Flame Guitars Newsletter-December 2020

Each December I put together a calendar that will hang in my workshop for the following year.

As I decide which photos to include in the calendar, it gives me a chance to reflect on the year, the guitars I have built or worked on, the people I have met and the videos made.

Of course, for all of us, this has been a year like no other. Work for me has carried on pretty much as normal. The main change is that I have not been receiving customers into my workshop.

Talking to customers about their guitar whilst standing outside my house has been necessary but frustrating. I really miss chatting to customers in my workshop. However, I have been as busy as ever (if not more so), and I frequently remind myself how fortunate I am to do this work, particularly as I know of others who have had a difficult year.

Flame Custom Builds in 2020

Here are a few pictures of two guitars built this year. The V-style guitar was commissioned by Ian Dow and is a big nod towards a guitar built for Albert King in the early 70’s. The second, a Flame F1, was commissioned by Daniel Weavers. I will go into more detail about these guitars in a future newsletter.

Why not make 2021 the year you have a custom guitar made for you. I’m very happy happy to have an initial chat about a custom build, even if you decide not to take it any further.

Flame Guitars Videos

In June I uploaded a video which showed the repair of two Les Paul’s, both with snapped off headstocks.

This video has done really well and to-date has had about 330K views with about 1500 comments (nearly all of them nice comments!)

In the video I say “Now, I wouldn’t want you to get the impression that my workshop is filled with Les Paul’s with broken necks”. Well, it may have been true then, but is not now. Since the video was released I have had a lot more requests to repair guitars with broken necks. And yes, most of them are Les Paul’s. Here is a picture I took just before Christmas. Four Les Paul’s all at various stages of repair.

If you would like to watch the video here is the link.

Repair of a Les Paul with a snapped off headstock

Content of the next newsletter

Stainless steel frets

Twenty years ago stainless steel frets were not really an option for guitars. Very few manufacturers were fitting SS frets as standard. Still most don’t. But I now get many more requests to refret a guitar with SS frets.

In the next newsletter I will look at this issue in more detail. I will cover the installation process and how it is different from installing nickel frets and what impact SS frets have on tone and how the guitar plays.

In the mean time I wish you all a very happy New Year. And I hope that 2021 is a better year for all of us. As well as a greater opportunity to see friends and family, I’m sure that many of us are looking forward to seeing and playing live music again.

All the best.
David