Easter Newsletter

Flame Guitars Newsletter-April 2020

I really do hope that you are well and coping during these difficult times.  Unprecedented is certainly an overused word at the moment but how else do we describe the times we are living through. For some life has slowed down and provided an opportunity to reflect on how we spend our time and money and those things in life that are really important. For others, particularly those working in the health and care sector, life and work has sped up and become very stressful.

As for me, life in the workshop is, not surprisingly, slowing down somewhat. But I have a reasonable backlog of repair and servicing work plus several custom builds in progress. So more than enough to get on with. Who knows, I may now even finish that Strat style guitar that I started building for myself about two years ago!

And every year I promise myself that I will send out regular newsletters, but never do. Well, now I have no excuse.

Repair and Servicing Work

I’ve been thinking about how I continue to provide a service whilst protecting clients, myself and my family from Coronavirus infection. I also want to work within Government guidelines. So, for the immediate future I will not be providing face to face appointments.

But if you are considering having work carried out on any guitars, please feel free to contact me to discuss how this might be achieved. I have put together a document which sets out how I am interacting with customers at the moment. It is quite long, so I won’t include all the details here. But I am happy to send this to you.

Flame Guitars Newsletters over the next few months

I’ve been thinking about the issues that I might want to cover should I send out more regular newsletters. I do hope that you find the content  interesting and, in some cases, thought provoking.  Obviously any content will be guitar focused!

Most of us are spending more time at home and probably watching more YouTube videos. About a third of the total subscribers to my YouTube  channel have subscribed over the last 4 weeks. So clearly people are looking for videos and topics that they find interesting.

Vintage guitars-refurbish or leave as is?

So I thought I’d start with one of my videos which has attracted more comments, both positive and negative, than any of my other videos.

Last year I was asked to do a complete refurbishment of a 1966 Fender Jaguar. The guitar was in far from original condition. The body had been repainted at some point, and that finish had largely flaked off. The pickguard and pickup covers had been painted black.

I decided to make a video about the whole refurbishment process. Once the video was uploaded to Youtube it was clear that many people (and by that I mean men!) had strong views about what you should or should not do to a guitar of this age.

In the video I give my views about where I think the balance is to be struck between maintaining the originality and character of a vintage guitar and doing work that, when sensitively done,  breathes new life into it and makes it easier and more enjoyable to play.

So, have a watch of the video and let me know what you think. I’d be interested to hear your views.

Here is the link:  RESTORATION OF A 1966 FENDER JAGUAR

Content of the next newsletter 

In the next newsletter I will look at the repair of the oldest guitar I have worked on. This was an 1865 parlour guitar which had a broken neck.

That newsletter will appear in your inbox in about two weeks. In the mean time stay safe and, where we can, look out for others who need our help.

Note: The above is a copy of the newsletter that was sent out recently to newsletter subscribers. If you would like to receive regular news and information from David at Flame Guitars please SUBSCRIBE here. I am sending out newsletters more frequently at the moment but normally send them out very three months

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