Lex Luthier Guitar Repair and Modification (Los Angeles)

Guitar pickup cleanout sale! I need to make some room, so I am selling: Fender Diamondback humbucker, white uncovered. $40 G&L Tribute Paul Gagon designed humbucker, black uncovered. $20... Fender Mexican Standard Strat humbucker, white uncovered. $20 Fender Mexican Standard Telecaster pickup set (neck and bridge). $30 GFS '64 Stagger Texas Grey Bottom Surf/Blues Strat set (5.8K, 6.3K, 9.6K alnico V). Very nice "gutsy vintage" sounding set. This is already nicely installed in a Mexican Standard Stratocaster three-ply white pickguard. All you have to do is hook up the jack and add a ground wire to the vibrato claw, then you can install the guard and play. Wired so bottom tone pot controls both bridge and middle pickups. $110 Fender Mexican Standard Stratocaster pickup set. I have two of these sets. $35 per set. Fender Mexican Standard Stratocaster pickup. I have two, both neck/bridge models. $15 each, or $20 for both. Fender Mexican Standard Stratocaster complete wiring harness. Pots, switch, pickups, all wires, and jack. Cream pickup covers and knobs included. Comes mounted on single-ply white pickguard in rough condition. Just install on a nicer pickguard, add a cream switch tip and it's ready to play. $70. Will include vibrato system from the same guitar (sans arm) for $20 more. Fender Mexican Special Edition Black Paisley Stratocaster complete wiring harness mounted on original pickguard. Humbucker bridge pickup, single coil middle and neck pickups. Black pickups, knobs, switch tip, and pickguard. $100. Will include matching complete vibrato system from the same guitar for $25 more.

1980 Fender Lead I. I stripped the thick, plasticy factory finish down to the bare wood (hard northern ash). Then I filled the grain and did an old-school multi-layer nitrocellulose lacquer refinish in ORANGE, with several clear coats over the color. As a final touch, I added Telecaster knobs. It was incredibly time consuming, but it turned out looking gorgeous. (Photo is from the owner, as I forgot to photograph it myself.)

Dear music folks. I am going to start selling pre-wired harnesses for Telecasters, Stratocasters, P Basses, Les Pauls, SG's, and custom wiring schemes. I notice that some people like the convenience of buying these things already put together, rather than buying the components and soldering them themselves. If you are about to spend $70 plus shipping on any such thing, or know someone who might be considering doing so, please send them my way. I can do it locally, and cheaper as well. Support your local Highland Park solder sniffer, not an out of state business! As a great man once said, "Thank you for your support."

This is an odd beauty. A Cipher brand 12 string, imported to the U.S.A. from Japan, and sold under the "Inter-Mark" name. Unlike most cheap-o '60's Japanese guitars, this one was kept in really great shape over the years. No modifications, just stock repair. I needed to go into the electronics and do some cleaning and repairs. Almost no chance of replacing parts on things like this, so I had to figure out how to repair the extremely cheesy stock switches. It was a challenge, but I got it done. Three of those tuners are not stock, and will be replaced at a later date. I just need to track down the right parts first.

Squier Vintage Modified Jaguar Bass Special Short Scale. The factory guts came out in their entirety, and in went quality components. Jazz Bass style stack knobs, and Seymour Duncan high output Quarter Pounder pickups. This is a decent bass; Squier is making very good instruments for the money these days. But the stock electronics were garbage. It sounded like a wet fart. Now it will put most American-made P-Basses and J-Basses to shame.

I modified the hell out of this Mexican-made Strat last month...but it looks very close to stock. First, the finish. I took every last nut and bolt off of the guitar. I took many hours to shine up the factory matte neck finish to a nice looking gloss. But I did the opposite on the body. It's poly finish was just way too plastic and cheap looking, so I knocked down the gloss a bit. Now it looks like a slightly oxidized metallic car paint instead of like a piece of cheap plasti...c. Very classy. Second, the vibrato system. The stock ones suck on Strats! I installed a Super Vee Bladerunner bridge, Sperzel locking tuners (factory ordered with custom specs), and a custom cut white graphite nut. Stays in tune 100X better than stock. Lastly, the electronics. First things first. Out with the stock electronics in their entirely, and in with quality components all the way around. Switch, pots, capacitors, wire, etc. The cheesy stock pickups were replaced with Fender Custom Shop '54's, some of the best sounding Strat pickups made. Then, there is a hidden custom wiring system that I designed from scratch. You have two push/pull switches built into the volume and middle tone knobs. With both switches down, you get your normal Strat wiring setup. Classic bone stock '50's sound. The middle push/pull switch turns the neck pickup on at any time, regardless of the position of the stock switch. That gives you two more pickup orientations that are not available on a normal Strat: neck and bridge pickups together, and all three pickups on. Pretty straightforward so far. Just the stock wiring scheme, plus a common modification that gives you a few new pickup orientations. But the fun starts when you activate that first push/pull switch to get to the custom wiring scheme I designed. With that switch on, here is what you get from the stock pickup selector switch (listed bridge to neck): 1. bridge pickup with no tone (as stock) 2. bridge pickup routed through bottom tone knob. Some of the greatest Strat tones to be had are in this position. (Use the tone knob to get them!) 3. bridge and middle pickups together in humbucker mode. This is very high output. It gives you a fat humbucker sound without changing the stock appearance of the guitar. 4. bridge and middle in humbucker mode, in parallel with neck pickup. All three pickups on, but two of them acting as a humbucker, is a different tone than having all three on in parallel. 5. neck pickup (as stock) Plus the neck pickup on switch also works in this mode, so you can add the neck pickup in parallel with any of those options. This was a complete renovation of this low-end guitar. Now it looks, sounds, and plays like a guitar that cost 5X as much.

A pile o' Strats (one of which is actually a G&L Legacy).

First post on Facebook. If you need any work done, drop me a line. I'll have photos of some of the guitars I've modified up soon. Please share this page with your musician friends! Lex