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5th November 2012

Gibson Les Paul, neck reprofile and smooth heel conversion

The owner of this rather nice faded Gibson Les Paul wanted the neck reprofiled into a soft V shape. He also needed improved access to the high frets. We did a smooth heel conversion to achieve this.

After removing the bulk of the heel, we reworked it smaller and carved it to make a smooth transition between the heel and body. We also recarved the neck into a soft V profile along with slimming it down a little from front to back. The result is, much improved higher fret access with a slimmer faster profie neck. The neck was refinished in matching nitro.

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15th October 2012

Exciting new developments!

Over the last year, a lot has been going on in the background. We have been researching and developing our own custom built line of guitars along with replacement bodies, necks and hardware kits.

We use only nitrocellulose paints and lacquers for finishing, then we age the paintwork with varying degrees of fading/wear, or they're available pre-aged with no wear.

We put together high quality components to make full hardware kits, again all tastefully aged, along with pickguards, making it easy to purchase a complete kit for you to build your own custom relic....Just add your chosen pickups and electrics.

The models are clearly USA inspired but we are using British parts and suppliers where possible. We will also be launching limited runs of instruments with a British theme from time to time.

All our "British master series"custom guitars are powered by handwound (made in the UK) Bare Knuckle pickups (except the G cab model which has TV Jones Filtertrons). Hardware is high spec and we select all of our body timbers personally. We have chosen the brand name "42nd street", quite simply, because 42nd street is a magical place where all your dreams come true.......

42nd street guitars, Inspired by USA, custom built in the UK.

The 42nd street website is currently being constructed. Full details here along with an online shop.

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10th October 2012

Paint dry!

The Strat body that we finished in see thru cherry was buffed, polished and posted back to the owner.

The Jaguar body was also buffed to a high gloss. The owner chose our "new" version of Fiesta red rather than our earthy version which we normally use on vintage restoration. We reassembled and set up the guitar and tweeked a few parts....superb!

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21st September 2012

Holidays over!!! more projects arriving.....

After a couple of weeks break in the sun....back to work.

We had this rather nicely figured ash strat body sent in for a see paint finish in heritage cherry nitro. The grain was enhanced further by using a coloured grainfiller underneath, followed by sanding sealer, colour coats and finally clear topcoats which were buffed to a high gloss.

The Fender jaguar body arrived with a hand applied orange paint finish. We stripped this off and it is now being refinished in Fiesta red nitro.

The Gibson ES335 is having a fret level and set up.

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3rd September 2012

Holiday Time!!

A rare occasion.....we're managing to squeeze in a short day holiday!

Hoping to have (limited) internet access so will attempt to answer enquiries and will be back to normal on Sept 16th......meanwhile, keep strumming!

27th August 2012

Danelectro guitarlin

The guitarlin is now finished. It came to us in bits as a total restoration project. It is an early '60's model and the original pickups give a healthy output. It is wired up to new concentric pots with the original jack socket. The centre shafts of the new pots needed modding to accept the original pointer knobs and we made new volume discs  as the originals were not suitable to be modified to fit the new pots.

After completely stripping the guitar back to bare wood/fibreboard, a few minor repairs were carried out. We clamp/heat treated the neck to restore its straightness and fixed a body crack. It was given a few coats of primer followed by off white nitro. Once this had dried thoroughly, the burst edge was applied....The owner chose a more vibrant colour than the original copper/brown. The paintwork was then overlacquered clear and buffed to a satin sheen. The guitar is strung up, set up and ready to play once again.

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