Trade Secrets!

In this video, Dan demonstrates how to fix a crack in a boutique acoustic guitar caused by intense sun and humidity damage — including a nifty trick for perfectly locating a cleat to hold the crack closed.

Ian Davlin, master repair tech from Lark Street Music shows the right way to fix a guitar finish blemish on this R9 Gibson Les Paul. In this video, he shows the common finish mistakes most beginners make, and a series of simple techniques to make this repair nearly invisible.

Dan Erlewine and Elyse show you step-by-step how to make the perfect custom guitar nut from a blank. Elyse decided to make a guitar nut out of bone because it’s light, durable and easy to work with. Elyse walks you through every detail you need to know to make your own perfect guitar nut from a blank. From removing the old nut, cleaning the nut slot, cutting and sanding, identifying and marking string spacing, proper slotting techniques, polishing the nut to get a jewel-like finish and finally installing the nut.

A 1994 Fender Telecaster came into our shop recently that plays great, but whenever a player plugs it in there is some popping and cracking noise and sometimes there is no signal at all. The retainer clip that the cup and jack are mounted to has come loose. In this video, Blake demonstrates how to easily install a new retainer clip in a telecaster using the StewMac Tele Jack Installation Tool.

Special guest Ian Davlin from Lark Street Music in Teaneck, NJ, shows us how to patch a hole in an acoustic guitar body. Ian uses an epoxy putty that he mixes with ColorTone pigments and dyes, then paints on top of it to make a beautiful disguise. Ian shares some great pro tips for sanding as well.

Blake shows you how to easily mod a Big Muff Pi tone stack to get the missing midrange sound back. With this pedal mod, you can simply flip a switch to get that great midrange sound, then just switch it off when you want that regular big scoop sound that the Big Muff is famous for. Great pedal mod that anyone can do to take their Big Muff Pi to the next level.

Sometimes fret buzz is caused by the bridge, not the frets. When a bridge collapses, the middle strings get lower so they start buzzing on the frets. Dan Erlewine and Blake repair a guitar that had a tailpiece cranked down to the body, and the center of the original Tune-O-Matic bridge was sunken. Learn how to replace a Tune-O-Matic bridge, properly slot the saddles, set the radius at the saddles, then tune and intonate.

Turn your Fender Telecaster into a workhorse that covers pretty much every sound you would need at a gig where you have to play lots of different kinds of music. Learn how to get two more sounds out of your Telecaster. A nice fat humbucker sound by using both pickups in series, and the bright, nasal out-of-phase humbucker like you’d hear from James Burton or Brian May.

If your strap button’s loose, your favorite guitar could hit the floor! Avoid expensive repairs and replace your strap buttons using a permanent solution that the pros use. Learn how to quickly replace your loose strap buttons so they stay tight and secure for a long time. Also includes tips on how to properly install strap locks.

With the right tools and this guide, you’ll be able to adjust your truss rod with confidence to achieve that perfect playability and sound. Here’s what you need to know in order to properly adjust your guitar’s truss rod. Learn how the truss rod works, different truss rod types and configurations, common issues, measuring neck straightness, and adjusting the neck straightness using the truss rod.

Low humidity can cause fret sprout. This is when sharp fret ends stick out past your fingerboard and make it uncomfortable to play. This video shows you the tools and techniques for dressing sharp fret ends to make your guitar comfortable to play again. With only a fret end dressing file and some Micro-Mesh pads, you can quickly and easily fix your sharp fret ends.

Learn how to quickly and easily fix a raised fretboard inlay with only a little wax paper, some Super Glue and a standard guitar capo. Includes pro tips on how to best approach this issue, and how to select the perfect super glue that will provide a strong, long lasting bond that will last for many years.

Make a signature peghead! Learn how to make a custom guitar peghead that can give your guitar a unique vibe. Using a pattern, a jigsaw and a router, see how easy it is to make a peghead template and rout a custom peghead shape into your guitar’s headstock, just like the professionals.

Learn how to pack and ship a guitar like the guitar repair shop professionals. Avoid shipping and handling damage by properly preparing your guitar and securely packing and shipping it with StewMac’s acoustic and electric Guitar Shipping Systems. Ship guitars securely with or without a case. Take the pain out of shipping guitars with this simple, convenient and secure system.

Brock Poling shows Dan Erlewine his method for ensuring that his custom rosewood acoustic guitar rosette inlay fits perfectly in the soundboard channel. Brock makes circular cuts using a Dremel and StewMac’s Soundhole and Rosette Routing Jig on twin workboards to ensure identical cuts and a precision fit.

Looking to dial in your setup? Blake demonstrates the four key measurements necessary to get your guitar’s action perfect.

Which effects pedal comes first, which comes next, and next on down the chain? Why? Paul gives some good advice on setting the order of pedals on your board.

You can do a lot with ColorTone premixed guitar finishes in aerosol cans! Dan Erlewine shares the secret to good guitar finishing using spray cans.

With so many fret crowning files on the market how do you choose? Which one is the “best”? It depends on a lot of factors, how skilled are you at doing fret work, what’s your budget, is this a hobby or are you doing repair work for money? In this Trade Secret Erick demonstrates each of the major types of files and shares tips that’ll help you decide which file is right for you.

One of the best upgrades you can make to your import guitar is replacing the factory installed plastic nut with bone or another high quality alternative. This week Dan and Paul illustrate a fast, easy way to replace a nut in a Fender Squier Bullet Stratocaster. The job is fast, requires almost no tools, and anyone can do it.

This is a genuine 1962 Strat, but how much of it is original? It’s been refinished, and a refin has a big impact on the value of a vintage guitar. What else about this Strat has been changed? Erick Coleman shows how he figured this out.

This 1956 Telecaster was just refretted. That calls for a new taller nut, but Dan Erlewine just didn’t have the heart to throw out it’s beautifully aged original nut. So he came up with a clever solution!

Dan Erlewine’s making a Christmas present: Modifying a neck rest to hold cut frets for fret jobs. This handy benchtop helper is easy and quick to make.

Should you use glue when seating frets in a fingerboard? Which glue for which job? Erick Coleman gives clear answers.

Todd Rundgren’s guitar “Foamy” is in Erick Coleman’s shop for a… refret? That’s the question. Erick considers whether the best solution is new frets or removing the wear from the ones in place.

Small dents happen all the time, and often they can be undone with a soldering iron and a damp rag. Dan Erlewine shows how it’s done.

Warping happens! Dan Erlewine has two bookmatched pieces that he needs to join into one. Even though they’re warped, Dan shows how he joins them with a good flush glue joint.

Rich Robinson’s on tour with The Magpie Salute. A founding member of the Black Crowes, Rich asked StewMac’s Erick Coleman to get his Gibson in top playing shape. Erick’s broken the process into eight steps…

In July 2018, Mamie Minch of Brooklyn Lutherie hosted a week-long ukulele-building camp for young girls in New York City. This “super shop class” gave these youngsters the tools and guidance to build and play their first instrument!

Rich Robinson of The Magpie Salute and founding member of The Black Crowes asked Erick Coleman to install tuners that match this Gibson’s original factory machines. Erick shows how he made the new tuners look as old as the guitar.

The elephant-ear tuners on this ’72 P-Bass are barely turning at all. Instead of installing new tuners, Dan Erlewine shows how to get the original tuners working again.

This 1972 P-Bass neck came into Dan Erlewine’s shop with a nasty curve that wouldn’t adjust out. Dan had to remove wood to make it straight, so now he’s refinishing the surface to match the rest of the neck.

This pickup is a zombie. Even though it has died, it’s still making sound. Erick Coleman identifies the problem, and we watch him ever-so-carefully tear the pickup down and rewind it.

Steve is an apprentice in Dan Erlewine’s shop, and he’s planning to build himself a copy of Dan’s 1930s Kalamazoo K-11. Here’s his simple and accurate way to create a body template.

Somebody stripped the peghead of this 1957 Gibson J-50 to bare wood. Restoring it means replicating the original logo. Dan Erlewine’s got a neat tip for spraying a factory-quality logo.

OUCH! Luthier Brock Poling was routing for binding on this custom guitar when the router grabbed it and threw it against the wall! Suddenly this build became a repair, and he talks with Dan Erlewine about how to fix it.

Someone made a really odd attempt at repairing braces inside this Gibson 12-string. That didn’t keep the top from twisting into a wave shape. Dan Erlewine shows a simple fix.

Working fast! Dan Erlewine’s using hot hide glue to attach this bridge. It means working fast while the glue’s hot. Susan, our videographer, gives Dan a two-minute challenge: BEAT THE CLOCK!

Truss rod breaks almost always happen at the adjusting nut. Not this time. Dan Erlewine has a Fender neck in which the entire truss rod rotates along with the nut. It seems to have come apart in a really unusual way.

What’s so great about hide glue? Dan Erlewine loves the stuff, and shows us why. It has to do with the hardness, and the ability to heat-and-release a glue joint, and there’s more. Dan tells it better — check it out!

How can a table saw cut a curve? Dan Erlewine has a neat tip and a jig you can make in your shop. The result is a precisely curved truss rod channel just like the one in an original Gibson neck.

Brazilian luthier Rod Gomes shows Dan Erlewine a neat trick: using low-voltage electricity to clean age-old grunge from a Gibson Tune-O-Matic bridge. A couple hours in Rod’s electric soup, and the bridge is clean!

The Gryphon Strings repair crew always has great tips. Today we have some “Why-didn’t-I-think-of-that?” drill press tricks from the master repairman himself, Frank Ford!

Here’s a quick tip from Brian Michael at Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto. He’s got a fast and sure way to open this Golden Age Humbucker, without a soldering iron!

This vintage Southern Jumbo wouldn’t stay in tune, so Spencer Bohren brought it to Dan Erlewine’s shop. The solution is a new set of Waverly Tuners, and Dan shows Spencer how to install them himself — including a simple way to plug old screw holes. Spencer returns the favor by giving us a guitar lesson.

Trade Secrets visits RetroFret Vintage Instruments in New York to talk guitars — and groceries. Steve Uhrik, RetroFret’s owner, shares tips for using chemicals you’ll find in your kitchen cabinet!

Willie Nelson told Mark Erlewine: “As long as this guitar’s working, I’m working.” In this video, Mark shares insider details you could only learn from the guy who keeps Trigger ready to go On The Road Again.

Willie Nelson’s guitar, “Trigger,” is in for repairs at Erlewine Guitars in Austin, Texas. Mark Erlewine shares a closeup look at the famous hole in the top. Mark’s been Trigger’s caretaker for ages, and he gives us the inside scoop on Trigger’s history.

Dan visited the Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans get-together in Pennsylvania. It’s fun to hear these startup stories about paper clips, gum wrappers and exploding guitars!

Ian Davlin shows Dan Erlewine an amazing peghead replacement on an oddball 1897 Adams guitar. Ian also shows how he files fret ends for playing comfort, and a neat trick for stringing up your guitar.

Unclogging a spray gun and keeping it clean: these are the tips Dan Erlewine teaches to the young luthiers who work in his guitar repair shop.

How to install a skin banjo head: Dan Erlewine shows his friend Lauren how to remove and replace a natural skin head on this old banjo-uke, or banjolele.

Richard Hoover, founder of Santa Cruz Guitar Company, gave us a tour and we captured tips from the skilled luthiers that make up the Santa Cruz team. Watching them hand-building exceptional guitars was inspirational!

Joe Etgen is building a guitar for the first time, working down in his basement. Working alone on StewMac’s Triple-O kit, he’s got the body and the neck in good shape. We asked Joe to take the guitar to Dan Erlewine’s shop for a look-over. Dan shares some tips you’ll want to know when you build a guitar sometime.

This week we walk the NAMM Show with Dan Erlewine! Dan went to the huge Music Industry trade show in Anaheim and came back with his iPhone full of fun video!

New York Guitar Repair is a one-man shop, operated by Evan Gluck. Evan serves a steady stream of customers, working out of his apartment on New York’s Upper West Side. Check out his super-efficient setup!

A hard knock on a strap button will crack an acoustic guitar’s tailblock. Alex Whitman at TR Crandall Guitars in New York City shows a clever way to close that crack for gluing! Dan Erlewine collected this Trade Secret at their repair shop.

StewMac visits guitar maker Maegen Wells of Forestville, California. Maegen’s specialty is building archtop acoustic guitars. Using a 1940s Gibson as an example, she shows how to create a beautifully bound tortoiseshell pickguard with black/white/black purflings.

The pearl was in the way! Working on this fine, pearly Martin D-45, Dan Erlewine needed to spot-sand the fretboard. He shows why sanding the pearl inlay at the same time just didn’t work. That inlay had to be destroyed and replaced.

This is an original 1953 Telecaster that someone routed holes in. Looks like it was modified to hold a Bigsby vibrato. Dan Erlewine replaces the missing wood with a darned good match so this guitar can go back on the vintage market.

This early-50s Harmony StratoTone has no truss rod, and the neck is warped. Dan Erlewine repairs it by installing carbon fiber neck rods. The week after this repair was done, another copper-colored StratoTone came in with the same problem!

Chelsea Clark shows Dan Erlewine a clever trick: turning our aerosol guitar finish into a waterslide decal. This makes a great spot repair on this 25-year-old StewMac Dreadnought.

Dan Erlewine’s working on a World War II era Gibson flattop. He explains that during wartime, some experienced factory guitar makers were replaced by temps. Maybe that’s why this guitar’s saddle was in the wrong place. Here’s how he fixed it.

Time to install a saddle in this bridge. Where exactly to put it? Salvaging this original Gibson bridge required filling the saddle slot. You can’t assume the original factory placement was correct. Dan Erlewine shows how he located this saddle.

The tuners on this Kay Speed Demon are nearly 50 years old, and they’re worn out. The old tuners are 6-in-line, but not Fender spacing. Matt Brooker shows how he’s modifying the replacement tuners to fit the guitar.

The bridge on this old Gibson has an unusually low, flat profile. Dan Erlewine shows how he modified a bridge clamping caul for gluing the bridge to the guitar top.

Most Fender nuts have a curve on the bottom, so shaping them for a perfect fit is tricky. It can be the toughest part of making a new nut. Erick Coleman shows you some troubles to avoid, and a neat trick for good results.

A really unusual guitar just came in to Dan Erlewine’s shop. Something Dan’s never seen before: a kiln-fired, ceramic guitar. Erick Coleman helps Dan do some sleuthing on this oddball, and they uncover the surprising story.

Dan Erlewine made a black walnut guitar for Jerry Garcia in 1970. Recently a Grateful Dead fan asked Dan to make a replica of that guitar. In this Trade Secret, Dan shows how he made the pickguard out of laminated wood veneers.

Visiting Blue Eagle Music Shop, Dan Erlewine comes across an unusual instrument from the 1970s: a foot bass. While he’s in the shop, Dan checks in to see what’s happening with Blue Eagle’s young setup tech, Raj.

All wired up, but no sound! It can happen to anybody: you do some wiring or change your electronics, then find you’ve got no sound coming out of the amp. In this Trade Secret video, Matt Brooker helps you troubleshoot.

High action turned out to be a symptom of trouble for this guitar. The owner felt the strings were a little high. Taking a closer look, Dan Erlewine finds that the bridge is just about to pop off! A hump had formed under the bridge, and Dan comes up with an interesting solution.

Will you need to drill holes in your guitar if you put new tuners on it? How do you figure out which tuners are an easy fit, and which require more work? What about keeping the old tuners for resale value? We get questions, and Erick Coleman has answers.

Dan Erlewine just moved into a new shop! In this video he finishes work on the Mike Bloomfield Telecaster, a guitar with a lot of history. We’ve been following this guitar for several videos; now Dan wraps it up with an assist from Erick Coleman.

The rosewood fretboard on this 1963 Telecaster has some nasty chips from old fret jobs. Dan Erlewine uses three methods to fix fretboard chips, including some serious surgery for the worst cases: grafting in new rosewood!

Matt Brooker has a neck with some buzzing frets. He traces the problem to some poorly seated frets and shows two ways to clamp them down. Matt shows why seating the frets is the first thing to do before taking a file to your fretboard.

The Mike Bloomfield Tele is back in Dan’s shop. It’s in for a refret, and that means working very carefully on this historic guitar. As Dan pulls all the frets, does he manage to avoid chipping the old rosewood fingerboard?

Lots of low-cost guitars play great, even though the manufacturers cut costs on hardware and electronics. Swapping out your control pots is an easy mod with big results. Erick Coleman shows you how to avoid trouble…

Two braces popped loose inside this Epiphone acoustic. Dan makes some do-it-yourself glue scrapers and shares a ton of ideas. With his brace gluing wedge and see-thru plastic guitar, Dan turns this fix into a guitar repair class!

This fretboard binding caught on somebody’s sweater. The missing piece was never found, and the guitar is in Dan Erlewine’s shop for repair. This kind of quick fix is familiar to guitar shops everywhere!

BANG! While this guitar was being played, the bridge popped off with a sound like a gunshot. Before Dan Erlewine glues it back on, he explains the likely cause of this trouble: grain runout in the guitar’s cedar top.

A small finishing job like this is easy. After the bridge popped off this classical guitar, Dan Erlewine replaced it with a new one. In this short video, he shows how simple it was to put a finish on the new bridge before gluing it on.

There’s a knack to using a StewMac 3-Corner Fret Dressing File, and Erick Coleman shows you what that’s about. He demonstrates the rolling motion that creates a nice rounded fret with an accurate “land” down the center.

Dan Erlewine visits backstage with the great blues guitarist, Joe Bonamassa and his highly experienced tech, Mike Hickey. Joe talks guitars with Dan, and Mike shares two guitar setup tips.

The string spacing on this old Gibson is uneven. Dan Erlewine shows how he made the E-to-E string spacing wider, then located the other four strings with proportional spacing, not equal spacing.

Did you know you can tap the truss rods right out of a Rickenbacker neck? Erick Coleman shows how, and he removes the fingerboard from a troubled RIC guitar neck using a household iron!

Dan Erlewine learned this trick at Gibson’s factory back in the 60s: Three jars, three mixes of lacquer and thinner always ready for “flash coat” touch-up spraying. This finish repair hides a batch of punctures in a Gibson archtop.

When a local music venue burned down, this Strat was in the blaze. The neck burned like a candle, but Erick Coleman has salvaged the body. This is a good opportunity to show how to install a Fender style neck.

After an unsuccessful finish repair, this guitar’s owner sent it to Dan Erlewine to fix the damage. Using a neat trick he learned from Erick Coleman, Dan builds the finish fast with films of dried lacquer. Then he polishes it with a hand drill and foam pads.

This little parlor guitar was found in a trash can and Dan Erlewine is doing a quick fix on the bridge. The pin holes were entirely chewed up. Dan’s drilling them out with a peg hole reamer then plugging them with peg-shaped plugs of hardwood.

Dan Erlewine first saw this Tele back in the 1960s, before Mike Bloomfield recorded with it on Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited album. That was also before Bloomfield and Dylan were booed for going electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. And before Bloomfield recorded the first Paul Butterfield Blues Band album with this guitar. There’s a lot of history in this Telecaster!

Six tuners lined up perfectly straight, and no chips in the finish.
The last step in building this beautiful electric guitar is installing the tuners.
Brazilian luthier Rod Gomes visited Dan Erlewine’s shop to show how he does it.

Learn the right way to install nylon strings so they don’t stretch for a month before you can start playing.
Brazilian luthier Rodrigo Gomes visits Dan Erlewine’s shop and sets up a classical guitar for Dan to start learning to play bossa nova.

Over fifty years, this amp’s seen a lot of gigs and garages. Dan Erlewine’s fixing it up for a friend who wants to play it again. While the amp’s out for repair, Dan patches the torn up blue diamond tolex.

You’ve got to see this German guitar from the 1830s! Dan removed the back to repair it, and now he needs to duplicate the wood binding that’s nearly 200 years old. He shows how he started from a plank of walnut to create custom-sized wood binding strips.

Typically classical necks don’t have side dots, but Dan Erlewine’s adding them to this guitar. He shows the fast easy method, and explains why he’s using a different technique this time. Dan also shares some neat do-it-yourself jigs.

Making a beginner-friendly fingerboard: Dan Erlewine’s sister-in-law is learning to play, and her guitar has rough, sharp fret ends. The fingerboard edge is also too sharp, but Dan quickly makes this guitar more beginner-friendly.

These classical tuners aren’t turning freely — they’re sticking. The holes for the tuner barrels were never drilled quite right, so Dan Erlewine re-drills them, using our Tuning Machine Drill Jig for Slotted Pegheads.

From Dan Erlewine: “My friend Sui Keung Ho aka Carl, was visiting from Hong Kong, and spent a couple days in my shop. I was making this Trade Secret about gluing a bridge, and Carl chipped in with an additional tip. Thanks, Carl!”

High action and a badly shaped nut: That’s the situation with the nut on this old May Bell guitar. Dan Erlewine lowers the nut slots while also “back filing” the nut so the strings angle down properly to the tuners.

Dan Erlewine found a 1935 May Bell and fell in love with her. She has some fret buzz due to worn frets that are flat and wide. Dan shows how a little leveling and filing got her playing again.

How to clamp a guitar bridge without crushing the braces inside: Dan Erlewine uses a chunk of insulation from the home improvement center. In this short video, Dan shares a trick for custom-shaping the foam to fit any guitar.

A different sort of Erlewine Neck Jig: Dan’s building guitars out of black walnut that he’s saved for forty years. For carving and shaping, he comes up with an easy-to-make jig to hold a neck at just the right working angle. It spins and tilts too!

Making new pickups look old: Brand new pickups looked too shiny in this guitar that had seen a lot of gigs. So Dan Erlewine opened the old pickup and put its cover on the new one. This meant cutting the solder joint and resoldering.

This bridge is in the wrong spot, so the guitar can’t play in tune. Rather than drill new holes in a vintage guitar body, Dan Erlewine comes up with a clever solution.

In this Trade Secret, Dan tells about that inlay and shares a neat trick for exactly sizing the binding that goes around the peghead.

If you turn the truss rod and nothing happens, the trouble could have been built into the neck at the factory. The time to avoid it is when you glue on the fingerboard. Dan Erlewine shows how to fix this problem before it happens.

A customer asked me how to avoid breaking tiny router bits. I answer this question from time to time on the phone, and it makes a good Trade Secrets topic. I talked to Dan Erlewine and Dan made us this video. Check it out!
—Matt Brooker, StewMac Tech Support

Dan Erlewine’s got a nasty broken peghead on a yard sale guitar.
He shows how to fix it, and shares his thinking on which glue to use and how he does a glue test. This is actually a double break needing two repairs at once.

Whether he’s performing at the renowned Caffe Lena or at a house concert in the Midwest, Dave carries a lot of guitars. We’re pleased that all of these guitars have Waverly tuners, available exclusively from Stewart-MacDonald!

Dan Erlewine’s homemade dust collection system: Dan used to go outdoors to trim binding, because without dust collection the job got really messy. That’s all changed now: Dan’s homemade dust collection system is a simple plastic storage bucket turned into a downdraft routing table!

A P-Bass with fret buzz: Dan Erlewine fixes his brother’s bass, and answers the question, “To get rid of this fret buzz, should I adjust the saddles or the truss rod?”

Whip tips are for pinpoint gluing. These are skinny little tube-tips, but sometimes you want them even skinnier. Elliot John-Conry of EJC Guitars squashes, cuts and modifies tips and pipettes to get drops of super glue and accelerator exactly where he wants them.

Dan Erlewine has a quick tip for sanding anything truly flat. He demonstrates with a guitar neck and fingerboard that he’s prepping for glue-up.

If you’re not careful, installing new strings can create a problem that throws you out of tune or damages your bridge pin holes. Elliot John-Conry of EJC Guitars shows us an easy fix.

A little bit of glue hides imperfections… Dan Erlewine personalizes a fretboard with the customer’s name in pearl: “Hoss.” There are small gaps around the inlays, and dan shows how to make those gaps disappear. Dan also shows a neat magnet trick for cutting thin slices off the end of a fretboard.

Dan Erlewine needs to pull the tuner grommets/bushings from the peghead of this old Gibson. The lacquer is already damaged, and pulling the bushings can yank finish off too. Dan rigs a jig that holds the finish down while the bushing comes up.

How do you set the tension on a banjo head? If you’re more familiar with guitars than banjos, Dan Erlewine has a few quick tips for you.

Dirty tuners filled with dried gunk: Dan Erlewine’s working on a guitar that’s been sitting untouched for over fifty years. The tuners are too stiff to use, but he gets them going again by using heat, naphtha and an injection of lubricant. He makes a nifty little tuner-holder jig, too.

We’ve watched Dan Erlewine repair this 1930s Kay over the previous 3 Trade Secrets. It’s time to finish it up. Elliot John-Conry of EJC Guitars ages Dan’s patch of new plastic binding so it blends in with the old binding around it. About the guitar in this video: This 1930s Kay Deluxe is a fixer-upper that Dan Erlewine repaired in order to sell. Now that it’s in great shape again, maybe Dan’ll keep it!

Replacing a section of this binding from the 1930s requires thicknesses that are no longer available. Dan Erlewine has to custom-size some new wood bindings on his drill press. It’s not hard to do: watch the new pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Titebond or hide glue? Hot glue or bottled? Dan Erlewine uses three glues for this repair, and each has different properties. He explains why one glue can’t cover all the bases. And he’s created some pretty interesting cauls for clamping this job together while it dries!

Dan Erlewine went to the Columbus Guitar Show to sell some fixer-uppers. Nobody bought this beautiful 1930s Kay Deluxe; its neck joint problem must have seemed like too much work. The guitar came back home and volunteered for this Trade Secret about making a tiny saw for cleaning old glue joints!

Lindy Fralin, of Lindy Fralin Pickups, shows how he sets pickup heights. Lindy shows it’s not about measuring, it’s about listening. Recorded at last summer’s Northwoods Seminar in Michigan.

By grinding a new edge on a razor file, he creates a tool for cutting crisp square binding channels without a router.

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! These repair magnets snapped together with a CLACK!, drawing blood from Dan Erlewine’s finger just as he was about to show his gizmo for avoiding pinched fingers and separating stacked magnets! Also, Dan explains a radical bracing change on an original Earthwood acoustic bass guitar.

Michael Greenfield of Greenfield Guitars explains clearly why it’s critical to have properly shaped and sanded guitar bodies before you rout them for binding. Michael shared this great Trade Secret with us during the 2013 Northwoods Seminar last August.

Frank Ford is the man behind frets.com, one of the richest sources of lutherie tips to be found anywhere. He’s a skilled luthier, machinist and inventor. Spend a few minutes in Frank’s shop at Gryphon Instruments, and you’ll come away smarter!

Link Van Cleave is a sharp guy! He taught tool sharpening at the 2013 Northwoods Seminar. That was a class on professional techniques, but Link also gave us this foolproof Trade Secret for making your favorite scraper super-sharp.

Chemicals that add or remove years: Mamie Minch shows how she fades away old brown oxidation ù or adds it, to make a new patch of spruce match the surrounding wood.

West/East concept guitar: Michihiro Matsuda taught guitar design at Galloup Guitars’ Northwoods Guitar Seminar in August. We were lucky enough to get this video as Bryan Galloup interviewed Michi about his unique gunpowder scorching.

The king of Gibson relic finishes: Tom Murphy is well known as Gibson’s go-to guy for relic finishes: perfectly worn and age-cracked. Tom’s business, Guitar Preservation, makes this a specialty. In this week’s Trade Secret he shows us how to make and use a scraper for cleaning binding after spraying a sunburst.

Erick Coleman has a 50-year-old pickup that’s nearly dead: It’s making a little bit of sound, but not much. Erick opens it up to find the trouble, and we get a good view of the guts of this vintage Fender pickup before he rewinds it.

Shaping a neck is all about feel. Chelsea Clark learned from Dan Erlewine, and honed her skills on abandoned “project guitars” found on Craigslist and eBay. Chelsea shares some great tips on shaping the neck and preparing it for a finish.

“Can a broken nut can be fixed with baking soda and super glue?” Lou, a singer here in Athens, Ohio, brought this question to Dan Erlewine (along with the broken nut on his Yamaha guitar). As it turns out, the answer is yes and no…

Erick Coleman uses a hammer and X-Acto knife before filing. On this video he also talks with Dan Erlewine about how a 1954 Les Paul went from Bondo Mess to Relic Goldtop, with multiple luthiers contributing to its restoration.

Dan Erlewine modifies a plastic cutting board from Walmart to solve a guitar binding problem. He needs four matching pieces of black-white-black binding, and he shows a clever trick for doing this. From the free Trade Secrets newsletter at stewmac.com

Dick Boak of the Martin Guitar Company visiting Dan Erlewine’s guitar repair shop. The conversation is about pre-war Martin tenor guitars, and Dick really knows this subject. From the free Trade Secrets newsletter at stewmac.com

Compact, low-profile guitar repair setup: Dan Erlewine removes the mounting base and bolts his StewMac Guitar Repair vise to the end of his bench, for a new low-angle working style. Also: a quick tour of Dan’s customized workbench.

Titan of the Tele: Bill Kirchen explains why he flips his control plate backwards, and shows how he got the famous sounds he recorded on Hot Rod Lincoln.

Ever wonder whether a different capacitor would affect your tone? It’s between you and your own ears, nobody else can tell you what you hear. Erick Coleman’s got a simple way to prove to yourself which cap is the choice for you.

A truss rod fix leads to a binding repair: Dan Erlewine has to remove the fingerboard from this great old cowboy guitar, and some of the red side dots disappear. He shows two techniques for replacing them.

Two do-it-yourself tools that I’ve been using for years to shape the bridges on Martins: I show you how to make one in a jiffy, and there’s a free downloadable plan for the other one! — Dan Erlewine

The three basics to keep in mind if you want your work to be as good or better than the guitar’s original wiring. — Erick Coleman

The free Fret Position Calculator at stewmac.com does the math, but can I trust its numbers for placing a Martin bridge? I tested the computer against my “stone age” method. — Dan Erlewine

Dave Collins at Herb David Guitar Studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan shows an easy-to-make tool for swapping banjo bridges.

Dan Erlewine’s working on a black lucite Dan Armstrong bass — one of only eight that Ampeg ever made. The fretboard has a nasty crunch. Step-by-step, Dan details how he does this tricky fix.

Trade Secrets On The Road: Dan Erlewine visits the repair shop at Herb David Guitar Studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He brings back this great, simple tone tip from repairman Brian Delaney.

Erick Coleman builds a custom guitar that’s even simpler than Bo Diddley’s rectangular axe. It’s a great example to show the basics of building an electric guitar.

Tips for fitting a shaped and slotted nut. Dan Erlewine tries a preshaped nut in his own Fender Strat: it’s so easy “it’s almost like cheating!”

In Dan Erlewine’s shop: This Martin D-35 has a cracked top due to the pull of a shrinking plastic pickguard. Dan fixes the problem and shows how to keep this happening from happening again.

After 55 years, the original owner sells a 1957 Gibson Les Paul Junior because the pickup’s dead. Erick Coleman tells the story of bringing that pickup back to life.

This issue of Trade Secrets is a video: Dan Erlewine demos three of his favorite finish repair tips: 1. Super glue drop fills. 2. Frank Ford’s razor blade trick. 3. Strip-sanding with fingertip pressure.

This issue of Trade Secrets is a video: Dan Erlewine glues a Martin back brace, using Scissor Jacks along with tools you can make in your own shop. After this video, we developed the Brace Gluing Wedge to simplify this job and reduce the number of tools needed.

Dan Erlewine fixes a 1980s Harmony guitar with a bridge that’s falling off. To see how fast he can do this repair, Dan decided to play Beat The Clock!

Erick Coleman answers a question that’s come up a lot lately: how to find the right size replacement nut. He introduces a new Sizing Sheet that makes measuring easy for anybody.

Erick Coleman shows how he modified a Parsons Street Humbucker, turning it into a switchable single-coil/humbucker combination.

Erick Coleman’s got a Fender bass with a purple metallic finish. He wants to spray an 1960s-style sunburst, but first he’s got to get that hard plastic coating off of there…

Dan Erlewine’s got a Martin with a potbelly: string tension has pulled the top into a hump on this 1928 0-18. To make things tougher, the guitar top’s encased in a thick layer of epoxy finish! It’s an interesting puzzle…

Erick Coleman finds that a 1970s Hondo is really well built, but the parts weren’t road-ready. A couple of fixes, and this guitar’s ready to tour the world!

Dan Erlewine’s been posting photos on Facebook, creating this photo story on how to convert a fretted bass to fretless. It’s a Trade Secrets story and it’s on Facebook too!

Erick Coleman pulls his old Strat out of mothballs and gives it a new neck. He shows what’s needed to get a replacement neck ready to play.

Erick Coleman’s restoring a 1950s Les Paul, and returning the bound fretboard to its original condition. With small files and elbow grease, he shows how to create the fret-end “binding nibs” for that distinctive Gibson look.

Dan Erlewine has to leave a guitar body with the back off for months. How to keep the sides from going out of shape during this time? Believe it or not, the answer is blue foam insulation from the home improvement store.

Dan Erlewine’s making a forgery of an old Gibson label, using his brother as an accomplice (he’s got a good excuse). While he’s at it, he shows how you can make new custom labels for your own guitars.

If you sometimes think of making a custom electric guitar, Erick Coleman has tips to make one part of the process a lot easier. Here’s how to rout the neck pocket and control cavities so they look as good as a factory build.

Dan Erlewine modifies wooden clothespins for a bunch of jobs around the shop — today it’s gluing kerfing into an old Gibson. While he’s at it, he plays Santa Claus and offers a make-it-yourself holiday gift idea.

Erick Coleman has a simple tip that saved a lot of time at the recent Purdue Guitar Workshop: rubber binding bands make great clamps! They’re for lots of things — check out the examples in this issue.

Dan Erlewine’s got a puzzle on his hands: this guitar’s center strip fell out along with the braces. These parts are meant to be glued BEFORE the guitar is assembled. How do you reach inside to do this on a completed guitar?

Dan Erlewine is missing one last part needed on a 1917 archtop Gibson. It’s a long gone, irreplaceable pickguard support that he recreates from found material in his shop. A useful tip for fabricating modern plastic parts, too!

Erick Coleman’s buddy wanted a guitar just like the one he saw on Soul Train in the 1970s. Curing his Boogie Fever required a neck transplant, but Fender’s Micro-Tilt neck adjustment makes that tricky. Here’s how to do it.

Working on an aged Les Paul, Erick Coleman has to sand part of the yellowed binding. The sanded spots are a glaring white mismatch. Erick makes turns the repair invisible with a little ColorTone spray and stain.

Dan Erlewine’s got a wobbly neck, but not for long: here’s a fast way to tighten the screwholes in a bolt-on neck.

Dan Erlewine got a blast from the past in his shop recently, and before the dust settled he got another one! He’s working on two Gibson L-1 archtops from 1917, and they both have the same trouble: too-tall bridges and too-high action.

Dan Erlewine finds an old bridge to fit a 1950s Gibson, but will the saddle slot be in the right place? He measures and calculates, but still wants to prove it’s in tune before gluing. Here’s how he did that.

This bass from the early ’70s is in great shape except for a gaptoothed peghead inlay. Erick Coleman shows how to quickly replace a missing inlay, including coloring the new work to match the old.

Guitar maker Todd Sams directs the production of our StewMac guitar necks, and he uses the necks in his own custom Sams guitars. Todd shows how to spend twenty minutes final-shaping a neck to get it to look and feel exactly right.

Erick Coleman has been rooting around in the parts drawers at Dan Erlewine’s shop, and he’s found a 1960s Gibson patent-sticker humbucker. It would be valuable if somebody hadn’t cut off the pickup lead. Erick shows how to fix that.

Dan Erlewine’s cutting a curvy script letter “L” out of pearl. It’s a spidery-thin shape, so he uses some tricks to cut it cleanly without breaking. He also talks about his favorite headgear…

Dan Erlewine’s trying to pop the back off a pre-War Gibson, while keeping the binding intact. He hopes to put it back on the guitar just like snapping a lid back onto Tupperware. (Well, maybe not quite that easily…)

Dan Erlewine’s in his guitar shop (or is it a toy shop today?) making a custom “fire stripe” pickguard just like the one on his 1939 Gibson J-35. He shows how to make a custom pickguard in any color variation you like.

Someone shaved down the saddle on this great old Martin until there’s barely a nub showing above the bridge. It needs to be removed, but it’s glued in and so low you can’t grab it. Dan Erlewine shows how to solve this problem.

Dan Erlewine’s doing a neck reset on a Martin that has a square-tube truss rod. While he has the neck off, he shows how to improve the truss rod before regluing the neck.

Why you might need a new nut: Cracked nut. Poor string spacing. Hollow plastic nut sapping tone. Nut slots are too low, causing fret buzz on open strings. If you’re nervous about replacing the string nut you’ve got company, and this week Erick Coleman shows that making a nut is no big deal.

Erick Coleman’s finished tweaking a budget-priced Les Paul copy. It plays great, but one last thing’s needed: making it look more like Jimmy Page’s 1970s original.

This week, Dan Erlewine asks Todd Sams to show how a go-bar deck in his home shop turned two hours of work into twenty minutes!

Erick Coleman shows why so many guitars need their frets fastened. Add a touch of water-thin superglue to lock down your already-installed frets, and get better tone, too!

A fret hammer was one of the first lutherie tools Erick Coleman ever bought, and it’s still an essential in his shop. In this issue of Trade Secrets, he shows how to use it.

Doug Unger restores and reproduces exquisite turn-of-the-century 5-string banjos and early archtop mandolins. Doug shares a lesson in pearl engraving with Trade Secrets readers.

Dan Erlewine’s got an unusual 1951 guitar: a National with a Gibson body. The old pickguard came off in an earlier Trade Secrets, and now the new one goes on: it’s an oddball pearloid guard that’s worth checking out!

Erick Coleman needed a pickup like a good old Gibson P-90, but sized to fit a 3-string cigar box guitar! Here’s how he built it, and how you can build yourself a custom pickup for any instrument.

A badly broken neck on this Martin D-35 almost goes unnoticed, and the repair leads to an innovative do-it-yourself jig. Dan Erlewine explains how he chose the gluing method for this repair.

Erick Coleman shows the steps involved in replacing a Fender-style neck, with tips for tuner installation, truss rod adjustment, and correctly positioning the neck.

This week, Dan Erlewine’s got two pickguard removals in his shop. The Martin D-18’s pickguard has cracked it’s top, and Dan shows how a pickguard’s supposed to come off. The “Gibsonational” is another story: this pickguard is nothing but trouble!

Erick Coleman uses Kevin Ryan’s proportional string spacing rule for more jobs than Kevin ever expected: 12-strings, mandolins, bridge saddles… Plus: an explanation of the difference between equal spacing and proportional spacing.

This week Dan shares two tips for installing humbucking pickups, including a simple jig you can make yourself. Also, he repairs a broken pickup ring that his customer thinks is worth $10,000!

This week, we’re in Dan’s Guitar Garage for a Tune-up Special: how to clean and lube old guitar tuners, and get them working smoothly again.

This week, Erick Coleman shows how to add 50 years in 30 minutes: he makes a new set of tuners look like they’ve been around since the 1950s!

In this issue of Trade Secrets, Dan makes his Guitar Repair Vise sit up and roll over. Who knew cast iron could be so flexible?

This week in Trade Secrets, Dan runs into pickup trouble and turns to Lindy Fralin for help. The simplest possible solution keeps a P-90 pickup from 1957 from falling apart.

This week, Dan’s got a 1957 Les Paul Junior in his shop. It hasn’t been out of the case in 25 years, and the tuners are unusable. Here’s how to put new knobs on old tuners.

This week, Don MacRostie invents a new technique for an old technology: he shows how to accurately install a banjo dowel stick. Also, Bart Reiter sends a dowel-stick tip.

This week, somebody’s attempt to fix a 1960 Les Paul is an example of what not to do. Dan Erlewine tries an experiment that saves this smashed-up guitar’s finish: he creates cherry-red epoxy.

Ever have trouble installing an endpin jack? Did you chip the guitar’s finish, or drill the hole out-of-square? Did you goof up on a customer’s guitar? You’ll want to read this week’s Trade Secret from Dan Erlewine.

In Trade Secrets this week, Dan Erlewine shows a trick for installing side dots that are perfectly positioned: he modifies a hardware-store drill bit to make the job easy.