Nikki's Guitar Shop

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 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 know (Martins)
Anyways, I have no idea what the body is but this hidden inscription is pretty cool.

Creative clamping measures and a top crack repair for everyone’s favorite guitar brand on the bench today!

Before and after crack repair on this gorgeous 120th Anniversary Gibson SJ-200.

I don’t think the before picture really captures exactly how nasty this crack looked when it came in. 9” long crack. I’m quite pleased with the result!

Before and after of a recent headstock dingy repair on an otherwise pristine Music Mann John Petrucci guitar.

Perfect? Nah.
Improved? You bet!

I always look back on my work and think of how it could have been better, different ways I could have done the repair and achieved a more ‘perfect’ result. That way of thinking is helpful to improving skills, but can cloud judgment as to what degree of ‘successful’ the resulting repair was. Sometimes we are our own biggest critics- I know I routinely pick apart my work like a vulture picking meat off a bone.

But the owner of this guitar was absolutely stoked about the results, and that’s the biggest win right there.

NAMM 2026 has been my favorite NAMM show yet! Met some real amazing people and had a great time hanging out with old friends and making new ones. Gonna do my best to tag everyone- here’s a few snaps of the highlights!





















school.of.luthiery

We have shirts! 🥳🥳

This adorable t shirt design is called the “Tabby Troubadour” and is the creation of our super talented friend Andrew
I asked Andrew to create a design for us including an acoustic guitar and an orange cat, and I believe he has truly captured the essence of our shop in his design. It’s puurfect!

Available now through our website, NikkisGuitarShop.com

I’ll be wearing one of these bad boys walking around the NAMM show next week- if you’re going to be at the show, holla at your girl! 😉

Starting to look like a shop! We’ve been busy with projects over the holidays til now getting unpacked and the space further along. Joe has been building benches and I’ve been organizing.
The ‘wood shop’ side now has shelves up, benches all along the wall and a couple new table tops.
Repurposed our headboard that doesn’t work in the new house into a massive community bench! This was originally made with up-cycled pallet wood. Eventually, we will rip this lengthwise down the middle and it will become the front counter for the repair shop.
Lastly, I created an amp wall! And Joe hung a TV so we can watch hockey when we’re taking breaks from all this hard working.

Fretwear so impressive you’d almost hate to see it go. Fret dressing & setup for this Les Paul tribute today, during and after shots.