He will design, build, repair, upgrade or customise absolutely anything you can conceive.

He achieves a level of professionalism incomparable to most, his solid work ethic and passion for what he does constantly pushing him harder. Always evolving as a Luthier, seeking better quality products & giving his customers the best deals possible, clearly comes naturally to this man.

Louis Nizer once wrote;

“A man who works with his hands is a labourer;

a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman;

but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist”.

To me, that’s the epitome of Kenny’s commitment to his craft and his own craftsmanship. I’ve dealt with three Luithers over the last decade. I will never go back to the other two now that I’ve found Kenny Duncan.

He is precise to a standard unlike no other in his industry and his meticulousness is entirely apparent as you watch him work.

Thank you Kenny! For me, he has glued an acoustic back together – as new, beautifully restored a Dean Superstrat including neck levelling, new frets, nut & wiring – better than new, set up guitars with various bridges to tune to B – perfect intonation, plus various other tasks with utter flawlessness.

My Telecaster never really felt right from day one, the action just felt stiff and awkward to play. I completed my own setup and changed the saddles out for some nice compensated brass ones. This improved it quite a bit but it was obvious that it required some love and attention to get it to play right. 

I took her into see Kenny and he immediately felt the guitar was lacking the same way I did. We discussed a few options and I ended up going for a deluxe setup, Babicz full contact bridge and a replacement bone nut. I decided to add a Seymour Duncan Little '59 in the bridge position with a coil tap on the tone pot.

Kenny's attention to detail and the quality of his work is amazing, my Tele plays like a dream now and the SD Little '59 really kicks some a$$. I would thoroughly recommend Kenny to anyone who needs a luthier that takes the time to listen to what you want and delivers the goods.

I've gone to quite a few people about getting my guitars set up, and none of them compare to Kenny.

I recently got my fender strat done up, and I feel like I've finally got the sound I've been looking for. The action is perfect, as is the intonation and anything else Kenny puts his skills to.

Kenny can recommend what to get done, and unlike many other people in his position, he recommends things for your benefit, and not the benefit of his own wallet. I would never have thought about getting half the stuff he's recommended done to my guitars, but everything I've trusted him on has made huge differences to my guitars, and I haven't regretted a thing.

He's earned himself another lifetime customer by just being generally awesome, and is surely gonna earn many more if he keeps what he's doing up to the standard that he's achieved on my guitars.

Thank you Kenny, my guitars have never been this amazing.

The Les Paul is freakin awesome. I had a gig Thursday night and picked it up for a look see when I got home around 11:00. I didn't get to bed until 4:00am. The best refret and setup I've had in 35 years of playing.

Thanks so much to those of you who take the time to post a review. I really appreciate it your words inspire me.
Click here to write your own review.

To much Kenny: Thank you so much for the work you have put into the repairs on both my guitars. 

my main guitar has had straightened neck, resurface, re-fret, re-set decal, electrics cleaned, Its been re polished as well, its better now than when I brought it new 09-10-89 HM Strat. 

My second guitar also a HM Strat has been set up how I wanted it done. I'm Very Happy with the end result of both guitars. Thanks Kenny Great Work.

KDG Note: Kahl's Number 1 had a heavily twisted neck, it's was leveled straight & Re-freted with 103 medium jumbo's , neck had the new KDG maple finish applied. Kahl's 2nd HM Strat had a KDG deluxe setup. Both guitars arrived recently serviced and set-up elsewhere, the action was a shocking 5 - 6 (64th's of an inch, Treble / Bass)  Kahl's final action for both guitars was 3 - 4. Thanks for the review, Kahl enjoy mate. 

Due to a new obsession I have with these particular guitars, I bought myself a nice old Yamaha FG Solid top acoustic 2^nd hand, judging by its serial number it will be 11 years old in December, judging by the sound hole smelling like an ashtray (pulled out three ciggy butts from it) and the strings/fretboard being covered in a tar like substance, I could tell this guitar was also a victim of its previous owner’s smoking habits..And though it was a touch worse for wear, it was clear it had been loved and played for a long time, but needed some serious R&R and servicing as in this department it felt pretty damn neglected.

Who better to go than Kenny Duncan? He’s worked wonders on a 2^nd hand semi-hollow electric of mine and since then I have vowed never to go anywhere else, and once again Kenny has proven his class (as if there was any doubt!).

My Yamaha was made-over and optimized! The original plastic nut (which wasn’t even properly glued in anymore) was upgraded to hand shaped bone, the plastic saddle was upgraded to compensated bone and the plastic bridge pins were upgraded to hand-turned Snakewood bridge pins with Paua dots (which I’m told are getting harder to come by due to toughening export laws on exotic materials). It doesn’t stop there, the crappy stock tuners that struggled to hold tune were upgraded to nickel Grover Rotomatics (nickel looks way slicker than chrome btw!) and finally Kenny installed an L.R.Baggs M1 Active pickup (which as with all the above he also stocks) into the soundhole, booyah!

Before handing it over he made sure it was oiled/hydrated and polished and after everything done I was stoked though not surprised, that it sounded just as good as it looked. The overall improved tone and sustain due to its upgraded parts was instantly noticeable and what better way to amplify this than through an L.R.Baggs pickup.

Thanks again Kenny, through your expert craftsmanship and infectious passion for this line of work I have another high quality instrument to add to my ‘by KDG’ collection.

Kenny is A God-Send to Wellington's guitar problems...

I've owned a Gibson Explorer for the past 24 years, 20 years age the nut broke on it, I had it repaired, Since then my guitar has never felt or played right. I've had everyone in the lower North-Island (Wellington) look at it, They tampered with the kneck, filed down the frets, that guitar has had all sorts of horrific things done to it... (I'd lost my passion for the guitar) ...20 years later...

4 weeks ago I was introduced to Kenny, He looked at my guitar and said he could fix it... W-O-W, Kenny's work is AMAZING... He's a true craftsman... I've had my guitar back for a week, I haven't been able to put it down or find any fault in his work....

My guitar feels and plays better than it did 20 years ago....

I can't thank Kenny enough for what he's done for me... Alex

I feel sorry for all of the guitar players who have never taken their pride and joy in to Kenny for some T.L.C.

My Strat Deluxe was sounding pretty sick and on a friend's recommendation I took it in to Kenny to see what could be done. Unlike many giutar shops where you are made to feel inadequate or unvalued as a customer, going to Kenny's is a great experience. On arriving Kenny took a look at my guitar and it became imediately apparent that this man has an incredible wealth of experience and knowledge of everything guitar related. Kenny takes the time to find out what makes you tick as a guitar player by discussing the kind of music that you like and armed with this knowledge he then explains all of the options that are available to give you exactly what you want.

After playing my Strat for two years the frets had become very worn and it was buzzing and rattling badly. Kenny said he could dress the frets but they would then be pretty low and it would require a refret the next time that they wore down. The other option was to go for the refret and I decided that this was the best option for me. Kenny has a very unassuming nature and isn't a pushy sales person. He delivers great customer service and will give you as much time as you want to just sit and talk all of the options through in detail. He explained to me that Fender factory frets are made of soft fret wire which can be bent easily to speed up the manufacturing process in the factory.

The downside is that the fret wire is prone to wearing down quickly. He showed me the options for new fret wire and recommended KDG / SM Jumbo hard grade wire for my style of playing. I was initially concerned that I would find Jumbo frets more difficult to play with but Kenny assured me that I wouldn't notice much difference from the standard wire. I also asked what he thought about putting a coil split on the bridge humbucker and he then measured the output from all of the pickups and said that a coil split would be a great option.

Two weeks later I picked up my guitar and rushed home with great anticipation to try it out. The standard of work on the refret was stunning. The new jumbo frets made the neck look real quality.

I plugged the guitar into my vintage AC30 and waited until the valves warmed up. Kenny had warned me that I would be blown away by the the bite and presence from the coil tap and he certainly wasn't joking. I staretd with a few chords on the neck pickup and just couldn't believe the difference that a quality pro setup can make to a guitar. The notes just chimed and rang through the old Vox with a calrity and sustain that was never there before. I then switched to the mid position single coil and belted out some blues. Again I was amazed by the presence that was now there. Then on to the bridge humbucker and again I was not disapointed. The guitar now growled in a way it had never done before. A few power chords later and time to try the coil split.

You were absolutely right Kenny the coil split is awesome. The split humbucker has given my guitar a lot of cutting bite that I would never have thought possible. I just couldn't put the guitar down after that. The sounds that this instrument now produce have inspired me to write more and more material and I get withdrawal symptoms if I don't play it for more than a day or so.

If you are sitting at home reading this review and wondering what difference Kenny could make to your guitar and thinking that this sounds too good to be true then all I can say is don't worry. Just go in and have a chat  and I know that once he has worked his magic on your guitar it is going to change your perception of tone for the rest of your life.

Cheers Kenny, I will definately be back :)

I recently bought a 1981 Fernandez relic (pre law suit precision bass copy) that was already really nice to play. So much so that I stoped playing my other basses (Warwick streamer, Spector rebop), but I never really liked the look of the bridge. Don’t know if anyone reading this has seen an old fender bridge, but they just don’t have a lot of mass and the saddles seem a bit temperamental to me,

so I popped up to Kenny Duncan as he’s done some setups for me in the past and seemed like he knows what he’s talking about. He suggested that I put a Babicz bass bridge in. so I decided to take the plunge. a week or so later the bridge came in and a few days later it was installed.

I got to say this was a nice bass before now it’s a dream bass. The improvement in sustain and tone was mind blowing. Even when I’m playing the bass without it plugged into an amp you can hear the tone difference. I know that any future basses I buy that can have one of these bridges will be getting one