r/Luthier

I was recently gifted a Peavy t-60 that had a crack in the body. When I got it home to clean it up and look at the damage, it split, very cleanly where I observed the crack. It looks like the glue simply failed, likely due to the guitar being stored poorly. The guitar itself plays great, even with the old strings on it.

I’d like to repair it myself or have it worked on as I feel it’s definitely worth fixing. I’m handy with woodworking, but no expert. It seems like a straightforward repair, remove the neck, glue and clamp, but I am nonprofessional so I came here for a little insight.

I have a good offer for one of these, but the red really, really, really isn't my thing.

I would be curious to melt that paint off and give it a whitewash or other kind of stain, or maybe a black stain to make the floral decor the first thing that people see.

In any case, if it's some crap particleboard or weird arrangement, I'd love to know beforehand!

Any tips?

Hello! I'm currently working on my first kit and have stained and sanded the body of this bass. I let it dry for a whole week before applying a first coat of Shellac over the Transtint dye, and let it dry for 8 hours. After coming back and sanding to smooth the Shellac, I noticed that some of the dye is pulling up from the edges of the body.

I don't entirely dislike the look, but it was not my intention, and I was wondering if it is recommended to tint some of my Shellac with the dye to bring back the color? This is not for a client, so I am okay with proceeding in any direction. I just needed some advice about the Shellac layer.

I have attached a "before Shellac" and "after Shellac + sand" photo set below.

I’ve made this telecaster from scratch the wiring part. When I put the multimeter on the sleeve of the output and on the cable tip when it’s in, I get no feedback. I had a messy soldering job before and I redid that and I am pretty sure I did everything correctly. Could someone please tell me what I am doing wrong?

I replaced these 70's Dimarzio pickups in my Greco LP copy with a set of Burstbuckers that sound great.

However, I'm wondering what/if anything can be done to salvage these. There was no output on the multimeter. I believe the wire is damaged in both. What I should do with them? As you can see, that are very well worn; rust on the metal, and the bobbins are cracked. Can they be salvaged? Should I take them to a luthier? Should I contact Dimarzio? Should I just trash them? Two new paperweights? What would you do?

Partscaster build. Undrilled neck.

This is the best way I could find to align it before drilling.

Would you commit??

Suzuki guitar F-130

My guitar fell 4 feet onto a concrete floor because I stupidly hung it up with my wireless back still in my pocket. Would like to fix it myself if possible. Doesn't have to be perfect, I can live with some scars but I'd like to make it structurelly sound with the strap button reattached. Is there a reasonably simple way to fix this?

It goes sharp often, and just in general falls out of tune easily. I'm not great at eyeing things like this as I am new, so I'm wondering if anyone can tell me what's visibly wrong - if anything.

My guess is the nut slots aren't filed towards the tuner.

40-95 gauge, and the nut action looks fine.

First time soldering… any tips?

Works fine but took me more then an hour

IT pro here experiencing a mid-life crisis. Sick of sitting at a computer and feel the urge to make something that will outlive me, so we are attempting a Telecaster build.

I'm not much of woodworker and live somewhere without a good hardwood supplier. I grabbed a bowed slab of 8/4 poplar and somehow managed to mill it and get a nice flat body blank out of it.

However it's sitting at right about 1.5" thick right now. I am concerned it's on the thin side and am wondering if I should put a top on it. The poplar some of the greenest I've seen (color, not moisture) and I don't love the look. The black stripe is kind of cool but the rest is kind of blah.

Curious for opinions on if I should just use what I have and make it thin or if I should try to put a top on to beef it up. The poplar is very soft and dings very easily as well.

If I do a top, I'll keep the black stripe on the back. If I don't, I want it on the front so I am stuck and cannot cut it out until I decide which way to go.

All opinions are welcome!

Was working on a translucent finish for a Zebrawood kit I got, followed all the steps, thinned and mixed the polyurethane with the transtint, etc, but overnight drying process took it from the image on the left to the image of the right. I’m wondering where I went wrong here and what I can do to fix it, any and all help would be appreciated. We did two coats of tinted polyurethane coat and were letting this dry before beginning the clearcoat process.

I just bought this early 20th century acoustic made in praque. I'm assuming a luthier would be able to fix the body cracks, but im not sure if it is fixable.

Hello! Wanted to get your opinions on this.

Local builder to me was attempting to fit this neck to the guitar body above (a guitar body that he personally built for this exact neck) and it cracked. He said it was due to the quality of the neck.

Now, I realize this is a Chinese neck. I took a gamble out of morbid curiosity. However, between multiple posts here on Reddit from this subreddit, reviews on eBay and other sites it seems that the only major complaints were just that some needed fretwork and swapping the nut in worst case scenario.

He said it wasn’t his fault and I half believe him and half wonder how on earth something like this could happen. He claimed it happened when he was trying to “fit the neck to the body”. He literally built the body for this neck, there should’ve been nothing to fit if proper measurements were taken. Now, if the wood were brittle when he was drilling to neck pocket screws that makes sense.

Also, note the bottom left where it looks like a screw was drilled in the completely wrong spot. Neck wasn’t like that when I gave it to him.

Would love your input!

this is my first time building a telecaster and I’ve done everything from scratch. I’m up to the part where I’m wiring the telecaster and I’ve tried to do everything correct but it came out wrong. When I plug it in, there’s no sound and I checked the output jack and I checked if anything interfered and I don’t see no problem. I understand my soldering looks messy, but that’s because it’s my first time doing so. I tried to take some off, but that just simply doesn’t work. can someone please try to help me?

Was cutting the cavity for my truss rod and accidentally cut a small hole in the neck. On top of this, the truss rod is only a snug fit if placed upside down, otherwise it's too loose... I was planning on installing 2 carbon fibre rods, whats the plan here? Do I need a new neck?