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

15/01/2026

These Squier J Mascis signatures are real gems when they’ve had some work done!

The factory setup and fretwork leaves a bit to be desired, but you’d still get the same problems on an Indonesian and even Mexican Fender. They also have a tunomatic bridge that is 12” despite the fretboard being a 9.5”, which takes a bit of work!

This one had a Fret Dress with some added fallaway and a good setup. Now this genuinely plays as good as any American Fender, for a fraction of the cost.

They just need a bit of elbow grease 💪🏻.

12/01/2026

Early 2000’s Squier Bullet Strat that came in for a Deluxe Setup.

Despite a bit of fret wear, this is probably the best Bullet Strat we’ve had in ever. Very playable and immeasurably higher quality than the modern lowest tier Squiers.

07/01/2026

What a Stunner 😍

An absolutely gorgeous, brand new Gibson Custom Shop Gold Top Les Paul.

This one was adjusted by the retailer quite poorly before being sent out so we needed to give it a good setup, but now this thing plays beautifully.

These come loaded with Gibson’s Custombuckers which are amazing PAF style pickups. Great hardware and a flawless attention to detail.

From top to bottom a fantastic guitar.

05/01/2026

A slightly modified Gibson Les Paul Tribute. Fitted with a Vibramate mounted Bigsby and Leviathan in the bridge. We installed the New Bridge pickup and gave it a Deluxe Setup.

These guitars are some of our most underrated and under appreciated gems. They’re very no frills but have the super comfortable Slim Taper 60’s style neck which are our personal favourite neck carve.

Very affordable and fantastic bang for your buck!

01/01/2026

First one of the year was one of the last from last year.

This Epiphone Casino had some extensive fret wear and could have ideally done with a refret. It was outside the budget, however we did some fret reseating, fret levelling, sorted out the intermittent pickup, gave all of the electronics a clean and gave it its first proper setup!

These are really underrated guitars!

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!

Address

Newport

Telephone

+447538112270

Website

http://www.cjsguitars.com/

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