John Hendow

I’m generally skeptical of New Year’s resolutions. But among the things I’m trying to make happen this year is to get each of my instruments into the hands of a qualified luthier. I have a few [guitars, basses, banjos] that all need minor service and at this point there’s no way I can make time to do it at home. Fortunately, they’re all in good shape and there really aren’t any major repairs necessary. A little solder work here, a little adjustment there. One of my basses needs to have the frets dressed. One of the strats needs a bunch of minor tweaks. I’d like to replace the pickups on one of the fretless basses. My banjo needs to have its Keith/Scruggs tuners replaced. The tele needs a new output jack. And the list goes on.

I’m determined to hire this work out due to difficulty scheduling it myself and due to the simple fact that there are master technicians in my area whose Jedi powers exceed mine. Last year I took my trusty black Stratocaster to a local tech wizard who worked some magic on it. The results were quite positive; he made crucial and subtle adjustments that brought out the finest aspects of the instrument. I’ve always taken pride in being able to do a lot of this kind of work myself, and it certainly is the reason I don’t need any seriously major maintenance on my instruments. But when a master craftsman does his thing, it makes a huge difference.

The main instrument project currently on the calendar is on the Warr Guitar, and that can’t proceed until I receive my string order (any day now…). The Warr Guitar needs a new nut, which is a job for the best luthier in the area. He’s agreed to take the job so hopefully it’ll be done soon.
Other deferred maintenance projects include

1. Choosing and mounting an effects processor for bass. The current strategy of using the Line6 PODXT Live is fine for guitar or bass, but because it only accepts a single input this won’t be effective for Warr Guitar. If I get a simple effects processor for bass I can use for the low string on the Warr, as well as for being a dedicated bass processor.
2. Mounting the effects processing gear onto a pedal board and setting up a single input / output system for cables.
3. Building all new cable harnesses. This is something I usually do during the holiday break, but time was pretty short last month. I’ll get to it this month. Setting up / tearing down are a lot easier when the cables are custom bundled and terminated.
4. Configure my in-ear monitor system in a compact rack. I might need to invest in a bunch of splitters and a tiny mixer so I can manage the incoming signals conveniently.

Looks like it’ll be a busy year for gear wrangling. Fooey. I need a road crew. 🙂