Nikki's Guitar Shop

Nikki's Guitar Shop Guitar & Stringed Instrument Repairs + Restorations in Downtown Mesa Arizona.

New nut, new frets, and new saddle for this gorgeous Olson SJ guitar that just rolled through the shop.
09/10/2026

New nut, new frets, and new saddle for this gorgeous Olson SJ guitar that just rolled through the shop.

09/10/2026

Fret Removal…

Recent refret on this beautiful Olson guitar last week!

For a clean removal I heat the fret along its entirety before carefully walking my feet pullers underneath to work it loose and avoid chipping the fretboard.
I’ve seen others use a bit of water to steam frets out for a clean removal, I personally don’t like to do it that way because I don’t want to wood to swell with humidity before I install the new frets. I prefer to let the natural oils that accumulate underneath the fret to boil them out!

And yeah, sometimes I like to listen to elevator music while I’m working. Makes for a calming fret job.

Details matter- to those who still care about that sort of thing.Walters & Upshaw RV-50, our Roberto Venn 50th Anniversa...
08/04/2026

Details matter- to those who still care about that sort of thing.

Walters & Upshaw RV-50, our Roberto Venn 50th Anniversary guitar is now available for purchase on my website, NikkisGuitarShop.com. (Custom case is on order.)

Shoutout and a very big thank you to Steven Davis Jr for these phenomenal shots!

Roberto-Venn School Josiah Upshaw Nikki & Josiah

07/31/2026

Regluing the wing 🪽

Just left the shop, a gorgeous example of a 1964 Gibson ES-345 TDC stereo. Unplayed since 1970, this guitar really didn’...
07/15/2026

Just left the shop, a gorgeous example of a 1964 Gibson ES-345 TDC stereo. Unplayed since 1970, this guitar really didn’t need all that much work from us, receiving just a setup, strings, and removing all the electronics for a good cleaning, and replacing wires as needed to the output jack and neck volume pot. Although these guitars are commonly converted to mono, that wasn’t requested by the customer and we also prefer to keep originality here in the shop, so we made a custom trs summing cable for mono amp play use.

I don’t understand why the Varitone isn’t a more popular switching option on guitars, the range of sounds coming out of this guitar just ruins all other modern Gibsons for me.

You know it’s a good week when you get to install & play test not just one, but THREE sets of Custom Shop Josefina Campo...
07/08/2026

You know it’s a good week when you get to install & play test not just one, but THREE sets of Custom Shop Josefina Campos pickups! I swear my clients bring me the coolest stuff to work on.

Tomatillo Telecaster set, Fat 60’s Strat and Troposphere Strat set. My favorite one of the bunch is the Tomatillo tele neck pickup. I’m not great with tone descriptives, but just take everything you love about a good tele neck pickup and multiply that by ten- that’s this pickup. May have to ‘pick up’ me one! (pun intended.)

Bridge pull day for this HD-28. Can ask for much better than that!
06/27/2026

Bridge pull day for this HD-28. Can ask for much better than that!

Custom inlay for on this lovely Gretsch Chet Atkins reissue. I’ve done a fair amount of inlay work til now but this was...
05/06/2026

Custom inlay for on this lovely Gretsch Chet Atkins reissue.

I’ve done a fair amount of inlay work til now but this was my first project with a piece of pearl crossing under a fret. Was a fun learning experience, and I feel like I’ve leveled up my inlay skills 10x!

This is going to look so great onstage, I’m stoked for y’all!

Fixing pointy things, before and after.This one had a good amount of wood compression from getting bashed in, but opted ...
04/17/2026

Fixing pointy things, before and after.

This one had a good amount of wood compression from getting bashed in, but opted for a seal, shape and buff instead of resanding and respraying the points. Besides the finish looking a little thicker now (probably not a bad thing for this area) I think it turned out pretty well. The guitar also received a fret dressing, new nut and setup for c tuning - and the lower tuning with these pickups make for a killer combo!

Came to my attention that the neck from my last post probably isn’t a 61’. Whomp whomp. Guess I should stick with what I...
04/10/2026

Came to my attention that the neck from my last post probably isn’t a 61’. Whomp whomp. Guess I should stick with what I know (Martins)
Anyways, I have no idea what the body is but this hidden inscription is pretty cool.

Address

Mesa, AZ

Telephone

+14804956805

Website

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