Tag Archives: Haggstrom¸ Roger

Roger Haggstrom

Roger Häggström originally used a guitar as a songwriting tool. Then he played a good guitar, and was hooked. He was a computer programmer for many years, but then bought 150 old, wrecked, parlor guitars and started restoring them and inventing ways to improve their sound. That’s his day job now, but the music is still with him. He and his pals have made a couple of CDs of his songs under the name of Roger & the Rockets. He is allergic to all furry animals, and was the editor for ten years of Ciklidbladet, a Swedish magazine about cichlids, the coolest of the aquarium fishes.

▪ bio current as of 2022

Letter to the Editor: Non-Sequential Fretting

2023
AL#148 p.9               
Roger Haggstrom                                                                                           

▪ Haggstrom was intrigued by Harry Fleishman’s assertion that necks will stay straighter if frets are not installed in an obvious, sequential order from one end to the other. Roger tried it out, and reports that it works.

Vibrate Guitars with an Aquarium Air Pump

2022
AL#147 p.60               
Roger Haggstrom                                                                                           

▪ They say you can improve the sound of a new guitar by attaching a machine that will provide direct vibration to the instrument for a few days, simulating the breaking-in that might occur from months of playing. Not surprisingly, “they” will also sell you such a machine. But what else might work? Ask a luthier who also publishes a magazine for exotic fish fanciers, and he might suggest belting an aquarium air pump to the face of the guitar.

Hand-Powered Radius Sanding Jig

2022
AL#145 p.38               
Roger Haggstrom                                                                                           

▪ Haggstromm uses a commercially-available radiused sanding block, a few scraps of wood, and a handful of parts from the hardware store to make this simple jig. It that lets him quickly and quietly produce a fretboard with the radius and the relief accurately sanded in.

“Restomodding” Wall-Hanger Guitars

2021
AL#144 p.6               
Roger Haggstrom                                                                                           

▪ A hundred and some years ago, Swedish folks sat around the house all of a dark winter and sang hymns together, accompanied by the strummings of cheap mass-produced guitars. Those days are gone, but a lot of the guitars are still hanging on the walls of old houses. Roger Häggström has made a business of restoring them to useful condition and modifying them to sound and play better than they ever could have. He restores and modifies. Restomods. Mentions the Levin guitar company.