Pickguard replacement and setup for a J.W.Black JWB-T.
Replaced with the original pickguard that came with the guitar.
The front has a pre-drilled slot suitable for a P-90 pickup, and the body appears chambered internally, making it lightweight.
The tone is soft, and the bridge pickup produces a non-harsh sound, making it easy to handle.
Although new, the neck has a tiger-eye grain pattern and a forward bow, so it was adjusted for playability.
The curly maple grain features alternating hard and soft sections, which can be disadvantageous for neck rigidity.
This affects the stability of the neck’s curvature. If you can’t perform minor adjustments yourself, changes in the neck’s bow often alter playability.
The replacement plug is the FURUTECH FP-703, which I also recommend.
I feel L-shaped plugs are inferior to straight plugs in terms of sound quality, so I generally recommend using straight plugs unless an L-shape is absolutely necessary for your setup.
After the replacement, the sound became cleaner with no more harshness or sluggishness, and the frequency balance improved significantly.
While just changing the plug can affect the sound, soldering itself also alters the sound, so I don’t recommend doing the wiring yourself.
Even if you get sound out of it, it’s often not sound that’s been properly optimized.
Fender Japan-made, Michiya Haruhata Model Stratocaster: Fret leveling, pot replacement, jack replacement, selector switch replacement.
Overall significant wear, with frets causing muted notes.
Pots, selector switch, and jack exhibiting intermittent sound dropouts or crackling will be replaced with new parts.
The nut height was originally quite high, making the lower frets difficult to play. Since this model does not use shims under the nut, the fingerboard needed to be dressed down to lower the nut height.
After dressing, the nut height is now slightly higher than before. At the customer’s request, this was left as is. While the string height over the lower frets feels higher, it is still playable.
Although this is a Floyd Rose-equipped Stratocaster, it’s essentially a standard Strat with a Floyd Rose added, resulting in improper string height (due to mismatched fingerboard radius and Floyd Rose radius).
We adjusted the bridge saddles by adding shims to match the fingerboard radius, minimizing significant string height variation and improving playability.
Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul Custom pot replacement and setup.
Brought in because tuning became erratic after replacing the Tune-O-Matic and Kluson original tailpiece.
The bridge saddle base is stiff to turn. Likely due to incorrect pitch in the bridge stud holes.
The volume pot was causing crackling and loss of sound, so it was replaced. The pot was tightly seated in the body hole, making replacement difficult.
Parts should generally not grip the wood tightly. Loose fit is normal.
This one hadn’t been replaced, so it’s an original part. It appears to have been manufactured this way, with the pot forced into the screw hole.
This is a great-sounding model with a thick, well-projected tone.
It also excels in the high range, delivering excellent sound whether using the front or rear pickup.
Les Pauls can vary significantly in tone due to weight and other factors, so if you find a good one, it’s best not to let it go.
