I am cleaning up my old 1978 Fender Jazz Bass. This was passed down from my uncle. I’ve been playing bass again after a little over a decade and decided to pull this thing out of storage and give it new life and make it play like a beauty! I will also be repairing some of the electronics, but I am fine doing that part myself. I am pretty handy and confident in doing some work myself but also don’t mind seeing a local luthier.

A few questions I have:

1. The screws for the tuners seem stripped and are pulling out of the sockets. Is this repairable? There are some chips in the wood where the screw holes are. I would like to put different tuners on that don’t feel so sticky.

2. The frets seem to be warn pretty good, though not the worst I’ve seen on Reddit. Would a polishing fix this? Should I refret or should I just leave it be?

Pics attached show all I am referring to. Thanks for any input!

I take care of my mom. My house and bit of property is in the country, close to a city, but far enough away to be a pocket of paradise. It belonged to my mom's parents and my grandparents. And every single building and tree was planted or built by my grandad Ken or me. Heh, mine are the "recent ones", cause they are only 20-25 years old. Anyway, what am I getting on about.

My mom, the one I'm taking care of, was a professional photographer. I grew up in darkrooms, I miss the smell of the fixer, the red lights, and managing the photo enlarger with dodging and burning with clothes hangers and cardboard.

(Get to the point!!!) I'm gonna bend some sides for small instruments tomorrow and the next. The sides to prep for bending, are from 15-20" long. I usually work with a very humid trash bag, but it feels like a waste. So I asked my mother if she had something better.

She pointed me directly to a dozen large format photography trays. Brand new, a little dust, and a few spiders. But I found my new/old side and small back moisture controlled plates. 😎

Sometimes it feels like she is a hoarder, and sometimes she is 100% right.

Waste Not.

Traded for this MIJ 80s strat, prior owner said poly finish broke off and they sanded around the edges. Looks more like an attempt to relic without the patience, and now there are deep sanding scratches near each of the 3 worn spots. It's a player not collector, so I'd like to clean it up somehow -- how do you recommend I fix this so that I can end up with something a bit more finished looking? If sanding, starting with which grit up to which and how long to sand for each? If polishing, what and when? I appreciate any insights! Thanks.

I picked up this multiscale fretless ibanez as a DIY project to re-fret. My plan was to cut the frets with a fretsaw (and depth stop) but when it arrived I noticed it was just soft filler in the frets. I chiseled it a bit for kicks but it’s not feasible to do the entire fretboard.

Do you think a heat gun might be appropriate here to unseat this filler?

This is my guitar!! There are no connections so right now it doesn't work. i've built and designd it from scratch myself from an mahogany piece i bought from a local guitar building workshop. It has 2 humbuckers and one p90 pickup. Mostly of the other parts like the neck was taken from an Yamaha Erg i had laying around. The switch on that guitar was reallys sparky and the finnish was really scratched. I got it for free from an neighbor so i tought to make it to something better. This is my first build and im super exited to hear how it sounds and to hopefully make other guitars.

Half an hour ago, the pickup selector switch on my tele came loose while I was playing and now I can only use positions 2, 3 and 4.

Yes, as you can see it's all very rusty and I should get it changed altogether, but I won't be able to get it done this week and I wanted to play right now. So if any of you guys have any suggestions on how to fix this, even if only temporarily, I'd appreciate a lot.

I tried looking it up on Youtube and haven't found anything on this exact type of problem.

What do you think of replicating a guitar with added features. Like if I wanted a Gibson SG with a midi pad on it, custom inlays and color not available on a any current SG. Was wanting to buy a real SG and hire a luthier to mod it for me BUT no luthier wants to risk it possibly ruining the guitar. Was told why not just hire them to build it from scratch which one guy is totally okay with doing, the price is not bad at all and very reputable. They can replicate the exact specs, right down to the wood type, shape, dimensions, pickups etc. I'm putting my name on the headstock. Some say to buy a real SG and not bother with modding cause at least you have a real SG and not a fake one.

What do you guys think?

TIL that most standard luthier related fretboard tools / gauges don’t accommodate a 9in fretboard radius…wish I had known prior but I suppose building my first guitar is a good learning experience haha.

We just got in this guitar from my band teacher. Apparently, a kid left it in the band storage room after a talent show and never came back to claim it. After sitting for several years, it’s in a fairly decrepit state. The intonation’s all messed up and it can’t hold its tuning, but as far as I know that can be done with a little bit of effort at home and some tutorials. Ideally, I’d need to clean it, figure out how to adjust saddles, and replace its tuners/strings. If you know any other dangers of a guitar that’s been sitting for years, please share! Maybe some tips/tricks for restoring older guitars? Thanks for the help.

Im looking to buy this takamine GLD12E, it has this bang on the bottom, is it something to worry about or its just superficial?

Hello all!

I’ve seen the rechargeable battery packs for certain active pickups and was curious if you got the right kind of switch if you could also have a backup 9v that wouldn’t get drained just by being hooked up to it. I kind of assume if any switch was in the battery pack position it wouldn’t draw power from the 9v even while plugged in but you know what assuming makes ya by now.

Also not sure it’s been done so I thought I’d go ahead and further complicate all our lives again by adding more wiring to the quest for a perfect guitar. LOL

Thx everyone.

Hello. I just bought a Harley Benton TE-52 and am having difficulties setting it up.

There's significant fret buzz on all strings, worst in first position (fretting 1st, string contacts 2nd). Clean on a very light pluck, but buzzes when picking with any force, bad enough to hear through an amp. Can't pick anywhere near as hard as on my Strat or Les Paul, both of which have lower action. The frets are completely level up to about the 13th, but that's not where the buzz is. It's always on the adjacent fret (I can hear this clearly).

Strings are 10-46 (supposedly D'Addario, sound new), tuned to Eb. E is same thing.

Measurements, low E:

Action at 12th: tried 1.25-2mm. Worse at 1.25 but still bad at 2mm. (Video was 2mm)

Relief (capo 1st, fretting 17th, measuring 8th): tried 0.1-0.3mm. No significant difference.

Fretting 3rd, gap over 4th: just over 0.13mm. Fretting 7th, gap over 8th: about 0.2mm.

Nut is a quite high (0.75mm at 1st fret open), but I don't see how that causes this.

For comparison, my Strat is a hair over 0.1mm fretting 3rd over 4th, about 0.15mm fretting 7th over 8th, 0.1mm relief, 1.25mm action at the 12th, and doesn't buzz in first position. So the Tele has more clearance and more relief everywhere and still buzzes far worse.

The Tele's action is almost flat from 12th to last fret, where as the Strat goes 1.25 to 1.75. But my Les Paul is also nearly flat and plays fine.

What causes buzz when it's got more clearance than a guitar that doesn't buzz, and level frets?

Thanks for any ideas.

Hi all. I’m doing a little refurbishing of my years-old, reliable Peavey Milestone II bass. Volume and tone pots are gone which I’m replacing. But it got me to wondering what some of you may do with an electric bass to upgrade, improve sound, electronics, etc…. This is really the first time in years I’ve done anything to it other than change strings or adjust action. Thanks for any input.

I recently came across some curly mahogany (enough to do 5 book matches like the one above). I've never seen anything like it, and I can't find anything like it on the net.

I need help. How do I even price something like this for a top on one of my guitars? I know I'm never going to see anything like this again.

Thanks everyone!

Hey there, was hoping to get a hand at a wiring diagram. I'm redoing my strat altogether with 2 Jaguar pickups and a burstbucker. I want to do a bold wiring scheme, think Red Special meets Mustang

I want to use

-master volume and tone

-3 Mustang slider switches, one for each pickup (on-off-on, to be able to get every pickup combo + out of phase sounds)

-master series/parallel switch

I may add try to add a push/pull pot for splitting the humbucker later, but that's simple enough to test and figure out

I've found a diagram for master tone and 3 mustang sliders here. The series/parallel switch is what's stumping me. I've done it in a 2 pickup guitar with a standard switch and it's simple enough, but having a master series/parallel while still retaining the individual on/off/oop for each pickup seems tricky. I wondered if anyone had previously tackled this before I sit down and try to figure it out myself. Cheers!

Can see some light orange peel in my clear coat. On a video/in person it’s not really visible but i can obviously see it in this photo. Is it worth fixing? If so, would wet sanding with some 1000-3000 then throwing another coat on be the fix? I don’t want it to turn out murky and the last time I tried to cut and buff polish it turned out horrifically

Hi I’ve been modifying a Harley Benton R-458FFB as a sorta Frankenstein project, and I’ve got it set up such that the low 4 strings are 80 gauge flatwounds bass strings and the high 4 are standard guitar strings, but the string spacing is too small to use bass strings pickups, but I’d rather have bass pickups than guitar strings, will have two jacks for my guitar, and then not sure best way to go about a pickup for the higher end either; I’ve never made my own pickups but maybe it’s an idea?

I'm now into the thralls of finishing the body. The back, besides, and the top have their first coat of truoil. I can't believe that off the shelf water-based stain was able to get this awesome black! Truly happy with where this is all going.

This bass guitar is part of my open source guitar project called the Venus de Milo. If anyone's interested I can link you the GitHub.

My friend with small hands asked me if I could make a bass with guitar scale, so he could play it much more easier and comfier. And this is what I made. (First image is the "before modding".)

I bought a $60 guitar, swapped the machines heads, filed the saddles and nut slot to fit bass strings. The gauge I used was 24-32-44-56-70-85 (from Ernie Ball 12-56 guitar strings and 50-105 bass strings set). The sound was surprisingly good, and the 6th string is not as floppy as I expected.

I've also route for a battery case and a 3-band EQ, swapped the pickups with Humbucker neck and P90 bridge (to emulate the PJ style, and it did well.)

Edit: I added a link of the sound demo, linked to YouTube.
(Sorry for my skill and the audio might be bad as I was recording on a $60 multi-effect.)

Modding a Les Paul into a Bass VI

Hello,

I picked up this archtop by Vintage and the strings are being muted/hitting the pickup surround.

The pickup surround cannot be lowered any more. It could be sanded, keeping the correct angles but this would only bring a minimum clearance, plus the neck pup is still there, likely causing the same issue.

I thought of a new adjustable bridge to raise the height but this could lead to too high action on the fretboard. I'll post a pic from a top down/playing position soon. Only issue with this is there is a piezo pup in the bridge so not straight forward. Though an upgraded bridge to help fine tune the internation (when I get there) would mean a better guitar overall.

Other than that, adjusting the truss won't help as the issue is not related.

Currently thinking;

1. Remove the neck pup, which I don't want to do as I think it will sound awesome blended with the piezo.

2. Get a new piezo bridge and see where it gets me.

3. Try and reset the neck to a better angle allowing all current hardware and pups to stay. Never tried it but why should that stop anyone?

I think I'll go for 2 and see for now. Any help appreciated.

Thank you

Hello! I have a vintage non reverse firebird where the pickups are mounted in the pickguard. I do not have the original pickups but i have bought replacements.

It seems that the pickups end up a bit too far from the strings, 5 and 6 mm and the screws are screwed in all the way. I would like to get the pickups nearer to the strings, do any of you have experience with this?

Maple fret board, maple neck, swamp ash body, dot inlay…

Gonna finish with polymerized tung oil.
Parts will be Gotoh relic bridge and tuners, with self reliced control(dom knobs)
+ ivory pickup cover.

Any recommandations of flowers to paint on at the horn??(i thinking daisy)

So I have three rusted and stripped pick guard screws that I haven’t been able to remove on a guitar of mine. I’ve tried rubber bands to get more traction but haven’t had any luck. I saw stewmac has a screw extractor set but do I need to use that one specifically or will any set I buy on amazon work fine? I’m concerned with the sizing of the tools being small enough to use on my pick guard or tuner machine head screws.