Sometimes the old ways are the best ways. While we pride ourselves on having some of the latest and greatest tools in the repair toolkit, including our PLEK machine, there are definite advantages to the control that comes from hand tools.Here, Mass Street Luthier Trey Durkin drills holes for banjo spikes with a hand-crank drill. This allows for getting to get to just the right … Continue reading Repair Spotlight: Old ways – Best ways
Bringing this Martin 1937 D-18 back to playing shape presented many challenges that needed to be addressed outside the usual neck reset/refret that is standard fare on a vintage guitar. Since the early ’70s this guitar has had upwards of five bridges on and off by other repair shops that had either pulled up or cracked. On top of that it had previously had the … Continue reading Repair Spotlight – Vintage 1937 D-18 Overhaul
Check out Part I of our Repair Spotlight on Byron Berline’s Herringbone D-28 before diving into Part II below. When we left off with the repair of our friend Byron Berline’s herringbone D-28 Jim had come up with a plan for removing the veneer and cleaning up the headstock break. This was necessary in order to make a good surface for gluing things up, and … Continue reading Repair Spotlight: Vintage Martin Herringbone Headstock Repair – Part II
Jim’s been working on the great Byron Berline’s guitars for years. As many of you know Byron’s shop, Double Stop Fret Shop, suffered a devastating fire last year, with many of the instruments destroyed or suffering damage beyond repair. Thankfully this herringbone survived, but did not make it out unscathed. This late ’30s Martin D-28 had previously suffered a break in the headstock which had … Continue reading Repair Spotlight: Vintage Martin Herringbone Headstock Repair – Byron Berline – Part I
Here’s an in progress repair spotlight that we’ll hopefully update as the repair process goes along. One third of the store is getting ready for the NAMM show, the other third is prepping for new gear that is in route and the Repair Shop is holding it down upstairs, working to reset the neck on this 1974 Mossman Great Plains. Lots of NAMM posts are … Continue reading Repair Spotlight: Mossman Great Plains Neck Reset
Recently Mass Street luthiers Mike and Matt performed a PLEK scan and fret dress live over on Facebook. We had a little bit of a networking lapse at first, but check out the archive of the PLEK livestream including the virtual fret dress and live fret cutting. Looking to have your instrument PLEK’d? Check out our repair shop page for more information about getting in touch. Continue reading PLEK Livestream Archive
If you’ve been up to the shop in the past few months you’ve probably noticed the latest addition in our lutherie toolbox, the Plek Machine. What is a Plek you may ask? For starters, it’s a tool, an extremely accurate tool. Like an MRI or CT Scan of your guitar, the Plek machine scans an instrument’s frets and fingerboard, and presents that data to our trained crew … Continue reading Meet the Plek Machine
We’ll kick this Repair Spotlight off with the disclaimer that not every guitar is a good candidate for a left-hand conversion. Bracing, neck shape, bridges, and saddle slot placement are all considerations that must be made when determining if the process will work well. This ladder braced Waterloo WL-14 however made for the perfect candidate! Just look how happy Mass Street General Manager Mike H … Continue reading Repair Spotlight: Waterloo Left Hand Conversion
While we often focus on the acoustic side of things in our Repair Spotlight posts, the shop also specializes in all things electric. In this edition of the Repair Spotlight we’re talking electronics swap out…all of the electronics. Here Matt Street Luthier Matt H is taking a stock Gretsch G5420T and upgrading all of the pots and switches with gear from our friends at Emerson Custom and … Continue reading Repair Spotlight: Gretsch Electronics Upgrade
Up in the Repair Shop our luthiers get unique requests from customers on a daily basis. Whether it’s something standard like swapping pickups, to a neck reset and a complete refret, the shop is more than willing to make musical dreams come true. Cut to a recent request to thin down a neck on one of our customer’s favorite guitars. Originally the guitar had been … Continue reading Repair Spotlight: Custom Neck Profile
