Guitar Repair Shack

Up and running!

2011-08-29T06:47:00.003-08:00

The Guitar Repair Shack has now been up and running since June 1st! I just want to say a big THANK YOU to all of my customers who have followed me to the new place. It's been great to see so many familiar faces again!

The summer has been super busy. Getting a new business up and running is a lot of work, and I was even able to fit in a trip to Martin Guitars in Pennsylvania. View my Martin blog for the details!

Here are some photos of the new place. Drop by and see me soon!

-James

Announcement!!

2011-06-02T06:03:00.005-08:00

I am pleased to announce that as of June 1, 2011 I am now open for business as an independent repair shop in the city of Calgary! May 14th was my last day at Guitarworks Inc. and I have opened my own place along the beaten path of music stores just right off of Macleod Trail. I have named the new venture "Guitar Repair Shack" and you can find me here:

Guitar Repair Shack

James Fry

201-5501 1A St. SW

Calgary, AB T2H 0E6

403.255.5543

www.guitarrepairshack.com

Hours:

Tues-Wed 9-5

Thurs-Fri 1-8

Sat 10-5

I will be continuing with offering repair services and of course warranty repairs for Martin, Taylor, Fender and the Fender family of instruments, (Gretsch, Guild, Tacoma, Jackson, Charvel, Squire, etc.).

Hope to see you soon!

-James

What's New

2011-04-10T09:15:00.002-08:00

This weekend I was invited up to Fort McMurray, Alberta to do some teaching. I've been up to "Ft. Mac" now three times to be a part of a guitar club called "Guitar Church" which was founded by my friend Tom Cameron in Red Deer, Alberta. I taught on guitar care and maintenance and also a session on songwriting.

This trip I was also invited by my friends at Campbell's Music to teach at Keyano College.

http://www.keyano.ca/

This was my first time teaching on a college level and I was so excited about it. I spent a good part of the day with ten students covering certain aspects of guitar repair. What a great bunch of people! It was a nice break from being confined to my repair shop fixing guitars day in and out.

A new addition to the Creosote guitar collection

2010-12-29T17:55:00.006-09:00

Over the last several years, my friend Brother Ray Lemelin commissioned me to build a series of guitars with a particular design and all with neck wood from a large chunk of wood that he provided me with from a 100 year old telephone pole from British Columbia. God knows where he found this stuff, but the maple is flamed, dark, and has veins of creosote running through it. Thus it was named the Creosote guitar series. The very first one I built was called the Creosote Slide. It was simple. A maple neck, mahogany body, and maple top cap. I transplanted a 1950's Supro lap steel pickup , bridge and controls right into the body. It had banjo tuners and was set up for slide and chording. Ray loved it, and so did his friend and fellow bluesman, Tim Williams.

The next one I built was for Tim and it had some modifications to it per his request. Two vintage Teisco pickups from the '60's, a Bigsby, a roller bridge, and six drop-d Schaller banjo tuners. You can view pictures of it if you go back further on my blog. Tim loved it, still loves it, and has toured with it as his main electric guitar. As a matter of fact, I haven't been able to see it since he was given it over two years ago.

Fast forward to today and I have a brand spankin' new five string bass. My first, and maybe only, bass I've ever built for longtime friend of mine and Ray's, Bob Richardson. Bob has been patiently waiting for his bass for longer than I would care to admit. This year though, Bob must have been VERY good, because Santa brought it for him. Same body idea as the guitars but for a bass. Same woods. A fine set of Hipshot tuners. Bartolini pickups, and an Ultra Deluxe heavy duty bridge. CTS pots, Sprague Orange Drop capacitor and lots of love. Unlike the recent guitar projects I've been doing from some pre-made bodies and necks, this bass was handcrafted from scratch starting with raw blocks of wood. It was worth it, and lots of fun.

New Guitar

2010-12-06T17:12:00.002-09:00

I'm on a tele kick...here's a new one. You can see more on my new blog dedicated to my new line of relict guitars,

http://relicaguitars.blogspot.com/

New Blog

2010-10-04T17:36:00.003-08:00

James Fry Guitars announces the beginning of "Relica Guitars". A creative line of aged guitars.

http://relicaguitars.blogspot.com/

Martin Guitar Factory Trip

2010-08-16T10:59:00.002-08:00

I just got back from a trip to the Martin Guitar Factory. Visit my dedicated Martin blog to get the details...

http://jfguitarsmartintrip.blogspot.com/

Cheers,

James

Taylor Guitar Event

2010-07-27T19:12:00.002-08:00

Hey folks,

This Saturday, July 31 from 10am-5pm I'll be doing free restrings for Taylor Guitar owners at the Guitarworks newest location, CrossIron Mills Mall. Steve Parr, Taylor Guitars regional manager for Canada will be there from Taylor headquarters in California to be part of the event. If you own a Taylor Guitar and need a new set of Elixer strings put on your Taylor or hadn't had the chance to see the new Guitarworks then come on by, we would love to meet you!

http://www.crossironmills.com/shopping/map/#/guitar-works

Guitarworks makes front page

2010-06-30T19:37:00.002-08:00

Guitarworks Inc. is the feature story and on the front page of the newest Canadian Music Trade magazine. Visit this link I've posted to view the article. I get an honorable mention on page 24.

http://www.canadianmusictrade.com/online/

Taylor Road Show

2010-06-12T08:05:00.002-08:00

Come by Guitarworks on Macleod Trail South for the Taylor Roadshow Thursday, June 17th at 7pm.

http://www.taylorguitars.com/calendar/calendar.asp?zip=&radius=0&month=6&year=2010&day=17&keywords=taylor+road+show

New Guitar

2010-04-21T17:52:00.005-08:00

This is my latest addition. It's a totally simple and straight forward guitar. One pickup, one volume, that's it. It was also my first stab at a relic. For those of you who are wondering what a relic is, it's taking a perfectly fine guitar that's brand new and then beating the crap out of it until it looks old. I know it's crazy, but I can't tell you how good it feels to bang up a guitar when I all I do every day is take every precaution to not put a scratch on one!

Here's the specs:

Musikraft Fat "C" neck, one piece of maple. 9.5" radius with Dunlop 6105 medium frets.

Sperzel custom open gear tuning machines, chrome with pearloid buttons

Two piece light weight alder string through body supplied by Musikraft

Callaham Vintage Hardtail bridge distressed

TV Jones P90 pickup. This pickup is fantastic. It sounds killer through a Vox amp as well as others but that's my preference. It's got some fat tone and it doesn't muddy out when you dig in.

250K CTS control pot

The neck and body I ordered from Musikraft. It's my third time ordering from them and they do a great job. The neck/body joint was super tight and the guitar just rings and sustains like a darn. Everything just came together so well with this guitar and I know that it's the quality of parts that I used that made a huge difference.

Very thin nitrocellulose finish on the body and neck. The neck I used a satin lacquer to give it a worn in feel.

Change of shop location announcement

2010-02-11T16:37:00.002-09:00

Hey folks, I am moving to Guitarworks on Macleod Trail beginning Tuesday, February 16th where I will be doing all of my repairs. You can reach me at 403.216.8525. I'm in Tuesday through Saturday.

Video Clip

2009-10-17T17:23:00.003-08:00

Check out this Youtube video clip of Tim Williams playing the guitar I finished building for him last year. He takes a solo at about 3 and a half minutes into the clip. If you scroll down in my blog here, you can see some close-ups of the guitar that I posted earlier.

Tim Williams - 61 Highway

Taylor Trip 2009

2009-10-08T19:27:00.004-08:00

I was invited down to the Taylor Guitar factory in El Cajon, California to take part in a Repair Summit for their Warranty Service Technicians in Canada. This September I spent a whole week there getting some more training, enjoying the California sun, and coming back home with some new repair and service techniques. Visit my blog dedicated to this to see pictures and more.

http://jfguitarstaylortrip.blogspot.com/

-James

New book release

2009-09-14T09:20:00.002-08:00

I've just received an amazing set of books about guitar building authored by one of my guitar building heros, Ervin Somogyi. The set of books, "The Responsive Guitar and Making the Responsive Guitar" were just released in July. Follow this link to check them out and order: http://www.esomogyi.com/responsiveguitar.html

-James

Super Tele

2009-07-23T11:00:00.005-08:00

For those who know my situation, I haven't had much time to build guitars lately because I've been so busy with repairs. I also do not currently have a full scale shop set up for building guitars, but that won't be lasting hopefully too much longer. I have not been totally idle, though. I've had an idea kicking around in my head for some time now to put together a telecaster with some mods.
Over the last several months, I have ordered and collected choice parts and pieces to put together what I'm calling my "Super Tele". Here's the breakdown:

Body: I ordered a modified Tele body from my favorite electric guitar body company in New Jersery, Musikraft. They made me a two piece alder body with their Dakota Red finish and humbucking pickup slots.

Neck: I made my first order with Warmouth and boy was I happy. They made me a nice tele neck with 1 11/16" at the nut and a "V" neck. Maple neck with a rosewood fingerboard.

Pickups: I went to my all time favorite pickup company, TV Jones, and ordered a custom set of pickups. The bridge pickup is their Powertron Plus, which is a Filterton on steroids. The neck is their Magnatron, modeled after a DeArmond but humbucking. A beautiful warm pickup. I dug out a vintage oil filled .047 capacitor to go with the pickups and CTS pots. Switchcraft 4 way selector to split the neck coil for some extra options.

Hardware: Roller bridge, Bigsby Vibrato, Bakelite pickgaurd. I ordered a custom set of Sperzel open gear tuning machines to finish it off. Sperzel is best known for their locking machines, but I didn't want locking. These chrome beauties are open gear and just look so cool.

The guitar is reminiscent of a Tele but has other personality to it given the TV Jones pickups. It's much more versatile than a standard tele and can go from warm jazzy tone with the Magnatron in the neck to full on ACDC with the Powertron Plus in the bridge. I totally love it and I had so much fun putting it together. Who knows, maybe I'll draw up my own design and start making some from scratch in the future.

-James

New Blogs!

2008-08-28T19:18:00.005-08:00

I have created two new blogs which are extensions of this one. In the last several years I have had the opportunity to visit two large guitar factories and train with their repair staff. I represent Martin and Taylor Guitars as a Authorized Warranty Technician for them and have had the pleasure to visit both factories. You can visit these new blogs and see a picture documentation of my trips. Enjoy!

-James

http://jfguitarsmartintrip.blogspot.com/

http://jfguitarstaylortrip.blogspot.com/

A Guitar Is Born!

2008-08-18T19:00:00.012-08:00

I've been working on this guitar for about three years. It just so happened to get delayed by my shop moving, beginning fatherhood, etc. I'm so happy it's finally complete, and I'm sure Tim is to.
If you have kept up with my blog, you may remember a guitar similar to this that I had built for bluesman Brother Ray Lemelin. Brother Ray provided the design and direction for where he wanted things to go in the construction and I put all of those things together and built it for him. Ray spread the news and now I've had the pleasure of building another Creosote Slide for bluesman Tim Williams. Tim is a 40 year veteran of roots music and it was an honor building a guitar for him. You can check out a bio of him here: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/belzners/timbio.htm
The body is Honduran Mahogany with a Flamed Maple top cap. The neck is maple harvested from a 90+ year old telephone pole from British Columbia that at one time had been soaked in creosote, so Ray named it the Creosote Slide. It is made for slide guitar playing with two growly, brash vintage Teisco Gold Foil pickups taken from Ray's vast collection of cool guitars. The banjo tuners are all Schaller Drop D tuners so that various tunings can be created. The finish is old school nitrocellulose lacquer. Master volume and two tone controls with a three way toggle switch make up the controls. The control cavities were customized to take away as little wood as possible.
Here are some pictures of the finished guitar for you to enjoy.

-James

James Taylor comes to Calgary

2008-07-15T05:54:00.002-08:00

For those of you who read my blog, you know that from time to time I comment on great concerts that I've caught. I love seeing live music, and James Taylor has been a big favorite of mine for years. When I was taking fingerstyle guitar lessons from the late Dan DeVries, we worked on many James Taylor guitar arrangements that I learned to play and still play today.
THE VERY DAY I moved up to Canada from the Chicago area was the same day James Taylor was playing in Chicago. I really wanted to go but for obvious reasons it wasn't going to happen. As I drove out of Chicago I passed the venue where he was playing. Talk about painful!
Well, James Taylor finally "smartened up" and for the first time in his career he came to Calgary this past weekend. He brought with him a lot of musicians who have been with him for decades. I was lucky enough to get a floor seat 16 rows back in a venue which seats thousands of people. The concert was fantastic, I was so happy to finally get to see him in concert.

New Guitar

2008-05-30T18:19:00.003-08:00

I did a custom neck for a customer who wanted a VERY wide profile neck. He's got big hands and needed something in a category that's only offered by manufacturer custom shops at very high dollar amounts. The neck would fall into the category of an acoustic guitar neck profile, so you can imagine how hard it would be to special order. I sourced out the body from a great little company in New Jersey called Musikraft. They build their parts there on site. I chose a '65 Strat body design built from one piece of very light swamp ash and built the neck to fit the body. The body was finished in a very thin amber tinted finish. All of the hardware I hand picked and installed. The neck I carved from a chunk of East Indian Rosewood to the customer's specifications. The pickups are Seymour Duncan Alnico 2 Pro for the neck and middle position and the bridge pickup was a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates. It was wired up like a standard strat except the bridge pickup had a coil tap option at the middle position tone pot. With the all rosewood neck the pickups sounded warm and had just the right combination of brilliance to them for what the customer requested. It was a really fun project to do.

Current Projects

2008-02-10T07:01:00.000-09:00

Here are two necks that I'm in the process of carving. One is all rosewood and is going on a strat type body. The other is an all maple bass neck that is going on a custom designed body.

Maple neck wood in the raw

2008-02-08T17:58:00.000-09:00

Slotting the fretboard

2008-02-08T17:57:00.001-09:00

Guitar Care Presentation

2007-10-20T17:06:00.000-08:00

This weekend I had to opportunity to share a presentation on Guitar Care with fellow luthier, Julian Tubb. The venue where we gave our presentation was at a guitar players club in Red Deer, Alberta called Guitar Church which is run by my friend Tom Cameron. He had invited Julian and I to come out and speak. Julian Tubb has been building for eleven years and has a history in cabinet making among other things. He is a very well-rounded luthier, building steel string, resonator and archtop guitars all by hand. He builds very nice instruments and has a customer base that is Canadian and American. We had a fun time tag-teaming and speaking on caring for your instrument. Please take the time to visit Julian's website, which is listed on my favorite links on the right of this blog page. Also, visit the Guitar Church site. Guitar Church offers instruction in many aspects for guitar playing. Jamming sessions are a part of every event, and Tom brings in special guests from all over North America. Last time I was there I caught Doug Doppler, who was mentored by Joe Satriani earlier in his career and now holds his own quite well.
I'm hunkering down for the upcoming Christmas frenzy which comes upon all of us who work in the retail world. Have a happy American Thanksgiving!

-James

Martin Trip

2007-04-29T06:27:00.000-08:00

This week I flew back home where I grew up in Pennsylvania. The Martin Guitar Factory is only an hour and a half away, so I arranged a trip to spend the day there. I've been a Martin Warranty Service Technician for several years, and I've been to the Martin factory once before. This trip I wanted to spend the whole day with their repair staff, asking questions and picking up some tips and tricks from some of the best in the business. Most of their repair staff have been with the company for decades. I had the pleasure of working with two of them that were 35+ year veterans. They taught me a trick or two for sure! Below are some pics of my day spent at the factory this past Wednesday.

Martin Trip

2007-04-29T06:26:00.000-08:00

Martin Trip

2007-04-29T06:25:00.000-08:00

Martin Trip

2007-04-29T06:23:00.000-08:00

Martin Trip

2007-04-29T06:22:00.000-08:00

Martin Factory Trip

2007-04-29T06:19:00.000-08:00

The Original Creosote Slide

2007-03-18T19:22:00.000-08:00

Here are some pics of the original guitar built for Brother Ray. By the way, it's call the "Creosote Slide" because of the maple used on the neck from 90 year old maple telephone poles from British Columbia. At the time, they sealed the poles with creosote, leaving black streaks in the wood permanently. Since it's a slide style guitar for blues, Ray wanted it dubbed the Creosote Slide.
The pickup guts were taken from a 1950's Supro lap steel guitar and transplanted right into this guitar.

Creosote Slide

2007-03-18T18:57:00.000-08:00

I had built a guitar for Calgary blues musician, Brother Ray, who wanted a very specific guitar for blues and slide guitar playing. He had a specific design in mind that had been rattling around in his head for years and I was privileged to work together with him to design and built it. The prototype was a hit, and now I'm making some more for him. This one will have two pickups, a three way toggle switch, two volumes and a master tone. This particular one will also have a Bigsby on it. I just glued the neck on last Friday, but here it is before that was done.

A Hard Day At Work Calls For Some Hard Chemicals

2007-03-18T14:15:00.000-08:00

Van Morrison

2007-03-03T07:33:00.000-09:00

This week Van Morrison was in town and I had tickets! It is the first, (and probably last) time that he has been or will be in Calgary in his entire career. Being that he apparently hates to tour and perform live and that he's now 61, I'm guessing that I will never see him live again. The same thing happened to me when James Brown came through town two years ago. I do wish good ole' Van a long and prosperous life!
The concert was in a domed arena, so the sound is never PREMIER, but it's the fact that you are experiencing something live- and that's exciting to me. Van and his band were incredible, and they even did "Brown Eyed Girl", which I read later in the paper that he swore he would never perform again because he was so sick of it!
Van's voice is still magical. As the concert progressed, so did his voice. There were times when I heard something that he sang-something that he did with his voice, that I had never heard anyone do before. Sometimes it was a warble, other times something in the richness of his voice.
All of the musicians playing with him were amazing and they were hauling around some really nice gear! Van's organ player was indeed carting around a real B3 with huge leslie cabinet and all. None of them were trying to prove anything or were super flashy, they just enjoyed playing! I'm so used to seeing a guitar player pull out 5-6 guitars, (or even U2's The Edge having a guitar for every song) but Van's guitarist only had one guitar that I saw.
Van's pedal steel/slide guitar player was the flashiest of them all, but she wasn't really showing off, it was just her personality to have fun. She pulled off some incredibly gorgeous solo's on her pedal steel that put her up there with Daniel Langlois and Jerry Douglas. (Yes, Daniel Langlois does play the pedal steel, just not in a bluegrass or country band. Check out some of his albums if you don't belive me!)
All in all, other than wishing that I was in a club in Ireland listening to Van, it was a great experience and I will never forget it.

Jars of Clay

2007-02-27T08:06:00.000-09:00

Last week I had the opportunity to work on a guitar that belonged to a band that I've been a fan of for a long time, Jars of Clay. They happened to be passing through Alberta and needed some emergency work done on one of their Taylor guitars. Since I'm the Taylor Warranty person for Western Canada, I was the lucky one to get the call! I didn't get to meet any of the band members, but I was glad to give them a hand.

2007-01-14T09:24:00.001-09:00

Closer shot

2007-01-14T09:24:00.000-09:00

My first and only semi hollowbody electric that I made for myself. TV Jones Filtertron pickups and a Bigsby-who could ask for more?

2007-01-14T09:22:00.001-09:00

Top shot

2007-01-14T09:22:00.000-09:00

Headstock

2007-01-14T09:21:00.000-09:00

Flamed Myrtle wood back and sides

2007-01-14T09:20:00.001-09:00

A close up

2007-01-14T09:20:00.000-09:00

A close up

2007-01-14T09:19:00.000-09:00

One of my Small Jumbo's I made for a friend. This one has abalone shell inlaid around the edges of the top and myrtle wood back and sides.

2006-10-27T18:05:00.000-08:00

Today I received two very special pedals that I won in an online auction. These two pedals were used by The Violet Burning's Michael Pritzl and other band members for recording and touring. These were both autographed by Michael and shipped directly from him to me. I am so excited to have these pedals in my collection, and I will put them to good use with my own rig. The Violet Burning has been one of my favorite bands of all time since they released their first recording. I've seen them several times in concert in Chicago and other places. They inspire me in so many ways.

2006-10-27T18:01:00.000-08:00

Autographed back

2006-10-27T18:00:00.001-08:00

King of the Britains pedal- a new addition from The Violet Burning

2006-10-27T18:00:00.000-08:00

Autographed back

2006-10-27T17:59:00.000-08:00

Mango examines the goods

2006-10-01T10:52:00.000-08:00

Another shot of the shop.

2006-10-01T10:50:00.000-08:00

During the day, I work as the head of the repair department at a music store in Calgary. Our shop sees anywhere from 20 to 50 stringed instruments a week that need everything from a setup to a broken headstock repaired.

2006-10-01T10:41:00.000-08:00

Closeup of back

2006-10-01T10:40:00.000-08:00

Body closeup

2006-10-01T10:39:00.000-08:00

My luthier friend, Dave holding the guitar for a picture.

2006-10-01T10:38:00.000-08:00

Dreadnought custom in case

2006-09-23T19:32:00.000-08:00

Here's a Dreadnought that I finished this Spring. It's modeled after a Martin HD-35 but with some more special appointments. It has a slotted headstock and a lighthouse inlay on the fretboard.

Welcome!

2006-09-23T08:06:00.000-08:00

My life is full of guitars. Every day I go to work and repair them. I work in a store that sells them. On the weekends and when I find time, I build them. No, I'm certainly not complaining- I love guitars. Sometimes I go to bed thinking of a new design to try, or one that I'm already in process working on. Today I was thinking about guitars again, funny thing. I thought, "why don't I start a web blog that documents some of the guitar building projects that I'm working on?". So...here it is. You can expect to find a lot of pictures with some brief notes and that's about it. Don't worry about commenting, just enjoy the pics. That's all for now!

Cheers,

James