CustomCasters

We are now building CustomCaster electric guitars. These are solid body, bolt-on-neck style guitars designed to your specification, exclusively by Custom Sound Instruments. We have a couple demo models available to try at the store, but all instruments are built to order. The purpose of a "built to order" guitar is to fine tune all aspects of the instrument to fit your exact needs.

Buying a CustomCaster is different than buying an ordinary guitar. When people buy guitars they are usually fitting themselves to an instrument. When we build a guitar with the musician, we are fitting the instrument to you the player. We spend a fair amount of time sitting down with you (or exchanging emails) just to spec out the options and figure out exactly what kind of guitar you want... pickups, tuners, strings, neck style, body, electric modifications... the list goes on and on. Often, people don't realize the amount of variables that can be tweaked to make a truly customized instrument... one that suits your tonal palate, fits perfectly in your hands, and one that looks unique and speaks to your personality.

We have compared our demo models to similar "mass-produced" instruments... and frankly, there's no comparison. We'll put these guitars up against any main stream bolt-on style guitar, anytime. And the prices will surprise you. In most cases we can build a much better guitar for about the same price, if not less, than say a USA Fender. And better yet, it'll be absolutely one of a kind.



-- Ryan Elewaut

Vintage Restoration

This is the introductory post to what will be an ongoing restoration project. I will be making various posts throughout the process. The series of posts will show:

-Full dovetail neck reset.
-Complete re fret
-Remove and replace pickguard
-Remove and re glue the bridge

In addition to these topics, I will be showing and exploring many other general setup procedures and restoration topics... and other things that happen along the way. With a job like this, more things easily come up along the way.



This is a gorgeous, vintage 1962 Martin D12-35. I bought the guitar for the shop with the plan of restoring it. I haven't decided whether or not to keep it after the restoration is complete. The Brazilian Rosewood is beautiful. Below you can see the three-piece back with the Indian Rosewood in the center.














Look at the way they matched up the wood figure at the heel. This is a really great looking piece of Brazilian.













Here you can see how the bridge is lifting, and the pickguard. The bridge isn't too bad, but since we're resetting the neck angle it'll be best to fix this so as to correct the overall geometry of the guitar. I'll be using hot hide glue for the two major glue joints... the bridge and neck joint













-R.E.

Repair Pic of the Week

The repair pic of the week (on the right of the blog page) shows the beginning stages of a Martin neck reset. After heating up the fingerboard extension, I used a pallet knife to loosen the glue joint. This way, when I steamed out the neck joint, the entire neck would pull off the guitar in one piece.













The guitar being repaired is a 1951 Martin D-18... classic. The guitar had been played a lot, as you can see by the look of the top.






The final product was a restored, beautiful vintage player. New bone saddle, rosewood bridge pins, fresh tortoise pickguard, new frets and a bone nut, along with some Waverly tunning gears. We decided not to do any finish work to the wear on the top.









--R.E.