McConville Guitars mcconvilleguitars@gmail.com: Luthier's Workshop tips and Multi-Adjustable Guitar repair Bench

Ahhh.... Summer in Stratford

With Summer approaching, I am looking forward to working outside again.... and letting the dust fly in the shade of a honey-locust tree.This is a Gibson ES -330 that I refretted / cut a comp nut / setup last summer. It is always so nice to work just outside the workshop door, under a tree.The natural light is amazing for this type of work. The TechDeck is sitting on a typical B+D Workmate. I envy those of you in warmer climates, that can actually work outside year around !!

Hey Michael,

This TechDeck is great - it holds upright basses and I use it for
working on those beasts frequently.

I also like the fact that I can set it up on a table and walk 360
degrees around any instrument I'm working on.

Tomas Bouda

http://boudaguitarworks.weebly.com/gibson-es-335-broken-headstock.html

Tomas completed the Level 1 and Level 2 Conestoga GRAD courses 2 years ago. In addition to his very impressive full time musician's career and teacher's work, he has his own workshop where working on upright basses he can share his specialty and passion with others.

If you check the drop down archive menu ( Nov 25th ) you will find a very detailed version ( below ) of this restoration job on the same model of guitar that I completed for Bruce Kirkaldy a couple of years ago.

The bridge was lifting on both sides ..... so I removed it for re-gluing.

If you blow up this picture you'll see the faint cross-hatching marks that were scribed into the top before this bridge was glued to the top.

This is a shot of all the various fasteners that were used. I will post the rest of the restoration as I proceed with it over the next week or so ...

Here we go ... the finished job.

In order to line up the intonation ..... the focal point on the saddle

needed to move towards the fingerboard ..... so ..... the rosewood/bone insert has allowed me to correct the tuning inaccuracies and line up the intonation perfectly. The big wide original bridge slot left tons of room for adjustment. The insert is "press-fit" (no glue )

This whole job is completely reversible. I left out the largest fasteners ( put them in a little baggie in the case ). The fasteners under the pearl bridge dots were re-installed when I re-glued the bridge ( hide glue ) to the top.

These are the final values for the compensated

"tusq"

nut just before final sanding.

These are the new frets and dressed fingerboard.

Voila ! ....

this guitar is now playing perfectly in tune for the first time .... with action as smooth as silk ... even with the medium strings !

Hummingbird ( from Woodstock ) that I did this reversible conversion on last year.

Guitar Tech's Adjustable Workstation

http://mcconvilleguitars.blogspot.ca/p/stringtechs-techdeck-workstation.html

It's been a very busy and rewarding time, these past 4 years; meeting, teaching and sharing ideas with the Guitar Repair and Design students through the Conestoga College program and working with the StringTech engineering team, making things easier for anyone wishing to pursue this trade.

This is a quilted maple top over-lay for an RG series body that I built for a customer from Cambridge. In order to edge glue these two thin panels, I sandwiched the wood between two sheets of tempered glass. This picture shows the "dry run" set up just before gluing.

The panels of wood veneer ( 3/16 " ) have a thin film of saran wrap above and below so that they don't adhere to the glass panels. The flip lock clamps "squeeze the maple plates flat" , the pipe clamps pull the edges together.