When visiting Matheas Guitars all work is carried out personally in my fully equipped instrument workshop. The workshop is completely customised and fitted with specialised tools. Some unique features of the workshop are ;

Fretting Work Area

At the fretting work area I have:

• Refret and Fret Milling with tension simulating for high tolerance fingerboard and fret surfacing producing accurate fret playability.
• Fret Press fretting to fenders factory specifications
• Fret slotting facility. Some Standard Scales such as 25", 25.5", 24.625", 30", 34" are offered although every scale can be reproduced.
• Custom made fixtures for reproducing different fingerboard size, scale lengths and fingerboard radii.
• Precision ground diamond levelling and crowning files used for fret milling and recrowning frets
• Special compounds and polishes have been chosen to give your frets a flawless surface for string bends

Climate Controlled Booth

A climate controlled booth for assembly of acoustic soundplates, bridges and soundboxes. When building guitars the careful controlling of the climate improves performance and tone of vibrating soundplates. In addition the stability of the guitar is improved, as the parts are able to better withstand any extreme change in humidity and or temperature.

• Custom Made jigs for removing, gluing and repairing bridges.
• Acoustic sound plate fixtures for reproducing stable tops and backplates
• Side moulds
• Heat pipes for bending custom shapes and binding
• Side bending machine for bending binding, purfling and sides
• Lathe for fabricating end pins and friction tuners

Accurate Pitch Measurement

The latest technology in real time digital strobe tuners that is accurate to 1/100 th of a semitone.

Pickup Repair and Re-winding

• Authentic wax saturating of pickups to remove unwanted squealing and microphonic sounds.
• Pickup re-winding

Spray Booth

A spray booth specialising in vintage nitro cellulose finishes and retouching to restore minor damage, modern poly finishes are available as well.

Polishing Machines and Techniques
We use the same polishing machines and compounds as the major manufacturers to reproduce the same shine as when the instruments left the factory.

We keep vintage reproduction parts in case replacement is required.

If you have a faulty or missing part we can help out. We keep machine heads, bridges and saddles, volume pots switches and output jacks and so on.

You can even try before you buy pickups prior making your choice. We have a dedicated Les Paul with removable pickup modules and a Stratocaster style guitar with interchangeable pickguards.

Custom Guitar Parts Made

Our workshop allows us to reproduce parts that are missing or damaged that are no longer available or almost impossible to obtain.

We have selected 40-year-old rosewood and ebony blanks for replicating acoustic bridges to maintain the authentic appearance of the grain. This is kept bone dry for stability.

All components are produced in the workshop. I have produced many templates over the years that allow easy and accurate reproduction of many parts.

If you have a guitar neck, bridge or any other component, even if it is damaged, we will be able to reproduce it.

Pickguard Fabricating Facility

We have a pickguard fabricating facility and have reproduced many different styles of pickguards using authentic plastics of missing or broken pickguards. In addition we produce custom ebony pickguards for archtop guitars and custom figured maple pickguards for Stratocaster style guitars.