Cymbal Surgury

It seems that lately I have become an instrument repairman! 

  

 Anders Erickson (Drumer of Inward Eye) called me and reported that one of his cymbals had a small crack which formed while they were recording. He asked if I could try to remove the area around the crack in hopes of stopping it from spreading, and avoid throwing out an otherwise perfectly good cymbal. I assessed the damage and got to work. 

  The crack was no bigger than a penny (about 1 cm long) so I wouldnt have to remove much brass. I marked out an area a just little past the crack to make sure I cut beyond any smaller internal invisible cracking. I chose to use a semi circle shape.I like to be extra safe so I decided to go the extra mile by covering the cymbal in tape in hopes to deaden some of the vibrations from the cutting process, which could cause the crack to become larger. I made short work of the semi circle marking with a dremel equipped 

with a cut off disk, then I smoothed it out with a grinding stone bit and some 

wet dry sandpaper. I managed to scuff a little piece of brass on the right part of the picture which I`m not happy about but what can you do. If the cymbal ever cracks beyond repair I would like to take it off his hands and make a handfull of custom brass guitar picks. Thats a whole new blog though! 

   The cymbal survived a show tonight in Waterloo, Ontario and I hope it lasts for a while to come At least until Anders get a sweet cymbal endorsement! 

For my full cymbal repair album go HERE

Gibson SG Surgury

   Ok so I am currently touring with an awesome band called Inward Eye. I got a good look at the guitar players (Kyle Erickson) Gibson SG Standard guitar and my heart sank. This guitar has some stories...

   Kyle bought it used from someone who apparently had some relationship issues. His girlfriend had taken a hammer to the body of the guitar and also managed to snap off the headstock. Kyle didnt seem to care and he bought it, repaired the headstock, painted it,  and played it. 

  

   

The guitar recently had been in a patch cord accident causing the wood surrounding the input jack to break. He fixed it with some super glue, but as soon as we had some down time I took it home and made a stainless steel plate for it. I had to pull the 1/4" plug out and do a little dirty work to make everything fit. I used a dremel with a milling bit to clear away some of the super glued wood on the inside of the guitar. I then sanded down the surface of the hole to make the plate sit flush. I then traced out the shape I wanted onto some stainless steel sheet and cut it out with a dremel cut off disc. 

I finished off the edges of the plate with my bench

 grinder then polished it up using sandpaper and various polishing compounds. The pressure of the bolt on the input jack held the plate on niceley but i put a small dab of hot glue under the plate to stop it from spinning in the future. I didnt want to screw it in becasue i really didnt think it would have looked as nice. It took about a half hour to cut out the shape and polish it and it was time well spent. I'm proud of the result. 

  A few weeks later the band was rehearsing in a studio and unfortunately the same  guitar was leaning up against a guitar cabinet and it fell. It FELL! Of couse the headstock snapped and I got a phone call. Kyke asked if I knew anybody who could repair headstocks. 

I had never done it before but i had read a lot about it and had seen other people do it so i jumped at the opportunity. 

 I used epoxy to fill the gap and clamped it with some small pieces of wood wrapped in wax paper. Thats as far as i have come so far. Once i take it off after 24 hours I am going to see how strong it is, and consider putting in some splices. We'll see. I'll keep you posted. :)

For my full guitar repair album go HERE

   

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog!

I have decided to start a blog about my life. I want to have a central area where I can post pictures, stories, videos, and audio files related to my life in general.

Most of my blogs will probably be about my job. It's hard to put a title on what I do but I have come up with a generic title that seems to cover it all.

"Live Entertainment Technician"

I am one of thousands (possibly millions) of people in the world who devote their lives to setting up and operating the technologies that allow public events to happen such as concerts, conventions, tours, trade shows, speeches, and whatever else requires a microphone and some lights.

Thanks for reading and I hope this blog sparks the interest of at least one other person on this planet. I would like to hope the time put into this blog thing isn't a complete waste of time...

Cheers,
Matt