After a serious fall – or more likely, several serious falls – this Paul Reed Smith ended up on the auction block. Here’s how we rebuilt the headstock and got it ready to rock again for the new owner. – This repair is becoming quite a specialty of Dan’s!

So you broke the headstock off of your nice Paul Reed Smith? No problem, just bring it in and we can reglue it for you. Just make sure you don’t try to slap it together yourself with bondo or plaster or …

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Not all 1930’s Nationals are created equal.  We thought this 1932 Style O needed a refret and maybe a little neck tightening, but soon learned that a single design factor makes this one particularly challenging.

The vintage National resophonic (or resonator) guitar is undeniably one of the most striking-looking guitars ever. This Style O model that came into our shop went a step further with a Hawaiian tropical scene etched right into the back plating. But there were a few important areas that needed work so it would actually play and sound as beautiful as it looks.

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Three years ago, Steve and Dan opened a one-room guitar shop. This summer we doubled the size of  the shop and welcomed two new faces to Chicago Fret Works.  Allow us to introduce Joe Swierupski and Patrick McKeever.

This winter, we found ourselves stepping over guitar cases and telling our customers that a set-up would take more than a week.  It was time to get some more space and some help. Luckily, the space adjoining ours became available and we decided that if we didn’t take it now we’d probably regret it down the road. It happened to be big enough to house an amp repair station too. Continue »

You don’t saw the neck off a 1952 Gibson Les Paul without fully considering WHY one might do such a thing.  Lots of thought and care went into this repair and the outcome made it all worthwhile.

The 1952 Goldtop is where it all began for the Gibson Les Paul. Guitars from this first year of production have an obvious historical importance and, as with all vintage pieces, the conscientious repairman does not make an irreversible alteration to one without just cause. This one was sold to the current owner with full disclosure of some previous repairs to the headstock. Those repairs were well done, solid, and the guitar sounded amazing (vintage P90’s really are something special.) But they simply did not look right and that’s where we come in.  It took heating, sawing, chiseling, filing, and painting to get there, but this is how we made this vintage classic look and perform the way it’s supposed to. Continue »

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 »

 These two basses launched more conversations than any others that have hung on our walls.

We see a lot of interesting guitars around here, but it’s pretty rare that we see something we’ve truly never seen before. But a customer recently brought in two fretless basses that stopped us in our tracks. How can we describe them? -Unusual? Rough-hewn? Quirky? The woodworking is quite good at times and, um, hurried and homemade looking at others. They seem to be made from a combination of  exotic wood species like purple heart and odd driftwood-looking domestics.   Both instruments buzzed quite badly and required heavy fretboard leveling. But once that was done, it became evident that the builder had done something right. They actually sounded great and the owner was soon using the 5 string, which he nicknamed “Big Nasty,” in a recording session.

The pricetag for both of these USA handmade instuments? Less than $500 apice! The manufacturer? A North Carolina maker called Wishbass. Take a look at more photos below and see what you think. Continue »

Keep looking folks. There are still great old guitars hiding under beds, in closets, and in basements. This one was abandoned in the basement of an apartment building and while it showed up in rough condition, it went home looking and sounding terrific.

This is one scary looking headstock break. The headstock is completely off the neck and with a close look, you can see that someone attempted to repair it with both glue and wood screws! If you do that glue-up right the first time, there’s no need for the screws (which didn’t hold anyway.) The dry glue poses a problem because it seals the broken cells of the wood, making it impossible for new glue to do that.  And that’s just the beginning… Continue »

Seizing the lead in our long-distance-traveler competition, this Vintage Gibson Mandolin arrived from South Africa in desperate need of a good refret.

We were more than a little surprised to learn that  this 1930’s era Gibson A Style mandolin (which was built a mere 100 miles away in Kalamazoo, MI) traveled more than 8,000 miles to get here from South Africa. Unfortunately, the instrument repair options there must be pretty thin, as it had one of the strangest looking attempts at fretwork we’ve ever seen. We cleaned it up and gave it a proper refret along with a new set of tuning buttons for the original tuners. Take a look.

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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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