Drop Top Mods..

As well as normal production I tend to have a regular run of guitars through the workshop that need mods or attention, this is one of the more interesting ones.

This ebony Drop Top was recently sold to a new customer who wanted the toggle moving to the volume pot location and the volume control relocating to the tone location..  as well as a new set of pickups..

well, the old toggle location would need plugging, the best thing to plug it with would of course be a piece of the ebony used in the drop top itself, luckily, I still have an offcut so I cut an oversize plug and test it against the grain... pretty close!

I decide to mount it to an oversize aluminium disc from the cavity side, so I lathe up a suitable piece and mount the ebony plug ready for sizing

once its nicely bonded on, I spin it up to size and test fit from the rear

looks ok from the front so I resize the aluminium clean it up and fit, secured in place from the cavity with hotglue.. this means it can be removed at any time and the guitar made back to original spec

once ive sanded it flush at the front, I rewax the top and fit the pickups before getting the wiring done and the strings on.

pretty satisfying job..

J.