AVH Guitar Repair

As I do all the repair & maintenance work for Meshuggah, I can assure you that Vapula does some nice work, and both Jens JKV8 and his new Explorer 8 seriously kick ass.

If you're really wanting to compare it with a vintage DC Jr., my '58 is always hanging in my shop, you're welcome to try it anytime. LP Jr's are killer guitars, the dogear P90 is a great, gritty sounding pickup, particularly with gain

I have a potting setup at my shop if you don't feel like doing it yourself. I normally would charge about 150kr to pot one pickup, but I would discount for 3 or more if interested.

For fans of theirs and ERG nuts, a new page is up with some of random notes on the maintenance work of Meshuggah's guitars. This will be followed soon by The Meshuggah Guitar Archive, which will feature most of their guitars with pics and some vital specs. Cheers! http://avhguitarrepair.com/?page_id=768

This was clearly a ground issue, most likely between the piezo preamp and the magnetics before going to the output. I've done numerous piezo installs, and this occasionally happens...next time anyone has an issue like this, please give me a call and I can most likely get you sorted out quickly - certainly not weeks waiting.

Hey Trond, I'm going to Musikmesse too. I'll be there from the 20th - 23rd, I managed to find a hotel (Hotel Anna) that wasn't too expensive and not too far from the fair (5kms). We'll finally have to hang out with some beers and talk shop

A very common question I get is “what’s in a fret dress, how’s it done” ? Well, for those that are curious about my method, I've created this article: http://avhguitarrepair.com/?page_id=618 Cheers!

The price you pay for that stuff is a flat-out ripoff. As others were saying, many luthiers and techs (myself included) for decades have used pro-quality car buffing compounds, and for almost all guitar finishes the best regarded is made by Meguiar's - either Scratch X, or my favorite Ultimate Compound. Seriously, even Fender was marketing re-bottled Meguiars and reselling it for more - it's the same stuff. Works amazing, and way cheaper.

I thought any of you Mesh fans here would probably like this tech pics

You are most welcome, my good man...thank you for the kind words. Those luminlays are pretty cool, and interesting to work on.

Ahh.....right, I get it, very good!

I haven't either, but that those are some of the possible issues people face when learning to do fret jobs. I must miss the joke here, as I haven't faintest idea what you're getting at.

As was said earlier, that price your friend gave you earlier was truly charity. No professional shop will do fretwork that cheap. You have to realize that doing a proper, professional-quality refret takes time, and requires the right tools to do the job properly (I've had to bite my tongue about criticizing the techniques used in the other 'fret-levelling' thread, which would be pointless). Not to mention it does take experience to do a good job and to develop an eye for the minute details involved. When I started learning to refret 25 years ago, believe me, you will mess-up your first couple of attempts, where differences of 1-2/1000" can make the difference to whether you get note-out, buzz, or even a tonally dead-sounding fret that refuses to seat because the slot was widened and the tangs refuse to grab into the wood. There's many details to consider when doing a refret. You cant just rip out the old frets, slap in any 'ol new ones, and expect it to play well. It's just not that simple, and that's why fretwork costs what it does for good quality work. Perhaps you just need a good dress instead of a refret, depending on how deep the divits are, and if you have enough fret material left. If you live in or near Oslo and need an accurate, free assessment, feel free to contact me. Just my 2 kroner.

Sounding pretty good, you may need to tighten-up your picking a bit. Tuning and composition wise, it sounds more like it was Periphery-inspired rather than Mesh, who tune down to F standard. Keep us posted on new experiments!

Not a chance that Deluxe is worth anywhere near that. Even the VG bluebook lists early 80's Deluxe's in excellent condition between $1800-2300 US tops. I've been involved with vintage stuff since the early 70's, and I can tell you no one is banging down the door for an 80's Deluxe, or ever will be, sorry, but that's the reality. Even the sandwich-bodied 70's Deluxes are a hard sell, and a large percentage of them wound-up getting routed and had normal humbuckers installed, because the mini's usually would squeal like a pig with feedback, and were a little clanky sounding. If you're really into the mini humbucker sound, a much better choice is a Firebird - different pickup design and sound miles better. There's way better Les Paul's to spend your cash on. Without spending loads, find yourself an early 90's Classic - a great bang for the buck LP.