Doug Proper Guitar Specialist
Forum Replies Created
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Last Pics to illustrate my approach described above.
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More Pics
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For what it’s worth, I’ll offer an alternative to Ian’s approach. Whenever I am doing fingerboard repairs, even small chips that will be visible outside of footprint of the fretwire bead, I always prefer to make the repair using wood. I choose a donor wood that is as close a match to the board in color, type and wood grain as I can find in my scrap wood drawer. the bigger your variety of scraps to choose from obviously helps in the end result.
I cut in a sliver that sits proud of the board – glue it in with either cyanoacrylate or hide glue depending on how much of a hurry I am in (most of the time I default to CA). After the glue is dry, i can file or sand it flush with the board and, most of the time, get a trouble free, permanent and invisible repair.
Here are some pictures to illustrate:
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Hi Jeremy,
Welcome to the not-so wonderful world of nylon string guitar “intonation” issues. There are a number of things for you to try regarding the issue with the B string you are having. Firstly, I might suggest that if you are off by, as you described it, almost a full ½ step at the 12<sup>th</sup> fret (compared to the open string), that is somewhat alarming as that would imply that the pitch at the median of your scale length would be sharp by nearly 100 cents. That’s pretty unusual, not to mention extreme and probably points to something other than the saddle.
The simple fact t the matte with classical guitar strings is that there is usually very minor differences in diameter between the E and B strings – hence there is usually little or no compensation. A normal tension set of strings that you described has an E string at diameter of 0.024” and a B string Diameter of .027”. That .003” difference is not enough to usually warrant a drastic difference in string length compensation – however there us a dramatic difference between the two strings in overall tension. The High E string of that same set (normal tension) has about 21 lbs of string pull while the B string has only about 15lbs of pull.
Your particular issue with that much of a discrepancy suggests that the problem is not at the saddle. However, it should be mentioned t is possible you have a couple of old or “false” strings on your hands. You did mention that you swapped out the B string without any improvement. Again, that suggests the problem is elsewhere. You might want to try a higher tension string for the b string to see it there is any change (as an experiment)
Before embarking on making any alterations to the guitar – Always look to the strings first. Nylon strings are a petroleum product and can decay over time – even “fresh Strings” sitting in a drawer (or a music store rack) for a long period of time can go false. You might try a different brand of string – D’Addario makes a great product, but they are mass manufactured and not infallible – it’s possible to have a bad batch or lot of strings.
The first place I would look as a possible issue is the nut – both the condition of the nut shelf and the height of the strings at the nut. I am not a big believer in compensation of the strings at the nut – long meandering conversations with classical guitar builder John Gilbert however compelling they were never convinced me that nut compensation was ever necessary.
With that said – you are also describing a circumstance where the B string is “Right from the get go the scale starts going sharp incrementally at every fret” Which implies to me that the string heigh at the nut is likely too tall and the string length compensation issues are emanating from the nut and not improving by lengthening the string at the saddle.
Secondly, I would make sure that the seat of the string in the nut slot is emanating from the front shelf of the front of the nut and not further back. If you string length is off from the fundamental, there’s no hope for any compensation at the saddle to make up the difference.
Thirdly, I wouldn’t necessarily put it past Yamaha to have located the nut correctly in relationship to the first fret. If it is too far from the first fret for the scale length – then you’ll always start off sharp at the first fret – that’s why John Gilbert developed his string length compensation method for classical guitars.
Very often – string length compensation issues can be bewildering – but there’s always a mathematical solution somewhere in the process.
If you get stumped after running through the possibilities I mentioned – feel free to reach out to me directly.
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Hey KT, I do a few ideas about how to go about this one. If you’d like to discuss them, by all means reach out to me. Email is probably the best. My email is doug@guitarspecialist.com. we can set up a time to do a video call.
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I currently have one in the shop with an original bridge – If you can wait until tomorrow when I get into the shop I can send you dimensions.
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If you are looking for a commercially available solution – Jeff at Total Vise came up with a great kit he calls the Small Shop Finishing Station.
You can find it here:
https://totalvise.com/shop/luthier-tools/the-small-shop-guitar-finishing-station/
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Hi Elaine,
The Bartolini 5JNB has no bracket – hence the “NB” – Generally, those are used where a bracket already exists or there is a situation where the looth needs to make a bracket for a custom guard or mount. Some pickguards have screw-holes for mounts – others merely have the pickup bracket epoxied to the underside of the guard. That all depends on what you are dealing with on the pickguard side of things – that sometimes requires a bit of creativity. The trick is making and mounting a bracket to the bottom of the pickup. BTW – the pickup shown in the picture has fingerboard mounts – which a lot of players like to avoid because they have to be screwed into the sides of the neck.
I usually opt to fashion a brass bracket that can be soldered to the bottom of the pickup and then mount it to the bottom of the pickguard as the circumstances call for (Screwed or Epoxied) . Brass stock is good and strong but bendable enough to make sure you have the best angle for suspension under the strings.
Alternatively, you could epoxy the bracket to the bottom of the pickup. I have done both in the past.
I would avoid any method that involves double stick tape – that usually always comes back to haunt you.
I’ve got a bunch of brass stock in the shop – if you want to go that route – let me know and you can pop up to the shop, I’d be happy to help with it.
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Hi Neil,
It would be unusual for an acoustic with the truss rod adjusting nut access at the sound-hole in an import to use anything other than an Allen Key to adjust. There are of course exceptions. Do you have a full set of long L-shaped Allen Key (sometimes referred to Hex Key) wrenches, both metric and SAE?
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I use PU (polyurethane) “leather” desk pads
Here’s the original post I did about them:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLn0l67sgF7/?igsh=b2JiZHh5MWQyN2x2
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330 likes, 47 comments - guitarspecialistinc on February 22, 2021: "I Hate Carpet!!! Today's shop tip is brought to you by a question from Grace @guelphguitarrepair. A couple of others have asked about this as well so I thought it … Continue reading
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The “Proper’s Guitar Workstation ” from Total Vise does allow you to simulate string tension with the additional expansion package that they sell.
The difference between that and the SM neck jig, is that the neck jig is designed with the dial indicators built in under the neck. My preference has always been to read the board and not the back of the neck.
Here are a bunch of links demonstration how the PGW allows for string tension simulation…
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CqAeGZBvVGP/?igsh=YzhiZHZyZnQyZnh4
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CqDLkPeMRyE/?igsh=a3FxcnpoeXZhZzd2
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CqF7ERDNYzk/?igsh=MTF6dW11a2p4MzV2NA==
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtL89vCPdpr/?igsh=MWxwbmpzaXcxZ253Nw==
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CurUzggL-Tt/?igsh=cmRqam56amJna2x2
You also have the ability to work with an unders-string leveler if you wish.
It also wouldn’t surprise you that I’m more of a believer in the PGW over the SM neck jig. I won’t spell out all the advantages of one over the other, but suffice it to say that the Total Vise workstation does everything that the SM jig does and quite a few things that I could never accomplish.
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455 likes, 18 comments - guitarspecialistinc on March 20, 2023: "This just happened... With the new expansion package for the "Proper's Guitar Workstation" from @totalvise you can easily simulate string tension during fretwork without taking 30 minutes to jig up … Continue reading
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Hi Bobby,
Adam is absolutely spot on. You’ll find Richlite to behave quite a bit like a traditional ebony boards. While it might not visually look the same as ebony, it is not very different to deal with while fretting.
Pulling frets goes pretty easy, and with a soldering iron, they should come out without incident. Richlite is pretty forgiving in this regard.
I too hammer in my frets and generally do not use glue.
Have at it and let us know how it goes.
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Hi Francisco,
Welcome to the Looth Group! You’ll find this quite a welcoming place where members are eager to help and there is a vast array of experience to draw from without the egos or drama you might find elsewhere.
I’ll chime in on the discussion as the subject is something I happen to have some strong opinions about.
I’m a huge advocate of learning by doing and following your nose while doing so. Learning by doing is how I learned this trade. While many learn this job by going to a school, and guitar building/repair schools have seemed to replace the traditional apprenticeship, I do not think it is necessary to go to a school to learn this trade or develop the skills necessary to succeed in it.
There seem to be two main aspects to your question:
One, how to expand your skill set and two, deciding what to work on next as you are doing so.
For the second part – that’s what I mean by following your nose. You described yourself as someone who is primarily doing setup work and now graduating to some minor fretwork. Deciding what to work on as you expand your skill set should be fairly logical. If you aren’t making nuts and (acoustic) saddles yet – that should obviously come next. Fret level and crowning and then refrets are along the same path. If you are going to get into structural work and doing touch-up/finishing work – those areas are obviously more varied and can certainly be a bit more specialized. There again – follow your nose. It would make sense to pursue minor structural repairs (braces, bridge reglues, cracks) before you start tackling neck resets, pulling bridge plates and top replacements.
It may seem daunting but just making a list of all the repairs you can think of that someone might need on any acoustic or electric guitar and then trying to list them in what you would perceive as an order of difficulty would be a good exercise to organize a game plan.
Now for the hard part – How to develop those skills? How do you eat an elephant? – One bite at a time.
Take it slowly and get one thing under your belt before you move on to the next.
Then Practice.
And then practice some more.
This may be a bit of a controversial statement, as I know there are people who think otherwise, but NEVER – EVER practice on a customer’s instrument. Build your skills on “Crash Dummy” guitars first and do not perform repairs on customer instruments until you have those skills well on their way to being mastered. Many in the group have heard me tell the story that, when I was first starting out in this biz, before I did my first customer refret, I spent three months re-fretting six different (crash dummy) guitars no less than 10 times each. That means when I got to my first customer re-fret, it was my sixty-first refret. No drama and the job came out great – not to mention I had nothing to apologize for. I was by no means an expert fretter by that time but was sure enough in my skills to feel good about charging people money for it. As time goes on – you get better. Now, thousands upon thousands of refrets later – I’d venture to say I have gotten pretty good at it.
There is a colloquialism I have heard from time to time in this business that suggests that you “should let your customers pay for your education”, implying that you build skills by learning on your customers instruments and make a buck at the same time. I completely disagree with that sentiment.
You will find that here at the Looth Group there are tons of folks eager to listen, help and offer advice. Take advantage of the Loothalong and the forums. It’s a great place to learn from one another. I have learned a ton, made a great many friends and am a better looth for it.
Welcome to the club and this profession!
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Corey, starting your own shop is a huge step. You’ve laid all the ground work and have lots, very likely more experience under your belt than most of us did when we started our shops. That would certainly be true for me when I started 40 years ago.
As far as the anxiety you’re experiencing? That would be normal for virtually any new venture. Given what I know about you, pretty soon you’re going to be too busy to even think about it. You’ve got this!
More importantly, you’ve also got the incredible resource that is the Looth Group. We’re all here for you. If you have a question, need advice or anything.
I highly recommend Al Pachter’s bi-monthly group meetings for a place to make sure you feel like you’re not alone in this.
I’ll go one step further. Feel free to reach out to me. I’ll be happy to help in any way I can. My direct email is doug@guitarspecialist.com and the shop phone number is (914) 401-9052
Also, I think you’re less than 2hrs from us. You’re also welcome to come down anytime.
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Hi Jack,
Firstly, I would probably start by agreeing with Al Pachter. I would recommend that you try the GluBoost Fill n’ Finish White. I worked with Gluboost to come up with the formulation. It is a much easier way to get to the right formula.
As to your issues with the formula you are trying – I would guess that there are a number of things that are probably causing your issues with hardening. Primarily, if I were starting from scratch like you are, the Master Glue would not be a great choice. I would start with a Fill n Finish as a base for the glue.
with any CA – the introduction of other ingredients can affect the chemistry and cause it to harden pretty quickly. Also any excess moisture while you are mixing contents will cause CA to harden very quickly. My suspicion is that your ratios are what’s causing the accelerated hardening.
The Dioxane is a solvent that should be used very sparingly. Its use in the formula is to allow the melting in and softening of the crumbled binding.
The role of the butyl is as a retarder for the CA. I normally add the Butyl directly to the CA before mixing with the color (which would be separately diluted into the dioxane,
Both dioxane and Butyl need to be used sparingly.
The other thing that occurs to me is that your ratios are probably way off and working against you. When mixing your own liquid binding solution, you need to mix in much larger amounts. By trying to mix it in the very small amount of CA you have in the cup in the picture, you are introducing a very large ration of solids (the pigment) and solvents (Dioxane and Butyl) into a considerably small amount of CA. That will always cause the CA to harden almost immediately.
If you like, we can set up a time to either do a video call or get together on the Loothalong and I can show you how I mix my ratios.
With all that said, I would also recommend getting a bottle or two of the Gluboost White – that’ll cut down on the frustration of having to mix it yourself. That’s why I worked with Rick at GluBoost to come up with a shelf ready product. Although – I’ll admit – I kind of enjoy the process of mixing it myself – it makes me feel like a kid playing with a chemistry set.
I hope this helps – don’t hesitate to reach out if I can be of any assistance. Let me know if you want to do a video call or get together on the loothalong.
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This is the stuff I use …
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Hi Thomas,
I think that is a great question. There’s a lot to chew on there. I would challenge the notion that being a “good capitalist” is somehow mutually exclusive to doing good. I think they go hand in hand. After all some of the most notable capitalists in history were also among the most generous altruists that ever existed. Think of people like Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Melon, John D Rockefeller. Furthermore, most of those men and countless others didn’t wait until they were successful before doing good was an option. It went hand-in-glove with their success.
We do a lot of what Ian is calling pro-bono work. We always have. It has been part and parcel of our success and our business model from the beginning. For us, it has always been important that when we chose to do free, or reduced fee work that we did so in ways that aligned with our values. In our case that meant that we looked for opportunities to exercise those “charity muscles”. When we came across people we identified as someone in need of our services that aligned with our values, we would leap at the opportunity to help. For us that means active-duty military members, members of the clergy or religious organizations, individuals who are struggling with life circumstances – be it health related or life related.
You would be surprised how often life presents opportunities to exercise those “charity muscles” just while running your shop – In fact we have rarely had to seek out opportunities to do so. All it takes is the awareness to listen to your customers as you meet with them and the opportunities to do good invariably always present themselves if you are receptive to it.
I would like to stress one thing – “Charity begins at home”. We have all heard that colloquialism time and again. A lot of people misinterpret that as a phrase with a sense of selfishness. That you take care of yourself before you look to help others. I think that definition is wrong. In our shop, that means you have to run your business in such a way as to ensure the profitability it takes to afford to be charitable as part of your business model. It takes work and planning. An attentiveness to the day-to-day accounting, time management practices, pricing structure, expense management and all of the other things to ensure profitability and the ability to be generous within the operation of your shop as to allow for the ”room in the budget” to be charitable as part of your business model.
Yes, “Time Equals Money”. However, I would challenge the notion that you have to wait until you have the time (or the money) in order to be charitable. It has been part of our business model from the beginning and there has always been room to do it. It didn’t matter whether we were working out of our house – which we did for more than a decade when we were at the beginning of this journey – or when we, later moved into a commercial space. If it is important for you to do so, I would suggest that rather than think it from the perspective of waiting and wondering if you “have the time” to shifting your thinking to “making the time”. It is easy to start small and build from there.
To be clear – this is very personal. If it is important to you to be charitable within the context of providing the service that you do in your shop, then run your shop in a way that you can afford to do so. That means being profitable – that after all is where charity comes from. True capitalism means doing well so you can do good.
One last thing that comes to mind while I am typing this is – that for us, this is a very private matter of importance to us. We have done quite a lot of pro-bono work and continue to do so – we don’t post about it on Instagram, send out press releases or shout it from the rooftop. If fact, this is probably the only time I have ever addressed the subject in a public way – and very likely it might be the last time. Your question struck a chord with me and I felt strongly about addressing it.
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Hi KT, It looks like the nut threads onto the jack from the inside. At one time they were all installed that way. You need to loosen the nut from the inside of the guitar with one of these…
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I might suggest that it would be a good time to make a “Variable Radius Sander” for yourself. They can be set to any radius and are quite handy for shaping replacement braces. Using a contour gauge on the back of the guitar where the brace needs to go will give you the correct radius for the replacement brace – or copying the current brace with a contour gauge will also work.
Here are a couple of links to Instagram posts I did showing the tool in detail:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Coe4biiOabC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
https://www.instagram.com/p/Coh6W2NJR2C/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
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I agree with Ian wholeheartedly on this one! From my perspective, however, it is purely a mathematical issue as it relates to cost.
Generally, the two ways i see frets loose on a board is as follows:
Either they are peeking up in the center as you have described, or they are springing up at the ends. In some cases, it is due to what Ian has described – the mismatch of the radius to the fingerboard. However, there are many times I have seen frets coming up out of the board because the frets slot is poorly matched to the size of the tang. There is a lack of good compression and as such, the fret can spring out of the slot.
If I am only dealing with one or two frets, I have no issue with gluing and clamping down the single fret – especially if I am already doing a level and a crown on the guitar. One or two frets is no big deal. BTW – The jaws fret press is my favorite tool for doing that (thank you Dan Erlewine!)
If you have a guitar on which many of the frets are all loosening and coming up and out of the fingerboard (for whatever reason) then you are going to lose your shirt on a level and crown job. Whenever I have run the numbers – charging a per fret price for reseating (and gluing) frets always comes dangerously close to what I would charge for a re-fret. In my book – I’ll always suggest the refret to the customer. They’ll wind up with a better playing guitar and I’ll have more confidence in the results, not to mention the future serviceability of that guitar for the customer.
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Hey Job,
I am going to offer a somewhat differing opinion from Al on this one.
I’ve often said, that doing what we do certainly beats wearing an orange apron at Home Depot. Not that there is anything wrong with that – there are many fine folks who work there – I’m just not interested being one of them.
It is okay to work for another repair shop part time. What is important is that you set the terms and boundaries before you begin with a full understanding of what is expected of you and what you expect from whom you are working for under those arrangements.
Let start from the presumption that, as you stated in your original question, you are doing this part time and wish to do this full time but currently don’t have enough work/customers to have your shop sustain itself (or you) full time.
I’m working with the assumption that if all of that is true that this is a relatively new venture.
That also means, by definition, unless you are independently wealthy, that you have to do “something else” to eat, pay your bills and also subsidize your “guitar business'”. As we all know, this alligator loves to eat. Tools, supplies, wood, jigs fixtures. For some, working another job outside their loothing business works. That’s great!
Lack of revenue can turn a relatively guitar young guitar business into a pretty expensive hobby in minutes.
If you are currently working another job for income but wish to do this full time. Then I would wholeheartedly endorse you working for another person/shop while you build your business, hone your repair skills and gain experience. At least you will be working on guitars for money rather than some other job that you spend all your time at while wishing you were back at your bench.
Al’s suggestion that he refer his overflow to you might work, but in many cases is somewhat unrealistic, as it would be contrary to human nature to expect someone proactively send you their customers.
If you would rather remain independent, you might work out an arrangement with him that any work he would like to give you, you can take back to your shop, complete and then return the guitar to him. He then, in essence becomes a customer of yours that he can lay off his overflow to you. You get to spend more time in the shop generating revenue – albeit less than if you were working on your own customers but you will be gaining experience and maybe get to do this full time sooner.
Of course, there is trust involved – he needs to know the quality of your work, trust you’ll deliver when he needs it and at a competency that is commensurate with his customer’s expectations. You also need to be insured so if anything should happen to one of his customer’s instruments while it is in your care, he will be covered.
True – you won’t be “building your own brand”, but you won’t be building your own brand while working a part/full time job doing whatever it is you are doing while not working on guitars for a living either. Plus – don’t get me wrong – but there is plenty of time to build one’s brand. There is nothing wrong with doing this job anonymously for some period of time – in fact there may be great benefits to it!
In the early days of my business, I worked for as many as seven music stores (at one time), doing their repairs. Some insisted I work in their back room, most let me take the work back to my shop and do drop offs and pickups once a week or so. In almost all those cases – when I did speak with a customer (some preferred I did not), they only knew me as the “repair guy for such-n-such music” – and in many cases did not know that their guitar was even in my shop.
As my business grew it crowded out the need to do work for others (and having to share a measure of the value of my work with them).
It all depends on the arrangement you can make with him. If he is truly backed up with more work than he can handle, he will be glad for the assistance. Just make sure the terms are such that you can deliver on them.
I hope this helps add to the discussion.
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Hi David,
Ian suggested I chime in on this – and I am happy to do so. Although it may not wind up being the response you expected.
First of all – yes – we all deal with this issue from time to time – sometimes, unnervingly often.
I will start by saying that everything Ian said about strings, scale length, fingerboard radius, woods, string excursion and all of that is correct and I agree with wholeheartedly – there’s no reason to add to that.
My take on this is ….. It’s your fault (the luthier’s fault).
That sounds harsh – and it is.
The simple fact of the matter is that most guitarists don’t know how to play the guitar. They aren’t trained and their technique stinks. To go further – most guitarists never learned how to use a plectrum (we call it a guitar pick is modern nomenclature).
The act of striking a string with a pick (or the fingers for that matter), is an act that introduces a cylindrical force to the cavitation of a string that results in an elliptical pattern to the strings. If someone has good technique, and most don’t, then the guitar will rarely, if ever buzz – even with the lowest of actions. If the guitarist leans into the string with the pick, forcing the string toward the fingerboard – and the string dips below the pick in order to escape the trajectory of the pick – then the elliptical pattern of the string’s cavitation will then be perpendicular to the fingerboard and frets – an will always be at risk of producing “fret buzz”
Guess what – it is still your fault (the luthier’s fault).
When we start suggesting to our customers that there is some inherent “vibration of the string” or the “natural mechanics” of the guitar, or that “such and such scale length is inherently …” you’ve already lost the customer, because to them it sounds like you are making excuses. When a customer hears us suggesting to them that “new guitar strings tend to be lively” or some other such opinion as to why their guitar is buzzing – they only hear excuses as to why we can’t accommodate their desires and we must somehow be an incompetent luthier.
Any guitar can be set up to play buzz free – but it takes a change in how you handle the customer – not the guitar.
Let me detour into a little cul-de-sac. I am a guitarist first. always have been. It may sound conceited – but I am a better player than 90 percent of my customers. As a young musician I studied classical guitar and later got bitten by the jazz bug. I have had the honor of studying with countless incredible masters in both the classical and jazz world and had the good fortune to share the bandstand with many of my jazz heroes. For a several year period as a young adult I practiced my instrument and technique for 8 to 10 hours a day.
Back to fret buzz
When a customer comes in complaining about fret buzz. you should turn your attention to the customer and away from the guitar. Every guitar is different as is every guitarist. I play a D-28 differently than I play a Les Paul, Strat or an ES-175.
When the complaint from a customer bringing in a guitar is about fret buzz – I always train my eyes and ears toward the customer. Not as a target to “lay the blame” but to learn how to set up a guitar for that customer.
This is one of the reasons why I call the front counter area and our “customer lounge” (where the customer can sit and play their guitar when they pick it up) the most important areas of our shop.
I explain to my customers that their guitars need to be set up for them. How they play is as important as any other factor in setting up a guitar. Yes, the frets need to be level and they need to be crowned well – yes, the nut needs to be cut well and so forth. Yes, some guitars with a steeper FB radius needs a higher action so the string doesn’t choke when bending in the upper register – and a hundred other factors.
Some players need a bit more relief than others. Some need a heavier gauge string to help cut down on string excursion with a heavy picking attack. Others need to change the weight of their pick. Many customers are surprised to hear than the suggestion I might have for getting rid of their fret buzz is to change to a heavier string. The simple fact is that there is less excursion to a heavier string which is at a higher tension at the same pitch than a lighter string – as a result, I can achieve a lower action (buzz free) with heavier set of strings than a lighter set.
When a customer tells me that “I like such-n-such gauge strings”, my usual retort is, “while that may be true, let’s find out which gauge strings like you!”
We all joke about customer’s desires for an action that is “as low as possible without buzzing” but there is a very important word that gets short-changed in that phrase. What is “possible” for one guitarist – or guitar for that matter can change from guitarist to guitarist and sometimes from guitar to guitar.
learn how to set the expectations of your customer and begin teaching them what part of keeping a guitar “buzz free” is the luthier’s responsibility and how much of it is theirs. And guess what – it is all your responsibility. This is what it means for a musician to work with a luthier to help solve their guitar’s playability issues. Sometimes we need to work on the customer as much as we need to work on the guitar. Not to find excuses, but to discover how they need their particular guitar set up, and of course make suggestions as to how their particular guitar can be adjusted, setup, and maintained in order to accommodate them.
I will say that once I began approaching every customer’s setup in this fashion, any anxiety about string buzz has all but disappeared.
I hope this offers a different perspective on the issue.
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Hi David,
I’ll throw my two cents in here. Rather than go through my thoughts on the entire fret level and crowning process, I’ll toss some of my observations in.
Firstly, if you haven’t watched it, I would recommend you go back to two episodes of the Dan and Doug Show. We did a couple episodes affectionately called Fret-O-Rama. There is a great deal of information in there about the subject. In episode 2, I break down my fret level and crowning process to a fairly granular level, so I won’t try and repeat that here.
As far as the three corner file leaving what you described as fairly aggressive tooling marks in the fret. If that is the case, you need a better file or you need to prepare that one better. I go through my preferred files on the Fret-O-Rama episodes as well. In fact, our good pal Paul Lampley from Stewmac did a great job running through all the choices of fret crowning files and their respective pros and cons.
I will say this, I think people spend waaaaay too much time polishing frets. I can almost guarantee that most folks are knocking their frets out of level by over polishing. If you are going through, as you described, 13 different grits of sandpaper and then rubbing compound – that’s way too much effort.
It is easy to get caught up in your fret L&C “process” and lose sight of the most important factor – the results.
I use one grit to level frets with using a series of different length beams, then after crowning I use 600 grit on a sanding stick, hollowed out to match the curvature of the fretwire. Then a micromesh polishing stick with just a few strokes on each of three successive grit – 2400. 4000 & 12000. My frets are as shiny and polished as the best of them out there. My process however has evolved (in a reductive fashion) for the last 40 years.
If you want some help after viewing the D&D Fret-O-Rama episodes, give me a shout and we can do some online 1-0n-1 loothing. Better yet, since you are only a few hours north of us in NY, you could take a trip down sometime and we could do some elbow to elbow fretwork.
I hope this was of some use.
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Thom,
I gotta say – this is the only time I’ve ever heard of any kind of finish damage from the tail block hold down. The Urethane used on the tail block hold down is exactly the same as the urethane on the stewmac vise jaws.
We have a half dozen work stations in our shop and have had literally hundred of guitars through them over the last year that these have been by Total Vise and I’ve never seen this happen once.
It is very difficult to tell from the picture, but the Tele looks as if it is possible that the guitar could have moved while in the workstation – that’s the only thing I can think of. The marks on the Tele almost look like the urethane could have rubbed against the guitar – that can certainly happen if you do not have the legs set tall enough to have the tail block firmly holding the guitar in place. A tele is a pretty thin guitar and the legs of the cross beam have to be raised pretty high to accommodate that.
Also – In examining the picture of the damage – it looks as if the streaks are longer than the tail block hold down – I could be mistaken about that – it’s not a very good picture and the hold-down is also not in the picture. But if those marks are longer than the hold down – that would support my supposition that guitar was allowed to move while in the workstation.
Regardless – The marks look like they should buff out just fine.
Please keep me posted as to how it works out and please feel free to contact me if I can be any assistance.
– Doug
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More Neck Reset Views …
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Just to chime in – not that it will be much of a surprise to anyone – but this is what neck resetting looks like in my world these days…
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Hey Nathan,
Do me a favor and send me an email to doug@guitarspecialist.com as a reminder – that way I won’t have to remember to check here at the website, shamefully – I don’t spend as much time as I should, or would like to at the website and I have a tendency to forget to check my messages here.
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Hi Jack,
Since you already have some, I would pre-treat the area with a little bit od dioxane – that will soften the crumbling binding very nicely, and help the GluBoost White melt into the crumbled binding.
Looking at the picture of the damage – this is precisely the kind of repair I would always opt to use the liquid binding. You can build it up, shape it to your liking and then color – the wonderful thing is that you can course correct along the way – if you don’t like your results, sand a bit deeper then re-apply some more Liquid Binding and begin shaping again. That’s precisely why I came up with this process. It saves me the hassle of having to chop off a bigger section of binding and then attempt to graft in a new piece of plastic, plus there wont be any telltale seams.
It takes a bit of practice, but once you have you comfort level with this approach under your belt it will be a repair technique that will serve you well for the rest of your career.
Let me know how it comes out! If you have any questions along the way, feel free to reach out to me.
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The 7.5″ is the original length turnbuckle I used it allows for both convex and concave radii – however there are limitations – the shorter turnbuckle – I believe it was a 5″ or 4″ retracted length. I have a number of different sizes. The smaller turnbuckle allows you to achieve a very concave radius – I have been able to get as tight as a 5″ concave radius with this tool. The convex radius has limits based on the height of the two legs. The taller the legs, the steeper the achievable radius – I haven’t found too many reasons to make the feet taller than they are.
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Just an FYI if you do wind up stepping into the workstation. To hold a neckless body as in the pictures above you also need to get the Expansion Package.
