan.

Bad news: the binding on this old Gibson is crumbling to bits.
Worse news:that binding is the only thing holding the body together!
Dan Erlewine's plan is to replace the binding bit-by-bit, so the top doesn't fall off.

By grinding a new edge on a razor file, he creates a tool for cutting crisp square binding channels without a router.

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! These repair magnets snapped together with a CLACK!, drawing blood from Dan Erlewine's finger just as he was about to show his gizmo for avoiding pinched fingers and separating stacked magnets! Also, Dan explains a radical bracing change on an original Earthwood acoustic bass guitar.

Michael Greenfield of Greenfield Guitars explains clearly why it's critical to have properly shaped and sanded guitar bodies before you rout them for binding. Michael shared this great Trade Secret with us during the 2013 Northwoods Seminar last August.

Frank Ford is the man behind frets.com, one of the richest sources of lutherie tips to be found anywhere. He's a skilled luthier, machinist and inventor. Spend a few minutes in Frank's shop at Gryphon Instruments, and you'll come away smarter!

Link Van Cleave is a sharp guy! He taught tool sharpening at the 2013 Northwoods Seminar. That was a class on professional techniques, but Link also gave us this foolproof Trade Secret for making your favorite scraper super-sharp.

Chemicals that add or remove years: Mamie Minch shows how she fades away old brown oxidation ù or adds it, to make a new patch of spruce match the surrounding wood.

West/East concept guitar: Michihiro Matsuda taught guitar design at Galloup Guitars' Northwoods Guitar Seminar in August. We were lucky enough to get this video as Bryan Galloup interviewed Michi about his unique gunpowder scorching.

The king of Gibson relic finishes: Tom Murphy is well known as Gibson's go-to guy for relic finishes: perfectly worn and age-cracked. Tom's business, Guitar Preservation, makes this a specialty. In this week's Trade Secret he shows us how to make and use a scraper for cleaning binding after spraying a sunburst.

Erick Coleman has a 50-year-old pickup that's nearly dead: It's making a little bit of sound, but not much. Erick opens it up to find the trouble, and we get a good view of the guts of this vintage Fender pickup before he rewinds it.

Shaping a neck is all about feel. Chelsea Clark learned from Dan Erlewine, and honed her skills on abandoned "project guitars" found on Craigslist and eBay. Chelsea shares some great tips on shaping the neck and preparing it for a finish.

"Can a broken nut can be fixed with baking soda and super glue?" Lou, a singer here in Athens, Ohio, brought this question to Dan Erlewine (along with the broken nut on his Yamaha guitar). As it turns out, the answer is yes and no...

Erick Coleman uses a hammer and X-Acto knife before filing. On this video he also talks with Dan Erlewine about how a 1954 Les Paul went from Bondo Mess to Relic Goldtop, with multiple luthiers contributing to its restoration.

Dan Erlewine modifies a plastic cutting board from Walmart to solve a guitar binding problem. He needs four matching pieces of black-white-black binding, and he shows a clever trick for doing this. From the free Trade Secrets newsletter at stewmac.com

Dick Boak of the Martin Guitar Company visiting Dan Erlewine's guitar repair shop. The conversation is about pre-war Martin tenor guitars, and Dick really knows this subject. From the free Trade Secrets newsletter at stewmac.com

Compact, low-profile guitar repair setup: Dan Erlewine removes the mounting base and bolts his StewMac Guitar Repair vise to the end of his bench, for a new low-angle working style. Also: a quick tour of Dan's customized workbench.

Don't ruin your pickup rings by skipping this step! Dan Erlewine nibbles, files, scrapes and sands to create a curve that matches the top of his Les Paul.

Titan of the Tele: Bill Kirchen explains why he flips his control plate backwards, and shows how he got the famous sounds he recorded on Hot Rod Lincoln.

Ever wonder whether a different capacitor would affect your tone? It's between you and your own ears, nobody else can tell you what you hear. Erick Coleman's got a simple way to prove to yourself which cap is the choice for you.

After nearly 60 years, old celluloid parts start to crumble. The pickup risers on a '55 Gretsch are rotting away, and Dan Erlewine builds new replacements from a sheet of tortoiseshell pickguard plastic.

A truss rod fix leads to a binding repair: Dan Erlewine has to remove the fingerboard from this great old cowboy guitar, and some of the red side dots disappear. He shows two techniques for replacing them.

Two do-it-yourself tools that I've been using for years to shape the bridges on Martins: I show you how to make one in a jiffy, and there's a free downloadable plan for the other one! -- Dan Erlewine

The three basics to keep in mind if you want your work to be as good or better than the guitar's original wiring. -- Erick Coleman

The free Fret Position Calculator at stewmac.com does the math, but can I trust its numbers for placing a Martin bridge? I tested the computer against my "stone age" method. — Dan Erlewine

Dave Collins at Herb David Guitar Studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan shows an easy-to-make tool for swapping banjo bridges.

Dan Erlewine's working on a black lucite Dan Armstrong bass -- one of only eight that Ampeg ever made. The fretboard has a nasty crunch. Step-by-step, Dan details how he does this tricky fix.

Trade Secrets On The Road: Dan Erlewine visits the repair shop at Herb David Guitar Studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He brings back this great, simple tone tip from repairman Brian Delaney.

In this Trade Secrets video, Dan Erlewine extracts and replaces a broken screw in a Fender peghead.

Erick Coleman builds a custom guitar that's even simpler than Bo Diddley's rectangular axe. It's a great example to show the basics of building an electric guitar.

A make-it-yourself solution for fast accurate 90 degree cuts on your table saw. Also a cool tip on making bendy, flexible cauls that follow the shapes on a guitar.

Tips for fitting a shaped and slotted nut. Dan Erlewine tries a preshaped nut in his own Fender Strat: it's so easy "it's almost like cheating!"

In Dan Erlewine's shop: This Martin D-35 has a cracked top due to the pull of a shrinking plastic pickguard. Dan fixes the problem and shows how to keep this happening from happening again.

Dan Erlewine shows what he does when a bolt-on neck's mounting bolts aren't holding tight anymore.

After 55 years, the original owner sells a 1957 Gibson Les Paul Junior because the pickup's dead. Erick Coleman tells the story of bringing that pickup back to life.

This issue of Trade Secrets is a video: Dan Erlewine demos three of his favorite finish repair tips: 1. Super glue drop fills. 2. Frank Ford's razor blade trick. 3. Strip-sanding with fingertip pressure.

This issue of Trade Secrets is a video: Dan Erlewine glues a Martin back brace, using Scissor Jacks along with tools you can make in your own shop. After this video, we developed the Brace Gluing Wedge to simplify this job and reduce the number of tools needed.

Erick Coleman opens up a 1973 Fender Musicmaster Bass and is surprised by what he finds!

Dan Erlewine fixes a 1980s Harmony guitar with a bridge that's falling off. To see how fast he can do this repair, Dan decided to play Beat The Clock!

Dan Erlewine with a common truss rod problem: an over-adjusted rod that just won't work anymore. Luckily, there's an easy fix!

Semi-hollowbody crack repair: Dan Erlewine compares Gibson's ES-350T to their more famous Byrdland. Includes 1955 catalog descriptions of these two great Gibsons.

Erick Coleman answers a frequently-asked question: how (and why) to wax-pot a pickup.

Dan Erlewine fills holes in the peghead of a 1965 Gibson Firebird.

Erick Coleman installs P-90 soapbar pickups into the dogear pickup frames on an Epiphone Casino. It's an easy upgrade that makes a big difference.

Dan Erlewine has a Gibson doubleneck with a broken truss rod -- a problem that sends lots of guitars to the trash can. What will it take to rescue this one? The answer might surprise you: it takes 65 minutes of work.

Erick Coleman answers a question that's come up a lot lately: how to find the right size replacement nut. He introduces a new Sizing Sheet that makes measuring easy for anybody.

Where to put the workbench in your shop? And where to put the vise on that bench? Dan Erlewine's helps a friend with those questions in his new garage workshop.

Is it a good idea when a repair shop recommends that a customer try some do-it-yourself wiring? Erick Coleman's customer rewired a Les Paul, but ran into trouble. Now Erick's re-rewiring...

After gluing a broken peghead, Dan Erlewine still a finish repair to do. In this Trade Secret, he shows you how to save time by using amber super glue and his favorite razor blade trick.

Erick Coleman shows how he modified a Parsons Street Humbucker, turning it into a switchable single-coil/humbucker combination.

Dan Erlewine shows how to put a round peg in a square hole, literally. Check out this handy drilling idea, and you'll probably find lots of uses for it in your shop.

Erick Coleman got a text message on his cell: his customer's archtop bridge broke the night before a recording session. Can he replace it overnight? Here's how he carved a new one in a jiffy!

Dan Erlewine shows how he sprays finish touchups in a small shop with no spray booth.

Dan Erlewine's doing some Telecaster body work for Bill Kirchen. Bill's famous Tele riff drove Commander Cody's "Hot Rod Lincoln" into the Top Ten back in 1972

Erick Coleman uses his wife's clothes iron on a guitar: a simple solution to a problem fretboard.

Inside a "miniature Les Paul case," Dan Erlewine finds a beautiful 1958 Gibson in 3/4 size. Cleaning the electronics gets it playing again. PLUS: Dan shows his shop-made "Guitar Testing Gizmo"

Erick Coleman shows tricks you can do with those four colored wires coming from your humbucker pickups.

Dan Erlewine has a Martin D-35 with a loose brace inside, and it rattles. He shows how to make your own brace-fixing gizmos for a clean repair.

Erick Coleman's got a Fender bass with a purple metallic finish. He wants to spray an 1960s-style sunburst, but first he's got to get that hard plastic coating off of there...

Dan Erlewine's fixing nasty-sounding control pots on a great-looking Supro lap steel from 1960.

Erick Coleman's 1967 Melody Maker is getting too old and pricey for knockaround club gigs. With some simple mods to an affordable new Gibson, he's made himself a good backup guitar.

How does Dan Erlewine manage a repair inside a big string bass, without opening up the body? (We suspect he does it with mirrors...)

Taking a Les Paul from Nashville to Kalamazoo by way of the Tune-o-matic Bridge: Erick Coleman swaps the factory Nashville bridge for a 1950s-style ABR-1 Tune-o-matic.

Dan Erlewine's got a Martin with a potbelly: string tension has pulled the top into a hump on this 1928 0-18. To make things tougher, the guitar top's encased in a thick layer of epoxy finish! It's an interesting puzzle...

Erick Coleman has a quick tip that will save you a lot of trouble.

Dan Erlewine shrinking pickguard martin D-35 adhesive micro-mesh

Erick Coleman finds that a 1970s Hondo is really well built, but the parts weren't road-ready. A couple of fixes, and this guitar's ready to tour the world!

Dan Erlewine needs to fix the inside of a classical guitar, but can't fit his arm through the soundhole. Thinking outside the box, he finds the solution to this puzzle!

Should you put $100 worth of repairs into a guitar you can replace for $200? Erick Coleman tells why his answer is yes. And he hands over the repair tools to Christine, who works in StewMac's office.

Dan Erlewine shows the easy way to install side dots in guitar neck binding. And he has some tips for using plywood scraps around your shop, too!

Dan Erlewine's been posting photos on Facebook, creating this photo story on how to convert a fretted bass to fretless. It's a Trade Secrets story and it's on Facebook too!

Erick Coleman can't find tuners to fit a Martin mandolin -- so he modifies 12-string tuners to do the job!

Erick Coleman fixes a slipped neck joint on a beautiful Gibson ES-125, showing what can happen to glue joints that get too hot.

Dan Erlewine started a simple, quick repair, but one unlucky hammer tap created a whole new problem to solve!

Dan Erlewine wants to install two very different pickups in a jazz guitar. When there's no place to fit active system's battery he comes up with a simple, flexible solution.

Erick Coleman's got a simple wiring project that most guitarists need: a true bypass stomp switch to take your effects pedals in/out of your signal chain.

In our Money Talk series about operating a repair business, Dan Erlewine tallies up the time and expenses of a profitable pickup installation job.

Erick Coleman pulls his old Strat out of mothballs and gives it a new neck. He shows what's needed to get a replacement neck ready to play.

Erick Coleman's restoring a 1950s Les Paul, and returning the bound fretboard to its original condition. With small files and elbow grease, he shows how to create the fret-end "binding nibs" for that distinctive Gibson look.

Dan Erlewine has to leave a guitar body with the back off for months. How to keep the sides from going out of shape during this time? Believe it or not, the answer is blue foam insulation from the home improvement store.

Dan Erlewine's making a forgery of an old Gibson label, using his brother as an accomplice (he's got a good excuse). While he's at it, he shows how you can make new custom labels for your own guitars.

If you sometimes think of making a custom electric guitar, Erick Coleman has tips to make one part of the process a lot easier. Here's how to rout the neck pocket and control cavities so they look as good as a factory build.

Dan Erlewine modifies wooden clothespins for a bunch of jobs around the shop -- today it's gluing kerfing into an old Gibson. While he's at it, he plays Santa Claus and offers a make-it-yourself holiday gift idea.

Erick Coleman gets an urgent call on a Friday night: the Heavy Metal band Skeletonwitch needs some custom pickup work in time to head to Ozzfest in 24 hours!

Erick Coleman has a simple tip that saved a lot of time at the recent Purdue Guitar Workshop: rubber binding bands make great clamps! They're for lots of things -- check out the examples in this issue.

Erick Coleman fixes a chip on a 1955 Gibson TV Model, which means figuring out how to recreate that unique see-through yellow finish.

Dan Erlewine's got a puzzle on his hands: this guitar's center strip fell out along with the braces. These parts are meant to be glued BEFORE the guitar is assembled. How do you reach inside to do this on a completed guitar?

Years of hot dry storage caused the fret ends stick out on the sides of this banjo neck. Mark Hyatt found that it's easy to file them back into line!

Erick Coleman gives The Business to Rontrose Heathman's Les Paul to get it ready for a recording date with L.A. legends, The Hangmen.

Dan Erlewine is missing one last part needed on a 1917 archtop Gibson. It's a long gone, irreplaceable pickguard support that he recreates from found material in his shop. A useful tip for fabricating modern plastic parts, too!

Erick Coleman's buddy wanted a guitar just like the one he saw on Soul Train in the 1970s. Curing his Boogie Fever required a neck transplant, but Fender's Micro-Tilt neck adjustment makes that tricky. Here's how to do it.

Dan Erlewine shares a tip for putting a rounded shape on bone saddles: use the notch in one of those utility knife blades in your toolbox!

Erick Coleman just went guitar-shopping and picked up a used Gretsch Corvette from 1963. It needs a little fixup/setup. This Trade Secrets is about tweaking your pawn shop prize.

Working on an aged Les Paul, Erick Coleman has to sand part of the yellowed binding. The sanded spots are a glaring white mismatch. Erick makes turns the repair invisible with a little ColorTone spray and stain.

Todd Sams shares his method for getting a mirror finish on newly-installed frets

Somebody's wrung this guitar's neck with years of string bending -- the wood is gone from the edge of the fingerboard. The customer doesn't want a new neck, so Dan Erlewine improvises a great solution.

Dan Erlewine's got a wobbly neck, but not for long: here's a fast way to tighten the screwholes in a bolt-on neck.

Erick Coleman shares some tips for modifying your guitar wiring: easy mods that give you a new tonal range.

Dan Erlewine got a blast from the past in his shop recently, and before the dust settled he got another one! He's working on two Gibson L-1 archtops from 1917, and they both have the same trouble: too-tall bridges and too-high action.

Dan Erlewine finishes up a last-minute present for his granddaughter: a tiny-size Gibson J-45. With her birthday just around the corner, he needs a good finish and he needs it fast!

Customers often ask how and why they should put slots in the saddles of their new Tune-o-matic bridge. Erick Coleman provides the answers in this issue of Trade Secrets.

Dan Erlewine shows how to sharpen, hone and strop an edge onto any chisel, creating a super-sharp cutter.

Dan Erlewine finds an old bridge to fit a 1950s Gibson, but will the saddle slot be in the right place? He measures and calculates, but still wants to prove it's in tune before gluing. Here's how he did that.

This bass from the early '70s is in great shape except for a gaptoothed peghead inlay. Erick Coleman shows how to quickly replace a missing inlay, including coloring the new work to match the old.

Dan Erlewine looks at specialty papers for lutherie, and comes up with a handful of tips for tricky sanding.

Dan Erlewine's working on great old Gibson L-1 with back problems. The challenge: how to fix this on a budget today, in a way that won't interfere with more thorough repair work in the future.

Erick Coleman shows how he made a surrogate body for neck and fret work, following the free plans online at stewmac.com.

Dan Erlewine shows how he makes a new finish repair on a 1956 Strat look as old as the original finish all around it.

Guitar maker Todd Sams directs the production of our StewMac guitar necks, and he uses the necks in his own custom Sams guitars. Todd shows how to spend twenty minutes final-shaping a neck to get it to look and feel exactly right.

Erick Coleman has been rooting around in the parts drawers at Dan Erlewine's shop, and he's found a 1960s Gibson patent-sticker humbucker. It would be valuable if somebody hadn't cut off the pickup lead. Erick shows how to fix that.

Dan Erlewine says he has the last working pair of X-Ray Specs on Earth, and he won't share them. At least he has some alternatives for the rest of us.

Dan Erlewine's cutting a curvy script letter "L" out of pearl. It's a spidery-thin shape, so he uses some tricks to cut it cleanly without breaking. He also talks about his favorite headgear...

Rock's a dirty business, but somebody's got to do it: Dan Erlewine cleans up a Les Paul that hasn't had a bath in four years -- and 650 gigs!

Erick Coleman's got a busted-up pickguard, and off-the-shelf replacements don't fit. He shows how to make and use a custom-shape template for a new guard.

Dan Erlewine's trying to pop the back off a pre-War Gibson, while keeping the binding intact. He hopes to put it back on the guitar just like snapping a lid back onto Tupperware. (Well, maybe not quite that easily...)

Erick Coleman's got a guitar with one dead pickup and a volume control that spins around when you turn the knob. That's trouble. And it's inside a semi-hollowbody guitar -- that's double trouble!

Dan helps the local music store with a customer complaint about a Gibson Tune-O-Matic bridge setup. Who's to blame here?

While Dan Erlewine gives a relic finish to new tuners on a 1945 Gibson J-45, he talks about making money with a guitar repair business.

Erick Coleman's got a neck to fix, including a broken peghead. One thing leads to another, and it turns out the toughest job is hiding the fretboard chips left by the last repairman to work on this guitar.

Dan and Leon Rhodes need a retainer spring for a vintage Gibson bridge. Visiting repair shops in Nashville, they find out how to make their own.

The multimeter tells Erick Coleman that this pickup is dead, but nobody told the pickup: it's still playing!

Dan Erlewine's in his guitar shop (or is it a toy shop today?) making a custom "fire stripe" pickguard just like the one on his 1939 Gibson J-35. He shows how to make a custom pickguard in any color variation you like.

Erick Coleman responds to a tech call emergency: "This guitar sounds bad, and I'm supposed to record with it tomorrow night!"

Dan Erlewine shows a before and after of a 1958 Gibson that's (barely) survived a house fire. It needs a new nut, and he's using the Nut Slotting Gauge to get it right the first time.

Erick Coleman's neighbor has put a chip in his big brother's guitar. It needs to be repaired invisibly, and fast! Touch-up markers do the trick.

Hardshell cases are sold for a few of the most common guitar sizes, but what if your guitar is a different shape? Todd Sams shows an easy way to make a great custom case.

Erick Coleman's using the Gripper truss rod wrench to solve a problem that's familiar to all of us.

Dan Erlewine's cooking with baking soda and ColorTone stains -- fixing a hole in his granddaughter's birthday present.

Erick Coleman helps a serviceman put together a complete carry-all kit for service in Iraq with the Air Force Band.

Dan Erlewine's got a repair that needs repairing again. Working inside the guitar body is too tight for comfort, but Dan shows some tools and tips that make it easier.

Erick Coleman's used pickup sounds great, but a broken baseplate makes it useless unless this bobbin transplant works.

Dan Erlewine faces facts: too many tools and not enough workspace. He clears the decks and sets up a whole new floorplan using two ShopStands.

Erick Coleman shows how to rewind a vintage singlecoil in a 1959 Strat.

When a pedestal buffer can't accommodate the shape of Junior Brown's famous Guit-Steels, Michael Stevens finds that a simple foam buffer does a great job!

Erick Coleman finds a new use for StewMac's BridgeSaver: quickly repairing a hole in the side of a guitar.

Dan Erlewine's customer got a deal on eBay. Whether it was a good or a bad deal depends on how much it takes to make it playable. Dan fixes fret buzz and a warped neck, then rebuilds the truss rod nut using JB Weld repair epoxy.

Erick Coleman clears up the confusion about acoustic pickups: separating them into different types and helping you figure out what's what.

Dan Erlewine shows the steps of inspecting a customer's guitar, and gives advice on repair prices for the work required.

Erick Coleman answers a frequent question from customers: Which tools to use for routing channels for instrument bindings?

Dan Erlewine's got an unusual bridge problem and an unusual repair.

Erick answers a customer question about reversing a humbucker's pickups, and finds that the hardest part is getting the cover off the pickup!

Someone shaved down the saddle on this great old Martin until there's barely a nub showing above the bridge. It needs to be removed, but it's glued in and so low you can't grab it. Dan Erlewine shows how to solve this problem.

Erick Coleman answers a Frequently Asked Question from StewMac customers: "What if I want a Gibson bridge on my Fender?" (Or vice versa.)

Dan Erlewine's doing a neck reset on a Martin that has a square-tube truss rod. While he has the neck off, he shows how to improve the truss rod before regluing the neck.

Erick Coleman shows how easy it is to do a pro-quality soldering job.

Dan Erlewine's got a neat trick for a mandolin repair, and he makes his pitch to get us all to join the hide glue club!

Why you might need a new nut: Cracked nut. Poor string spacing. Hollow plastic nut sapping tone. Nut slots are too low, causing fret buzz on open strings. If you're nervous about replacing the string nut you've got company, and this week Erick Coleman shows that making a nut is no big deal.

This week, Dan Erlewine's pumping iron (nickel steel, actually!) He's showing how to bulk up your skinny fretwire and slim down your fat fretwire.

You don't have to have a locking system to have a tremolo stay in tune. Erick Coleman shows tips for keeping your tremolo tuneful.

Dan's been using repair magnets in his shop for a dozen years, and they're doing tricks all over his shop.

Dan Erlewine tells what happened with two guitars sent to him recently by Carlos Santana.

Dan Erlewine's upgrading an inexpensive guitar with replacement pickups. The job's got to be done quickly at a low price, so he demonstrates some time-saving tips.

Dan Erlewine does some emergency surgery on an undersaddle transducer in time for it to make it on stage with Emmylou Harris.

Erick Coleman responds to a question in the online lutherie forums: What's involved in replacing Martin factory tuners with a new set of Waverly machines?

Dan Erlewine raises a simple question that comes up often in any repair shop. Is there a best spot for your strap button?

Erick Coleman uses tinted aerosols to recreate a vintage Strat 3-tone 'burst.

Todd Sams shows how he sets up a banjo 5th string using railroad spikes, a block of wood, and a camless clamp.

Erick Coleman talks about the causes of buzzes and electrical noise, and how to beat them.

Todd Sams gives a simple and clear explanation of how to position dreadnought braces for the sound and volume of an early-30s Martin.

Dan Erlewine shows why he uses scraper blades instead of sandpaper for the final smoothing before the finish goes on a guitar.

Don MacRostie shows us his methods for fingerboard binding and fretting on a Red Diamond vintage model mandolin.

Erick Coleman's finished tweaking a budget-priced Les Paul copy. It plays great, but one last thing's needed: making it look more like Jimmy Page's 1970s original.

Why has Erick Coleman been hiding small scraps of 3M Polishing Papers in his tool chest?

Erick Coleman shows why black fingerboard stain is a standard item in any guitarmaker's shop, including the big name builders.

Erick Coleman talks about why each guitar he works on gets six custom-fit bridge pins. It's all about hardware coupling, energy transfer, and tone.

This week, Dan Erlewine asks Todd Sams to show how a go-bar deck in his home shop turned two hours of work into twenty minutes!

Erick Coleman shows why so many guitars need their frets fastened. Add a touch of water-thin superglue to lock down your already-installed frets, and get better tone, too!

Customers ask, "What material makes the best string nut?" Erick Coleman's says it's Bone for Tone.

A fret hammer was one of the first lutherie tools Erick Coleman ever bought, and it's still an essential in his shop. In this issue of Trade Secrets, he shows how to use it.

As Dan Erlewine was packing a customer's Les Paul for shipment, he noticed that somebody in his shop had scratched the top! Time for some fast finish fixing -- here's how he made the scratch go away.

Erick Coleman shows why brushing your guitar saddles is as important as brushing your teeth!

Doug Unger restores and reproduces exquisite turn-of-the-century 5-string banjos and early archtop mandolins. Doug shares a lesson in pearl engraving with Trade Secrets readers.

Dan Erlewine's got an unusual 1951 guitar: a National with a Gibson body. The old pickguard came off in an earlier Trade Secrets, and now the new one goes on: it's an oddball pearloid guard that's worth checking out!

Erick Coleman needed a pickup like a good old Gibson P-90, but sized to fit a 3-string cigar box guitar! Here's how he built it, and how you can build yourself a custom pickup for any instrument.

Dan Erlewine races the clock to show that plastic nut installations are quick and profitable!

A badly broken neck on this Martin D-35 almost goes unnoticed, and the repair leads to an innovative do-it-yourself jig. Dan Erlewine explains how he chose the gluing method for this repair.

Erick Coleman shows how quick and easy it is to evaluate a neck and adjust the truss rod.

I thought I'd fixed this acoustic saddle pickup, but the customer sent it back because the problem wasn't solved (STRIKE ONE)! I took another swing at it... (STRIKE TWO)! I almost struck out! -Dan Erlewine

Erick Coleman shows the steps involved in replacing a Fender-style neck, with tips for tuner installation, truss rod adjustment, and correctly positioning the neck.

Dan Erlewine uses photo examples to show when to choose thin, medium or thick super glue for instrument work.

This week, Dan Erlewine's got two pickguard removals in his shop. The Martin D-18's pickguard has cracked it's top, and Dan shows how a pickguard's supposed to come off. The "Gibsonational" is another story: this pickguard is nothing but trouble!

Erick Coleman uses Kevin Ryan's proportional string spacing rule for more jobs than Kevin ever expected: 12-strings, mandolins, bridge saddles... Plus: an explanation of the difference between equal spacing and proportional spacing.

When installing new tuners leaves old screwholes showing on the back of your peghead, here a 1-2-3 step method for making them disappear.

Dan shows us a Martin D-18 with a nasty looking broken bridge, and explains his technique for making a replacement that looks vintage but is stronger than the original.

This week, Erick Coleman steps into the ring for Round Two in the Battle for Better Tone: his secret weapons area lightweight Tune-o-matic bridge and tailpiece.

Dan Erlewine's getting fancy with his Sanding Station: with his shop-made jig, he's making better bridges than he ever has before.

This week, Dan gets an email with a Trade Secret from luthier Jason Ingrodi. Jason's tip makes fret filing faster (this means a lot when you've got dozens of frets to file!)

This week Dan shares two tips for installing humbucking pickups, including a simple jig you can make yourself. Also, he repairs a broken pickup ring that his customer thinks is worth $10,000!

Erick Coleman answers an important tech-support question: What's the best fret-crowning file?

This week, we're in Dan's Guitar Garage for a Tune-up Special: how to clean and lube old guitar tuners, and get them working smoothly again.

Did you ever try to fit a bridge to an archtop guitar or mandolin? (Or a violin?) This week Dan Erlewine shows how it's done with sandpaper and a bridge-fitting jig.

Erick Coleman answers tech questions from StewMac customers, and here he answers a popular one: How do I soup-up this low-priced guitar?

This week, Erick Coleman shows how to add 50 years in 30 minutes: he makes a new set of tuners look like they've been around since the 1950s!

In this issue of Trade Secrets, Dan makes his Guitar Repair Vise sit up and roll over. Who knew cast iron could be so flexible?

This week in Trade Secrets, Dan runs into pickup trouble and turns to Lindy Fralin for help. The simplest possible solution keeps a P-90 pickup from 1957 from falling apart.

This week, Dan's got a 1957 Les Paul Junior in his shop. It hasn't been out of the case in 25 years, and the tuners are unusable. Here's how to put new knobs on old tuners.

This week, Erick Coleman answers a wintertime question: What to do about fret ends that stick out of the sides of the neck?

This week, Don MacRostie invents a new technique for an old technology: he shows how to accurately install a banjo dowel stick. Also, Bart Reiter sends a dowel-stick tip.

This week, somebody's attempt to fix a 1960 Les Paul is an example of what not to do. Dan Erlewine tries an experiment that saves this smashed-up guitar's finish: he creates cherry-red epoxy.

Ever have trouble installing an endpin jack? Did you chip the guitar's finish, or drill the hole out-of-square? Did you goof up on a customer's guitar? You'll want to read this week's Trade Secret from Dan Erlewine.

This week, Dan Erlewine and Erick Coleman revive a beautiful old Gibson F2 mandolin that's become warped after nearly 100 hot summers stored in the attic.

In Trade Secrets this week, Dan Erlewine shows a trick for installing side dots that are perfectly positioned: he modifies a hardware-store drill bit to make the job easy.

In this week's newsletter, bad sound from a good acoustic guitar pickup: the problem and the solution.

This issue shows how to locate and cut the saddle slot for an acoustic bridge.

This week's issue is about instrument finishing: a good tip about setting up new buffing wheels, and an idea to save space in your workshop.

If you play a Telecaster, you've probably experienced a loose input jack. This weeks issue offers two solutions.

In this week's issue, Don MacRostie shows Dan Erlewine a neat trick for making custom wood bindings: using an upside-down Dremel tool.

In Trade Secrets this week: Did you know you can plane wood on your drill press?

This week, Dan Erlewine reveals the seven-pin bridge that's hidden by Robert Johnson's hand in that most-famous photo of the King of the Delta Blues.

This week's subject is one that comes up a lot: how to quickly repair chips in an instrument finish.