CJS Guitars

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CJS Guitars

Professional Guitar maintenance and repair based in Abercarn, South Wales. www.cjsguitars.com Professional Guitar Repair and Set-up based in South Wales

31/12/2025

And that’s a wrap on 2025. Our 8th year of operation and our 2nd year as a full time entity.

This year we’ve had the privilege to work on over 250 guitars and basses, met a bunch of new people, and worked a lot of long hours.

Not to be like one of those local bands that say that they have “Big things coming soon!”, but we’ve got some really exciting things happening behind the scenes.

2026 will see us introduce something that we’re really excited about. And we hope you will be too!

As always it’s been an absolute pleasure, and we can’t wait to see you all next year. Until then we’ll be in our workshop, probably working on a guitar!

Chris 🖤

24/12/2025

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas from us at CJS Guitars! Enjoy the festive season and we look forward to seeing you all again soon.

We’re closing for a mini break but will be back in action on Saturday. With the new year approaching quickly, our diary is filling up fast, but we still have availability - so make sure you get in touch to reserve your spot!

23/12/2025

A Telecaster with a Jazzmaster neck?

So this confused us a little. Due to the fact that the owner had it given to him new. But it turns out this is a Squier Vintage Modified Special Telecaster that was made in Indonesia.

It’s basically just a Telecaster with a Jazzmaster neck and neck pickup. This came in for a Level, Crown and Polish. After Christmas we’re also going to be rewinding the bridge pickup also so stay tuned!

15/12/2025

This Washburn Acoustic needed a lot of help getting playable, but we think it turned out really great.

Firstly we reseated and glued all of the frets, gave it a full fret dress. At that point we thought we were done. However on the final setup, we clocked the bridge was lifting. For safety reasons we tried to reseat it twice, already in place but with no success.

With guitars of this price, they usually don’t leave a precise footprint of the bridge unlacquered on the top. And wood glue doesn’t adhere to finish very well, meaning over time the two separate.

In order to fix this we removed the bridge with heat, removed the excess finish from the top, clean the excess glue from both the top and bridge, test fit the bridge, then reglue it back into place with plenty of clamping pressure.

It’s a lot of work, but now this guitar has a much better contact between the strings and the body. Allowing for superior resonance. Now it plays and sounds 10 times than when it came in!

13/12/2025

This Taylor GS Mini had a bit of a reset.

The action was over 3mm on the bass side and 2.75mm on the treble, but after some TLC (fret reseat, fret dress, restring, and setup), it's now playing smoothly and feeling great. Just in time for some Christmas gigs!

09/12/2025

5 Tips for Christmas gifts from a Guitar Tech.

05/12/2025

This is a Fazley Telecaster. If you don’t know, Fazley is to Bax Music what Harley Benton is to Thomann.

Now, for a sub £300 this thing plays fantastic after spot levelling some of the higher frets, polishing all of the frets up to a shine and giving it a proper setup.

The cheaper guitars can be such sleepers with a little bit of work!

01/12/2025

EVH Frankstrat. A guitar that's got some serious attitude.

Spot levels and a light overall fret level ✅
Restrung with 9-42 D’Addarios ✅
Fully Setup in E standard ✅

28/11/2025

An absolutely gorgeous Made in Japan Ibanez Prestige S6570SK that we gave a refret in Stainless Steel.

This one looked the business but it came in with some dents in the frets from an accident that it had, along with a pretty wavey and inconsistent fret board.

So the best option was to future proof it by levelling and re-radiating the board, then adding in some new frets.

After a lot of work, this one is screaming!

22/11/2025

Yamaha SG2100s from the 80’s.

Came in with pretty high action and needed a bit of love. We did some fret reseating, a fret dress, restring and a setup.

Plays fantastically but that non-chambered mahogany is no joke!

16/11/2025

Popped Frets and what to do about them.

05/11/2025

Ashton Acoustic that came in with unplayably high action. This one had sat unplayed for years.

We pulled the frets, levelled and re-radiused the fretboard, installed new Medium/Highest fretwire from StewMac. The neck on this one wasn’t made the best in the factory, so it was tricky getting everything settled right. They hadn’t installed the fret dots evenly!

Then we reshaped the bridge, handmade a new nut out of bone, restrung it and set it up. Now this one plays fantastically.

It also needs a new preamp and Piezo, but that’s a job for another day!

Address

Newport

Telephone

+447538112270

Website

http://www.cjsguitars.com/

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