One owner, low miles...
So, this morning, I went to my local music store..... with two thoughts in mind.
I saw a sweet sounding Taylor 314 in the acoustic guitar room while looking from some strings..... played around and fell in love with the sound. After pondering it for a day or so, I decided to go re-visit the store and see what kind of a deal they had on it.
Needless to say, they knocked off a few more dollars on the already great price and it's now mine. There's not a scratch or ding on it. I ended up getting it for about 50% of the cost of a brand new 314
I also went to have a luthier look at and price out the work needed to my SG. The guy at Sam Ash said he wouldn't touch it but recommended a shop in town.
I called the shop, and got directions. It was behind a store (no entrance on the main street)... and turn into a small section of the parking lot in the back. the 2 luthiers that worked there had only their names on the door.... no indication it was a guitar repair shop. Entering the shop was almost like entering a basement...... but the smell of wood, and glue ....ahhhhhh not like the sterile music store.
Mike (he looked like someone from a bluegrass festival) took well over half an hour going over the guitar, examining it from many angles and employing some straight edges and a few other tools. Seems that the frets are very worn, the neck instead of having a nice parabolic curve is like a small double wave, the nut is worn and so are the saddles. He took the time to show me examples of his work and explained how he would perform the work needed on the SG. He even pointed out some hairline cracks starting to form in the binding on the neck from age. After discussing options and getting an estimated price, and a turnaround time frame, I felt this was the shop I would use to get the work done. Parting with the SG for the 6 weeks or so it will take will be hard.... I told him he would get the job, but I needed to finish a track on a project first, then I would drop it off, perhaps next week.
Install new frets to the 12th fret, dress the frets above that, sand and level the rosewood fretboard, replace the plastic factory nut with bone, file the string notches in the nut and saddles, secure the bridge firmly, install 2 replacement fret markers and stain to match, set up the neck and set the intonation plus a set of strings..... (I might supply the strings) this should get it back to playing better then factory new...... estimated cost between $450 to $600 depending on how much labor is involved in the bridge and the fret markers.
So that's how I spent my morning.
post edited by Guitarhacker - October 17, 11 9:04 PM