Most of the acoustic guitar pickups we install don’t come with controls for volume or EQ. Here’s a solution we should have thought of years ago!

When it comes to acoustic pickup systems, our favorite ons are simple rigs that run directly out through an endpin jack – doubling as a strap button. These systems (like the K&K Pure Mini) sound great, but usually lack any controls for volume or EQ. Our feeling is that you don’t miss the EQ controls since you can conture bass and treble at the amplifier (or have it done for you by a sound guy in a club or concert setting.) But the one control that is nice to have at your side is volume and the Taylor V Cable is a great solution to that problem.

That’s a volume pot right there on a right-angle plug of a 10, 12, or 15 foot cable (longer lengths are available by special order.)  You can easily adjust your volume or turn it all the way down when switching guitars. They start at just $60; don’t require cutting a hole in the side of your guitar; and if you have multiple acoustic/electrics you only need to buy one! What a great solution. We should have thought of it ourselves, but Taylor and Rapco Horizon beat us to it. Big thumbs up on this great product.

Affordable pickups, hand-wound in the USA? We found ‘em. Welcome Porter Pickups!

You’ve got yourself a nice electric guitar that feels comfortable, looks great, but sounds… meh…  The thing to do is get some new pickups in there.  It’s an upgrade we love to do here, but we’re not big fans of those big mega-store brands. We prefer the workmanship, relationships, and above all superior results we’ve found with smaller pickup companies. But the price can admittedly get pretty steep. So what would you say to a USA-made, hand-wound pickup that doesn’t make you smash your kids’ piggy bank open? Check out our newest line of Porter Pickups!

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This is such a cool guitar.  It’s always fun to restore a family treasure like this.

This short-scale National Model 1122 Cosmopolitan has been in the owner’s family for a long time.  He remembers his dad playing it for the family when he was a kid. It had a few odd part replacements through the years and our mission was to find replacements that made it 1. playable again and 2. looking at least close to the way it used to. We should have taken some ‘before’ photos, but among the pieces we had to find were: Continue »

Autographs on a guitar can disappear over time. Here’s how we make sure they don’t.

I’ve got a baseball behind my workbench signed by 1970’s Cubs outfielder Jose Cardinal (my favorite player as a kid.) I don’t play ball with it because I know that autograph would disappear quickly. Baseballs are cheap, so I play ball with another one.

This Schecter Synyster Custom was played onstage and autographed by the members of Avenged Sevenfold. The owner wanted to keep those autographs safe so he had two options: hang it on the wall and never play it OR have us finish over the top of the signatures to keep them protected. He wanted to play it, so we opted to spray a few clear coats of polyurethane over the top. Continue »

This Les Paul looked very different when we were finished with it.

This late 60’s Les Paul Deluxe has had lots of work done to it over the years. Its original P90 or mini-humbucker pickups were removed and replaced with full size humbuckers, it has had mini toggle switches installed and removed, and its original gold top was refinished as a burgundy shaded burst. The current owner discovered that a hairline crack had appeared in the top, extending from below the tailpiece all the way into the neck pickup cavity. He asked us to repair the crack and refinish it to it’s original goldtop color.

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Have you got a guitar, bass or piece of equipment you don’t use anymore? Join us in supporting Chicago’s Intonation Music Workshop by donating it through our shop. We’ll fix it up nice and pass it on to some kids who will put it to good use!

You’ll find a new page on our website starting today, titled “Guitar Recycling.” It marks the beginning of a new endeavor here at Chicago Fret Works. We’ll be accepting donated guitars, basses, or other musical equipment (in working or near-working condition please) for Chicago’s own Intonation Music Workshop. We’ll clean them up, restring them, and pass them on. When you think about it, every time you repair a guitar (or anything else,) you’re recycling and reusing.  But this is even more exciting; you can put your under- or un-used instrument back to work making music and help out some great kids at the same time.

To quote our own most recent blog post, guitars are meant to be played and enjoyed. And here’s another truth; not everyone can afford to take up our favorite past-time.  If you’ve got an instrument that you don’t use anymore, how about putting it back to use and donating it to the kids at

Intonation Music Workshop!

Click here for a nice video story about this project from Northwestern University/Medill News Service.

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After more than 25 years, a favorite old friend comes home with a little help from Facebook!

We have a love/hate relationship with Facebook around Chicago Fret Works. But one of the great things about the site is how it helps old friends reconnect. In this case, the two old friends are a 1978 Washburn Falcon and its original owner.  It’s one of those “I never should have sold that guitar” stories that actually has a happy ending. Continue »

Well obviously this is a custom refin (not done here) and obviously it looks more like a Tele Custom than a Tele Deluxe, but it’s pretty cool looking either way!

Somewhere along the line, this Tele was modded with a Bigsby and a wide-range humbucker. The current owner liked the guitar overall, but not the sound of the neck pickup. So we installed a Lollar Special T in the bridge position and a Lollar Imperial humbucker in the neck position. Because of the smaller size of the new neck pickup, we mounted it in a chrome pickup bezel and it looks great. I find it hard to look away from this orange soda/dreamsicle-looking guitar.

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Hold on there! Refinish a vintage Gibson? In candy apple red?? There better be a darn good reason to do something like that… and there was.

As mentioned in previous posts, the guitar repairman’s rule of thumb with vintage instruments is to leave it in as close to original condition as possible while still maintaining its playability. In the case of this 1960’s Gibson ES-355TDC, a couple of previous repairs have left it far from its original condition. When it arrived, the most obvious change was that it had been painted white years earlier and that white finish was flaking off in big chunks. A little closer look revealed a headstock repair the likes of which we’ve never seen. Throw in some long ago water damage, cracks in the body, and stains in the wood and the vintage value of the guitar is pretty well gone. You may as well paint it blue; or as the owner of this guitar decided, candy apple red. Continue »

Rewiring a jack on a vintage Gibson hollow body isn’t always as easy as it sounds.

A good customer of ours recently purchased this Gibson ES345, a beautiful and rare guitar, but one that just wasn’t sounding right. When it came to us, there was so much scratching and static that it was difficult to tell which or how many components worked. He also wanted to convert the stereo output jack to mono. Wired in stereo, each pickup is wired to one side and a typical guitar cable would only allow us to hear one of those. You either use a stereo splitting cable, sending each pickup’s signal to a different amp input, or you change a single wire at the jack and convert it to mono like most guitars. That’s easier said than done in this case however. Continue »