Bill Roberts Musical Instrument and Electronic Repair

07/14/2025

Just finishing up carving a new bridge from a chunk of rosewood for a 1946 Gibson SJ. Thanks to a fellow luthier I was supplied this beautiful piece of Brazilian Rosewood to match what was original to the guitar.
I think I copied it pretty faithfully.
The saddle slot will be done at a later time once the guitar is back together.

05/18/2025

Headstock repair on an extremely checked lacquered finished 1969 Gibson BlueRidge acoustic.
The irregular break offered one challenge and the heavily checked finish another. The only good thing was most of the break was lateral along the grain so splines were unnecessary.

03/04/2025

Here’s a 1995 Takamine that I did awhile back that needed a refret and bridge plate repair.

10/20/2024

A couple of vintage beauties. Every wear mark and patina naturally made from decades of playing. Fender Precision, on the left 1972 and 1968 on the right. The ‘72 has undergone a refret but other than that all original. The ‘68 is 100% all original.

08/20/2024

Just finished up this 1957 Les Paul Custom “Black Beauty” reissue.

06/25/2024

Been working on restoring this 1946 Gibson Southern Jumbo.
Neck reset
Refret
New bridge
Hydration & crack repair

Neck came off with a struggle but ultimately succumbed pretty cleanly.
Notably no registration numbers on the dovetail like usually found on Martins. Hit the pocket almost dead on with the heat sticks.
Also interesting is the anchor point of the truss rod at the end of the dovetail.

05/08/2024

66/67 Yamaha SB-2 Bass. One pickup dead needed rewinding. Was a bit of a chore as I don’t think Yamaha thought about repairability but ultimately came out very close to the other one at 10.4k. Patched one PU cover with tinted friendly plastic. Refreshed shielding paint. Someone had previously done some creative rewiring of controls. Luckily found an old service manual with schematics online. Volume, Tone, Balancer(also labeled tone) and returned to original operation. Some fret dressing,setup and cleaning corroded hardware.
Now looks and plays like it should.
Pretty cool Bass from nearly 60 years ago.

03/27/2024

03/27/2024

This 1977 Martin D-18 had a neck reset a number of years ago, for what ever reason it needed to be done again. Plays and sounds great.
Neck reset, fret dressing and new bone compensated saddle.
Also customer wanted a pickup installed so went with LR Baggs Anthem system.

02/13/2024

This is a Supro 2695T came in with a problem that after amp warms up it develops a low level white noise. I was able to establish that it was coming from the tone circuit with the most likely cause being the 150pf mica capacitor. I opted to change all related caps (3) as parts are cheap labour not so much just to insure that the issue would be resolved. I will say the build quality on these amps are very good compared to some other premium brands.

11/10/2023

Did a preservation repair ‘73-‘75 Gibson Les Paul Custom. The goal here was to repair damage done by moisture getting into the case and improve the look of a previous headstock repair as well as deep dings and wear to the back of the neck. Not to refinish the guitar in any way. To that end I am happy with the result.

10/30/2023

Refurbished this 1960’s Shin-ei UniVibe. Had leaking and bulged capacitors. Recapped and upgraded to 3 prong plug.

Edit: So I found this info today:

The "SM-NO" stamp on the bottom of these pedals refers to the date. For example: the stamp "SM NO 49.2" is the 2nd month of the 49th year of the Shōwa era. The Shōwa year count in Japan started in 1926 (year 1), so year 49 is 1974.

So the pedal is not from 1960’s but this particular unit is from 1974.