¡First Big Tech Job with Photos!

[xsouldriverx]

So after much time spent working on my guitars as well as some friends I finally got a customer (neither a friend or family member) that has sought me out to get some work done on a guitar that he doesnt play too much and wanted to make into something he picks up more often. After many e-mails of discussing some things me and the gentleman met up and finalized what he wanted done and off we went.

The final to do list looked something like this:
-Swap Tuners
-Swap Pickups
-Swap out ceramic caps for PIOs
-Change cracked pickguard and put on metal jack plate
-Finagle JP wiring without too much cursing
-Crowning of gibson railroad ties
-Final Set-up and a clean and polish.

Thanks to some aggravations such as a bad soldering iron, a company taking too long to ship a new one and having to reorder from a separate company, ad then that company adding an extra $10 shipping after the final amount was shows to me and agreed upon. the job took about a month to full fill. thankfully the customer was very patient and had zero worries about a timeframe.

A couple of extra things were also done such fretboard oiling as well as scraping the fingerboard so it was a bit smoother to play on and eliminating the ridges around the inlays. Also identifying the guitar as a 1997 model when the owner originally thought it was a '98.

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/sets/72157625889311156/with/5381744168/

after realizing the amount of photos taken, Im just going to put them on my Flickr account and link them here.

 

[xsouldriverx]

But the best part about it all was this e-mail I got a couple of days after giving the guitar back.

Hello Matt,

I would like to report that now the guitar is in a much more appealable and by that I mean:

1. The fretboard playability is much better than before.
2. The sound of the pickups are better than the previous ones... at least to me.
3. I was turned off by the Kluson's just by looks alone, I am confident the Grover's will perform well.

In addition, the push-pull pots do change the sound. : )

I want to thank you again Matt and do have a good evening.

Hope to speak to you soon.

Greg

and then the next e-mail going a bit more in depth with it all.

Hello Matt,

Yes, I understand what you mean about the guitar sitting around. I do hope to use it more.

The frets are a pleasure to play on, thank you for rectifying that problem.
This Gibson was purchased brand new, it was a shame that the guitar's frets was not dressed or crowned (I am not sure of the proper terminology but the tops of the frets were rough) properly when it left the company.

The is the first time that I am using a 10 gauge string set and I am finding that the action is very agreeable.

And thank you for packing the pickups and the tuners so well.

Thank you again Matt.

Talk to you soon.

Greg

Through this all we did have one slight problem and that is with the pickups. The amp I use here is a very dark creamy sounding amp I had made for drop tuning, the amp the customer has is a fender hot rod deluxe. very different amps. The result is that the client had to adjust the neck pup and the treble sides down a little to compensate for having a much brighter amp than what it was set up with. For upcoming jobs ill be using my other amp and in the future ill probably purchase a small little roland cube or other modeler that I can test a guitar out using multiple different amp styles to cover the bases.

 

[xsouldriverx]

so zero responses? was the upside down "!" a bit much?

 

[Stephmon]

Some might have passed over the thread, thinking they had already read it (there is another first tech job thread at the moment). Regardless... Congratulations! I hope it's the start of something really great for you.

 

[xsouldriverx]

It seems to have been. I now also have a job finishing a guitar with tru-oil for a fellow in norway.

 

[b-squared]

Congrats! Sounds like you did a bang-up job...kudos!

BB

 

[180gROC]

Very cool, and sorta addicting...

 

[Ferrarimk13]

Congrats! thats awesome, always great to be rewarded for the things you do!

 

[kevinh]

Awesome!

Could only imagine how it felt gettin' that email of approval

 

[xsouldriverx]

Awesome!

Could only imagine how it felt gettin' that email of approval

Like getting punched in the chest with a lode of awesome.

 

[Tuya Customs]

It seems to have been. I now also have a job finishing a guitar with tru-oil for a fellow in norway.

Sounds interesting. I'd love to hear more about that.

 

[xsouldriverx]

Sounds interesting. I'd love to hear more about that.

Well im finishing a custom guitar built by our very own bill fischer (BFCG) and the customer wanted a tru-oil finish but bill doesnt currently offer that. so through the forums and the interwebs he found me.