Latest Work
Here you’ll find some of the recent and more interesting repair and refurbishment jobs carried out at Reading Guitar Repairs.
Feb 2018
Yamaha FG-180 Neck reset
I thought I'd post a bit about this 1970s Yamaha LG-180 neck reset - many of these old guitars had the necks fixed on with epoxy. This one (thank goodness!) did not.
Sep 2017
New neck for Gibson Les Paul
This guitar came in for repair after the neck has been badly split open at the back by an incorrectly installed truss rod on a previous repair. The already battle worn fretboard needed to come off to do this and the extent of the damage in this case unfortunately meant the simplest solution was to replace the neck.
May 2017
Vintage Martin 000-18 refurbishment
This beautiful old 1930s Martin guitar had seen so many repairs to the inside that it was effectively on its last legs. The soundboard had been repaired and re-finished so many times that the thickness was down to 1.5 mm in places. Combined with the fact that the braces had insects living in them (no, seriously) and were starting to crumble, this meant the top was giving way under the pressure of the strings; the action was unplayable. A neck reset alone wasn’t going to fix this.
Mar 2017
Fitting a cutaway to a Dobro
This resonator guitar is a workhorse instrument of a very well-known UK session guitarist. The guitar wasn’t an expensive one, but was well loved. The customer wanted to convert the guitar from full body to a cutaway to improve access to the higher frets.