Here are a few examples of my work.
“Many of these photos were taken while I was working at Glaser Instruments and at N Stuff Music & Sound. My deepest gratitude goes out to Joe Glaser and his team at the shop as well as the Sarra family and everyone at N Stuff Music.” -Chad Gerbe
A custom intonated bone saddle is an excellent way to upgrade your acoustic guitars tone and playability.
This 1968 Gibson ES-125 TCD had its heel come loose from the body due to a poorly fit dovetail joint. These late 60s Gibson thin hollow bodies have plywood headblocks, so using as little moisture as possible was key to not make the block fall apart upon removal of the neck. A couple big dovetail shims and an even bigger clamp later and this girl is ready to rock again.
This Kalamazoo KG-11, made during the depression in the Gibson factory, got its neck reset after the action raised up too much too play. It also received a replacement ebony bridge that I made to replace the original broken one. I really love working on these old acoustics.
This Martin suffered an impact that cracked the side. Glued it up, clamped it up, and touched the finish up. Nice and sturdy now!
I picked this awesome 1950s Kay Thin Twin Jimmy Reed model electric guitar up at an estate sale, its neck was busted off. Cleaned up the dovetail, reset a few angles, and glued that sucker on to get this baby screaming again.
This Gretsch Synchromatic archtop from the 1940s had a few sections of binding missing on the headstock. I sourced the correct width celluloid plastic binding and purfling, then fit it to the old ledge, making sure that the miters at the top corners were cut perfectly to get a crisp, clean look.
This Gibson Classical guitar from the late 1960s had its bridge completely busted into several pieces. I opted to make a new bridge by hand. You can see in the first picture the rosewood bridge blank that I carved to make the new bridge. I also made a new bone saddle for it. A setup and restring later and this beauty was sweetly singing again.
The original bridge on this 1960s Epiphone flattop was in EXTREMELY rough shape. The client and I decided to replace the bridge and convert it from its original height adjustable ceramic saddle to a more traditional drop in bone saddle.
Pulling this neck was tricky, as my usual methods of neck removal could have caused the celluloid FB on this 1933 Gibson Century of Progress to ignite in flames. Patience won the day! This was also particularly challenging because we used the original height bone saddle at the bridge so I had to set the neck angle to establish comfortable playing action without modifying the height of the saddle at all. I also repaired the bridge which was cracked and had a few chunks missing.
…and finally here’s an assortment of instruments that have hit my bench over the years that I’ve worked on.
