FAQ

“Setups” are basically routine maintenance, such as you would carry out on your car.
Because instruments are usually made of wood, this can be effected by temperature change, environmental factors like humidity and storage conditions ( hot/cold rooms, car boots etc ) and just general wear and tear from you playing your instrument.   So it is advised that you have your instrument regularly checked and setup to ensure it always plays it’s very best, at the very least you should factor in an annual setup for your instrument as a minimum.

RJK offer comprehensive service setups which will keep your instrument in top condition.

Often we modify acoustic guitars to reduce the “action height” ( the distance between the strings and the fingerboard ) to improve the guitar.  This common adjustment makes your guitar much easier to play, which makes it more enjoyable for you. Many guitars come from the factory with out be specifically “set-up” to play their best. In production they are given a very generic setup, but often it is not satisfactory and doesn’t give the best playing experience.   By making various adjustments we will improve the playability of your instrument.

Fret buzz if a common issue and we can cary out adjustments to rectify this, including fret-levelling which ensures that your frets are all set to the correct height thu scoring fret buzz and giving better playability overall.

We can also perform a setup on your guitar to ensure it plays properly. This should be considered a regular maintence requirement, just as you would carry out on your car

Intonation, this one strikes fear in the hearts of many!

Basically intonation controls the string lengths from nut to bridge on your guitar and is adjusted for each string to ensure that the instrument is in tune with it’s self when various different chords or notes are played. With correct intonation every chord sounds in tune. With poor intonation, different chord may sound out of tune and discordant.

Strictly your you check and set your instruments intonation each time you change strings, as there can be variation within even the same string brand and string weight, however as manufacturing tolerances become more accurate, it may not be necessary every time. You should have your intonation checked regularly and we carry this out as part of our standard setup, but can also make these adjustment any time on request.   Often we are asked to rectify faulty intonation where the customer has attempted the adjustment and been unsuccessful with it. Lets help, it’s what we do.

Yes we can in most cases repair a neck break. Sadly this sort of damage is very common on Gibson / Epiphone style guitars and guitars where the headstock leans backwards from the neck.  It is very uncommon with Fender style guitars, like Stratocaster / telecaster to have this issue, but sometimes it happens. Our technicians need to inspect your guitar to determine the likely success of a neck break repair, so you will need to bring the neck to us for assessment. Some are sadly not viable to repair but we can advise either way. Costs vary depending on the work required to save the guitar.

As you can see from our site we offer a custom build service for most types of pickup.  We can completely create your unique pickup to your specifications, you can choose everything from the bobbin and pole colours to the specific winding you require.

On occasion you may find that your existing pickup has failed. Usually this is because of a break in the windings( very fine wire inside the pickup )  There are various causes behind this type of failure, but the result is that the pickup requires to be repaired.  When you bring you instrument to the workshop our technicians can test the pickups and establish the cause of the failure and then repair the pickup so that it works again.  Costs for this service vary depending upon the actual work required to repair your pickup.

Would you like your own Signature Guitar model, made to your exact specifications, where you can choose everything from colour, neck , pickups, electrics, hardware everything to make the guitar unique to you, even down to your signature as a decal on the headstock ?    Yes of course you would!

The RJK Dream factory can create your signature model, to be as unique as you are.  Just dream it and we will create it.

As we have all the equipment required to build Custom Electric Guitars and Bass instruments from scratch, and we do exactly that with our fantastic RJK Range of Instruments, we are ideally placed to help you create the instrument of your dreams by upgrading or modifying your existing instrument. A simple change from one type of tone capacitor to another can make a difference to your tone. Rewired / Replaced Switches and pots can give your tone a life. Replacing the pickups with our Custom Hand wound  pickups, can improve clarity and tonal characteristics dramatically.  We can work on the neck and frets of your guitar to give you a better playing feel…..   The list is virtually as endless as your imagination.

We successfully carry our many repairs to many different amplifiers.
We have great success with valve and analog transistor amplifiers and have the necessary equipment, in house, to test valves and diagnose faults in these sorts of amplifiers.  When valve amplifiers require new valves these generally require to have a re-bias adjustment made to the amplifier to ensure long valve life and to avoid damage to the amplifier.  We carry out these services.  If you play in public your amplifier should be PAT tested and certified, a service which we also offer.

Sadly some small and many digital amplifiers are simply uneconomic to repair and in some cases are designed and built in such as way that they are not repairable. In the event of a fault the manufacturers simply expect you to buy a new one.  Our technicians can advise based on years of experience, on the viability of a potential repair and if there is no viable repair possible, on these sort of amplifiers, will not charge and can assist with proper disposal of the product.

We can repair many different types of effects pedals and can carry out modifications as well.

Some pedals are sadly not repairable or modifiable at all,  but our technicians can advise once they see what pedal you  have and what repair or modification might be required for it.  We have many successes with rescuing broken pedals, so best check before you write off a broken pedal.

Yes we carry out PAT testing on demand and will insist that, if your amplifier does not have a current PAT test when brought in for repair, we will carry out a PAT test. This is for the safety of our technicians and customers alike. Also if you play in public, many venues insist that all your equipment is regularly PAT tested before being used in their venue.