Guitar Repairs

It was rather evident during my sessions with Andrew that my old EKO E20 had seen better days. The lower frets have been worn for some time and it was becoming increasingly difficult to hold down any kind of chord without buzzing or ripping my fingers apart. I’d got to the point of putting it aside and even considered replacing it, despite it still being my favourite acoustic guitar for it’s warm, almost bass-y sound.

I’d been asking musician friends about any luthiers they might know. The good ones all seemed too far away. Andrew finally put me in touch with Ben ‘Beej’ Shand, a guy that he uses for all of his guitars, and, though I made a few attempts to call him (he tours as a guitar tech with a few well-known bands), he has a workshop quite close to the centre of Leeds.

Anyway, when I rang and told him I had an EKO, he said: “Don’t tell me, I’ll tell you what the problems are…” anyway, he rattled off the symptoms, and was right on the nose with most of it. Anyway, he offered to re-fret the guitar, re-set the action and clean up the machine heads. Turn around time – a week. Actually, as I was on holiday for two weeks after that, he had three weeks to do this.

Now I have it back it is, once again, a pleasure to play, and my guitar of preference. Great job, Beej!  

Ben’s website is here: http://www.beejguitars.co.uk

I’ll be in touch soon, as I’ve got one or two guitars that could use a little improvement…