riffraff

I understand that the last thing you want is for someone to muck up their own instrument. This is way off topic btw but since you mentioned building guitars and repairing them for a living this is a good time to ask. I'm 18 so I basically have to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life this summer and so far it looks like i'm going to university for business. But I always wanted to do something with guitars for a living. How long does it take to get to a point where you can build/repair guitars for a living? You obviously have to be an expert before you can start working on other peoples instruments so what does it take to get to that point? Is it a good living? I've given resumes to my local guitar shop but they never call me back. Any advice anyone can give on this career is greatly appreciated.

I hear gotoh and tonepros are good stuff... I guess I just have to decide if I want to save money and put in the effort vs pay money and get a drop in bridge.

I guess I came off a little hot n' bothered for mickguards tastes? I'll elaborate on the "crapping out" of the bridge: When I bought the guitar the B string was rattling. I couldn't hear the sound when played through an amp so I didn't care, the guitar played great and the sound coming from the burstbuckers was nice. But now the A, G and B strings sound like a sitar and I can hear it through my amp. Epiphones are known for having bad bridges and apparently it's one of the best upgrades you could do to it tonewise. So I figured why not replace it? I have all summer here, I have a 50$ quality nashville bridge, I have a grandfather with a shop full of tools and a lifetime of woodworking experience(not on guitars though) and I want to do a little work on my guitar. I'll save money and resale value isn't important because I keep all of my guitars, still have my first 199$ hunk. How many times do you hear someone say "I wish I hadn't sold that guitar...". Besides this is something that can be approached without jepordizing my guitar. I'll pre-drill the dowels before I even glue them in so I can get it just right. My grandfather also suggested cutting 2 grooves lengthwise of the dowels to let pressure and excess glue escape. You guys have been a great help, if you want I can post pics of the finished project?

I see what you mean about lots of posts on removing stud bushings. Seems simple enough, inserting a snug fitting dowel with a little wood glue seems simple too. It's the drilling for the new nashville stud, that's where i'm lost. That hole has to be perfectly straight can that be done by hand? When I put in the new stud should there be some wood glue on that too?

thx for the reply, i was looking into those but i don't think they'd work because from what i understand the korean bridges have larger studs than nashville bridges and the abr-1 are the smallest. So those nashville studs are still too small. I know you guys have lots of woodworking experience(i have none) could i remove the large studs, fill the hole with some kind of strong wood, then drill nashville sized holes into that? The only thing is I have no woodworking experience whatsoever so i would need someone to sort've walk me through how to do something like this.

hello everyone, I have an epi joe perry and the bridge just crapped out, so now the only song i can play is paint it black with this sitar!! Needless to say, this bridge has to go and i do have a really nice nashville tune-o-matic sitting around however its posts are too small for the large korean bushings. Apparently they used to sell conversion bushings for this type of thing, but they don't anymore. So i have come here to do-it-myself, does anyone have any instruction of what to do? Is it possible to have a conversion bushing machined at a shop?