MJL Custom Guitars and Repairs

06/22/2023

Went to Sacramento Guitar Center to trade some guitars, got a nice Slime Green Charvel SoCal... was heading back to the freeway and I rear-ended someone. Save whiplash/headaches, everyone is okay. Now the Kia is leaking coolant like a sieve, awaiting AAA to tow my ass home. Ugh!

07/12/2018

Returning to the shop soon!

05/18/2017

Anyone need a new/used guitar? https://reverb.com/shop/michaels-guitar-gear

Shop Michael's Guitar Gear on Reverb

01/02/2017

I built these bodies and then assembled and set them up...Very glad to finally be done with this project.

01/09/2016

the body of this telecaster was made from wood from the paddleboat The American Queen...I had to straighten the bridge, plug and re-cut the neck pocket, re-seat the frets (which had unseated since a different luthier did a level crown and polish); the 5th fret was sticking up .010"all the way across the fretboard and others were only a few thousandths...but they're all level now...and properly polished...there were still many scratches left over from the previous level crown and polish, and I also wanted to make sure I got out any potential marks I may have got on it while I was working on it.

I made a template for the neck pocket, routed it out, filled and redrilled the holes for the neck where it attaches to the body...did a set up and my customer was happy...

This may turn into a recurring build of some standard models for the paddleboat, and maybe even some custom guitar orders, whether paddleboat wood or otherwise...will be building one for them initially for them to compare/contrast with the previous builder's guitars.

01/09/2016

refinish/roadworn and dress the fretends and fretboard

11/18/2015

I am a bit late in posting these, and too few pics at that...I need to get better about it.

09/26/2015

In the process of doing a fretless conversion on a P-Bass and doing a pickup swap, some Seymour Duncan Nazgul/Sentient for a 7 string. Pictures will be posted soon.

07/13/2015

02/26/2015

Jackson Kelly I had traded for a while back...doing a number of different things to make it more comfortable to play...a bit of a belly carve, some contours on the heel and upper horn to make it much more comfortable to play the upper frets...I also have a scalloped neck that will be going on this guitar.

12/20/2013

just ordered a 7 string floyd rose template...picked up a 7 string humbucker template...gonna get some 6 string pickup templates and trem bridge templates next in anticipation of my hand healing up and my being able to get back into the shop and making sawdust