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SYXQORA
Underside of a braced red spruce guitar top on the go-bar deck A technical drawing of an orchestra-size soundboard lying face down on a round dish in a go-bar deck. The X-brace, tone bars, finger braces and bridge plate are glued in, and eleven slightly bowed go-bar sticks press down on them from above. A single orange pencil tick marks the crossing of the X-brace. 0 100 MM 2.8 2.6 2.5 2.4 LOWER BOUT 381 MM
Plate 01

Underside of a red spruce top for a No. 1 Harbour, braced and voiced, waiting on the go-bar deck. Syxqora, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Building and mending since 2011.

Read on

One bench in Halifax, Nova Scotia

Acoustic guitars, built slowly and mended properly.

Four to six new guitars a year. Around 380 repairs. One bench, one person, Callum.

Setups from
$85 CAD
Bench assessment
Free, about 15 min
New guitars from
$6,900 CAD
Waitlist today
About 14 months

The card index, 01-05

Common Jobs Turnaround Prices From

01 Repairs

Setups, frets, cracks and neck resets

Around 380 acoustic and classical instruments cross the bench a year. Bring yours in, or ship it from anywhere in Atlantic Canada. The first look is free, takes about fifteen minutes and ends with a written note on what it needs. No deposit on repairs unless a part over $150 has to be ordered, and no rush fees for anyone.

Common jobs

  • Steel-string and classical setups
  • Fret level, crown and polish
  • Full refrets, bound or unbound boards
  • Neck resets, dovetail or bolt-on
  • Bridge reglues and new bridges
  • Top and side cracks, glued and cleated
  • Loose braces reglued
  • Bone nuts, saddles and pickup fitting

Acoustic and classical only. Pickup fitting is as electric as the bench gets, and full refinishes are not on offer.

Turnaround

Setups, nut or saddle work
3-5 working days
Fret levels, bridge reglues
1-2 weeks
Refrets
2-3 weeks
Neck resets
4-6 weeks
Return shipping
At cost with transit cover, usually $45-$70

Nothing is promised under 48 hours and nothing jumps the queue. Shipped repairs come in from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Prices from

  • Steel-string setup$95
  • Classical setup$85
  • Fret level, crown, polish$180
  • Refret, unbound board$480
  • Refret, bound board$620
  • Neck reset$550-$750
  • Bridge reglue$160
  • New rosewood or ebony bridge$340
  • Crack, glued and cleated, from$90
  • Loose brace reglue$140-$260
  • Bone nut and saddle together$140
  • Pickup fitted, plus the part$120

All prices in Canadian dollars. Touch-up on a crack is $60 extra.

From $75 CAD, a bone saddle
The full repair price list
The Three Models Waitlist Deposit

02 Builds

Four to six new guitars a year

Steel-string guitars made to order, one player at a time, from a wood set you choose together at the rack.

The three models

  • No. 3 Chebucto, 12-fret parlour$6,900
  • No. 1 Harbour, 14-fret orchestra size$7,800
  • No. 2 Bedford, round-shoulder dreadnought$8,400

Figured back and sides or a cutaway add $600 to $1,000.

Waitlist

Current list
About 14 months
Bench time
About 11 weeks each
Leaving the bench
4-6 a year
Queue jumps
None, for anyone

Deposit

  • 30 percent when you choose your wood set
  • Returned in full if you cancel before the top is braced
  • Balance on collection
  • Hand-delivered free within 150 km of Halifax, shipped elsewhere in Canada at cost, with full-value transit cover
From $6,900 CAD
See the models
Steps 01-05 06-10 11-14

03 The method

Fourteen steps, told at the bench

Every Syxqora guitar goes through the same fourteen steps. Here they are a line each. The method page has the long versions, in the order they happen at the bench.

Steps 01 to 05

  1. Choosing the wood set with the player, tapping sets side by side at the rack.
  2. Jointing and gluing the top and back plates on the centre seam.
  3. Thicknessing the top to between 2.4 and 2.8 mm, by hand and by flex.
  4. Cutting the rosette channel and inlaying the rosette.
  5. Bending the sides on a heated form.

Steps 06 to 10

  1. Kerfing, blocks and the rim, built up in the mould.
  2. Voicing the top: X-brace layout, scalloping, tap-tuning against the hand.
  3. Closing the box, back on, then the top.
  4. Binding and purfling around every edge.
  5. Carving the neck and fitting the dovetail.

Steps 11 to 14

  1. Fretting with hand-dressed ends.
  2. Finishing in thin oil varnish, about three weeks of coats and curing.
  3. Gluing the bridge with hide glue.
  4. Setup, then a first week of playing it in before it leaves.
About 11 weeks per guitar All fourteen steps
The Shop

04 The shop

From a boat shed corner to a bench at home

I opened Syxqora in 2011 in a rented corner of a boat shed in Halifax, doing setups and crack repairs for local players by day and building my first three guitars in the evenings, with the door shut against the damp and a dehumidifier running that sounded like an outboard at idle. The corner had a bench, a window, a borrowed vice and a smell of varnish and two-stroke that took years to leave my jackets. Boats and guitars want the same things, it turns out: steady hands, the right glue, and nobody rushing the cure. When I outgrew the corner the bench moved to a workshop at home, with a room I can keep at the right humidity for tops and back sets, and the chalkboard queue came along and went up by the door. For fifteen years the board was the whole system: players chalked their names on it after another player sent them round. This site joined it in 2026, and the board still hangs by the door.

It's a home workshop, so the address isn't listed anywhere. It comes with your booking.

Callum

Since 2011 One bench, one person
Hours and Closures

05 Hours

Open four and a half days, by booking

Tuesday to Friday
10:00-17:30
Saturday
10:00-14:00
Sunday and Monday
Closed
Summer
Closed 4-24 August
Winter
Closed 24 December to 2 January

Drop-offs and collections are booked ahead so the bench is clear when you arrive. Write to hello@syxqora.com and Callum answers within two working days.

The shop shuts from 4 to 24 August. It's the most humid stretch of the year here, I don't glue tops in it, and I'd rather be on the water. Anything dropped off in July will be ready before I go or waiting when I'm back.

Callum

Drop-offs by booking How to book a drop-off

A typical week at the bench

On the bench, and in the rack

A typical week on the chalkboard. Jobs are listed by instrument and work only, never by owner, and the rack is counted in sets, because a new guitar starts with one of them.

On the Bench Six Jobs

The ledger

A normal week on the bench

  1. 01 Orchestra-size steel string, 1970s Neck reset, dovetail Week 3 of 5
  2. 02 Classical, 1960s New bone nut and saddle Collecting Friday
  3. 03 Round-shoulder dreadnought, around 1985 Full refret, bound fingerboard Week 2 of 3
  4. 04 12-fret parlour, 1930s Two top cracks, glued and cleated Day 4 of 5
  5. 05 Jumbo steel string, 2000s Bridge reglue Clamped, week 1 of 2
  6. 06 Small-body steel string, 1990s Setup and undersaddle pickup Waiting on the part

Listed by type only. Owners stay off the board, the same as they always did on the chalkboard.

What each job costs
Woods in the Rack

Current stock

Sets left in the rack

  • Red spruce tops Nova Scotia, split and quartersawn 7
  • Sitka spruce tops Pacific coast, quartersawn 4
  • Yellow birch back and sides Small mill north of Truro 6
  • Walnut back and sides Salvaged, source on record 3
  • Ebony fingerboard blanks Traceable stock, long seasoned 9

Nothing comes into the rack without a clear, traceable source, however good the figure looks.

Why yellow birch