When I put Reloved Guitars on Google Business, the closest category of business that Google allowed me was "Guitar Store". Over the last couple of years I've been getting more local business as people in Devon and Cornwall search for guitar shops near to them. This can be interesting - for example when people call wanting to buy picks... or strings or to browse the guitars I have in stock. I have to explain that, contrary to Google's description, I'm not a regular guitar store. But just as there are customers looking for 'guitar store' things that I don't do, there are also people looking for things I DO do - even if they don't know it at that moment. This week I answered the door to Oliver and Lydia who brought three guitars with them. At first they were surprised to find I wasn't a guitar 'shop' exactly but when I invited them it, it turned out that all 3 guitars were in need of fixing. All 3 - for example - had at least got loose and broken jack sockets and a load of other issues besides. After a bit of discussion (where I explained the service I offer) they decided to leave the most wrecked-looking guitar with me for the full works. So in this video I introduce you to Oliver's Ibanez Gio. A budget guitar that's been used and abused over the years until it's in a filthy and unplayable condition. Those who know me know that this is my favourite kind of guitar - because the transformation is SO profound and, well, because I love fighting for the underdog.
This video shows most of what I had to do to ascertain what was wrong with this guitar and put it right, not so that it just worked but so that it became a superb guitar regardless of its 'budget' beginnings.
My take is this: if you've got a £150 budget guitar that's in a state like this you have limited choices. You either throw it away; you go to your local tech and give them £50 to clean it up, change strings and put oil on the fingerboard or you bring it to someone like me who will charge you £135 - but with the promise of a totally superb playing action and tuning stability at the end of it.

For those who think that £135 is a lot of money for 'setting up' a guitar, here's what I did:

• Remove original nut, shape and fit new custom Tusq nut
• Dismantle and clean bridge, remove tuners and clean headstock
• Deep clean body, neck and fingerboard
• Remove and clean pickups and pickup rings
• Replace jack socket and fix splitting earth wire in electrics cavity
• Spray contact cleaner into switch (intermittent contact problem)
• Set 1st and last fret action, set neck relief
• Perform precision fret level
• Find and fit (free) spare tremolo arm
• Re-crown frets, sand and polish out
• Glue & clamp separating fretboard (+ scrape and sand smooth)
• Oil fingerboard
• Fit new D'Addario strings
• Stretch out and intonate strings

Some of these things are not shown on the video (such as the electrical work and the sanding of the frets after re-crowning) but most of it is. Even if you bought a new, tidier Ibanez Gio you would still need all of the main set up work (nut, action setting, precision fret levelling) to make it play anywhere close to this one; and the point is that even NEW this guitar required the same work to bring it up to its best possible level of playability.

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