Recent Work

On this recent work page you will find news items posts about custom guitar builds that are under way, and repair, modification or servicing work that I have undertaken recently. You can also stay in touch with what is happening at Flame Guitars by signing up to my quarterly Newsletter.


Fitting a pickup on a gypsy jazz guitar


I was recently asked to fit a pickup on a gypsy guitar. I haven’t done this before and it is quite a different process compared with fitting a pickup in an acoustic guitar. The whole of the bridge has to be replaced as the pickup is contained within the bridge unit. The bridge fitted to […]


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Reducing the string height on a 70’s Guild D35 acoustic


Love the guitar but string height too high? This is a pretty common problem with acoustic guitars, particularly older ones. This Guild acoustic is actually my own guitar and I have had it since new. It is a great guitar and I have always loved the rich middle and bottom presence that it has. But […]


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Flame F1 Quilted Maple Custom guitar now for sale


This beautiful and unique Flame F1 Quilted Maple Custom guitar now for sale. If you go to my STOCK page you can find out more about this guitar, see a full specification and view a set of pictures. Price: £2,650 including hard case If you are interested in purchasing this guitar please CONTACT ME. If […]


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London International Guitar Show, Kempton Park


Just a reminder that that the London International Guitar Show takes place this Sunday, 28th October, at Kempton Park racecourse. Doors open at 10am. £10 entry price and free parking. 160 exhibitors and live music from Thomas Blug, Aziz Ibrahim and the Phil Harris Band This is the 3rd year for this show and it […]


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Flame Guitars at the London International Guitar Show


The London International Guitar Show returns to Kempton Park Racecourse for the third year. The Show will take place on Sunday 28th October 2018. And Flame Guitars will again be exhibiting at the show. Doors open at 10am. Entry price is £10 and there is free parking. This is a well run show with over […]


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Re-shaping a guitar neck & refretting with Evo Gold fretwire


A customer recently asked me to reshape the neck of one of his guitars. The guitar was a Stratocaster type guitar, a well put together guitar, made up using various components. But compared with another Strat that he owns he found the neck to be a little too thick and chunky. As this work was […]


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Acoustic guitar setup on a Martin guitar


This Martin guitar came into the workshop in need of a setup. This is a nicely made guitar and is sounds great, but the string height at the nut and saddle is unnecessarily high. This makes the guitar quite hard to play. Measured at the 12th fret the string height on the bass side was […]


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Refretting a lacquered maple Stratocaster neck


This Stratocaster came into the workshop for a refret. Refretting a lacquered maple Stratocaster neck present a number of challenges for a luthier. These challenges are much less of an issue when refretting a guitar that has a rosewood or ebony fretboard. They are:   How to extract the old frets without damaging the lacquered […]


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Repairing a broken Epiphone guitar neck


Once-piece guitar necks, such as those used by Gibson and Epiphone are more susceptible to neck breaks. For the owner of the guitar this is understandably a very distressing occurrence. Usually they don’t snap off completely. But this Epiphone did. This neck can not simply be glued back together. Such an end-grain repair would not […]


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Levelling & re-profiling worn frets on a PRS McCarty


This PRS came into the workshop with quite a lot of fret wear. In places the grooves in the frets, particularly under the G and B strings were quite deep. But would a full re-fret be needed or would it be sufficient to level, re-profile and dress the frets? Fortunately I was able to reassure […]


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