Claudio Sanchez is a dangerous man with a guitar. At last year’s Reading Festival he smashed his E2 Explorer and they shipped it to me to repair. This is the third time I have fixed the headstock, I know Gibson repaired it once and I believe it had been repaired another time prior to me ever working with Claudio. There is a clip of the smashing on youtube somewhere.

This time it took a pretty bad beating; the locking jack was destroyed, both strap buttons were smashed deep into the guitar, all three pots were pushed through the guitar top and the frets got dinged up and gouged.

There was a lot of cleanup to do on the headstock and the neck to get it ready for clamping. I also used a heat lamp after I got everything clamped up to help the epoxy set and cure. I left the guitar clamped and under the lamp all night. I did the other repairs prior to stringing it. I finally strung it up to pitch, adjusted the neck and dressed the frets, touched up the finish on the back of the headstock and went to the beach.