Chubbuck Guitars / Kevin Chubbuck, making & repairing guitars in an old building just north of Boston, Massachusetts.
This gorgeous Bourgeois OM Custom visited the shop recently for a quick setup. It has a bearclaw Italian spruce top, Madagascar rosewood back and sides, all-hide glue construction and a beautiful varnish finish.
I may have to experiment with varnish on my own guitars after seeing this one. Wow, great job Dana and company.
This circa 1990's Epiphone Sheraton II was stripped down and built back up with premium components. The original lifeless dark-toned pickups were swapped for Lollar Imperial low-wind humbuckers. The new wiring harness consists of Bourns 500K Premium Series sealed pots, Emerson Custom 0.022 µf paper-in-oil caps and a Switchcraft 3-way switch and output jack. Even the tuners were replaced with 18:1 Grover Rotomatics which installed without modification. A new unbleached bone nut and setup for DR Pure Blues 11-50 strings round out the upgrades.
This bass found it's way into the shop because of a dead pickup. I troubleshooted the circuit and touched up a few questionable solder joints and the pickup came back to life. While in the control cavity I attempted to clean the treble and bass pots but they remained terribly intermittent and needed to be replaced. The bolt-on neck's angle was increased with a shim in the neck pocket in order to lower the action.
Epiphone Sheraton II :: new guts courtesy of Lollar, Emerson & Bourns.
This Sheraton is getting stripped down and refitted with a new wiring harness comprised of Bourns premium series sealed pots, Emerson Custom paper-in-oil caps and Switchcraft 3-way switch and output jack. Lollar Imperial low-wind humbuckers top off this monster upgrade.
Alvarez by Kazuo Yairi MMY1 [5.0 lbs] :: intonation, soundhole break and battery splice.
The player was noticing that some notes played up the neck were more dissonant than usual. Upon checking the intonation, I found the 5th string to be 15 cents sharp at the 12th fret. This bridge saddle is actually comprised of six individual saddles, so the A** saddle's contact point was pushed back and shimmed back up to it's original action.
The 9V battery clip was spliced at one point with an excessive length of lead making the battery compartment difficult to close. The original splice was held together with electrical tape only so it was easy to separate. I shortened, soldered and shrink wrapped the leads. I also used some heat to retention the tired plastic latch on the battery door.
The soundhole had an issue that was repaired here.
**note this guitar is really tuned 1/2 step down, so Ab
