Second Mediocre Result From a Plek-Job

[Jim Soloway]

Like who?

I've been out of the loop for a long time now but, assuming he's still there, Mike Burdette from Portland Fretworks does magnificent fret work and is about as old school as you can possibly get. He's also a very good player.

[jzucker]

I think Jim hit on something...Many luthiers who are rock players or don't have a significant jazz player clientele may not realize how to setup an axe for a jazz guys since part of the rock sound is some fret buzz. The guy who plek'd my guitar is a rocker. I think a jazz guy (or someone who serves jazz players) will have an idea how to do a setup for a jazz guitarist.

[iim7V7IM7]

For traditional guitar set-up and repair work I am fortunate to have an excellent local resource.

Mark Simon
Mark Simon Guitars - Stringed Instrument Repair & Restoration

[Jim Soloway]

I think Jim hit on something...Many luthiers who are rock players or don't have a significant jazz player clientele may not realize how to setup an axe for a jazz guys since part of the rock sound is some fret buzz. The guy who plek'd my guitar is a rocker. I think a jazz guy (or someone who serves jazz players) will have an idea how to do a setup for a jazz guitarist.

I do think that's important. We all develop ideas based on our own experiences. But ask some of the guys around the country who you know who does their local work. Tim Lerch has to have some one in the Seattle area and he has a bunch of guitars to maintain. Someone is doing work for Corey Christiansen in Utah etc. etc.

[LtKojak]

Many luthiers who are rock players or don't have a significant jazz player clientele may not realize how to setup an axe for a jazz guys since part of the rock sound is some fret buzz.

This is simply NOT TRUE. Fret buzzing when the customer plays HIS guitar is a sign of general poor workmanship, as it could mean that either the fret job was not properly done, or that it was, but the guitar's setup is at fault... or both issues at the same time. In either case, it's the luthier's fault.

All good techs I know, as rule of thumb, once the fretwork is properly done, they set the strings up at the lowest point before it starts to buzz, then they set'em just a little bit higher, so it doesn't buzz at all, just before it does the intonation. It's NOT rocket science, man. It's common sense at its most basic level, for Pete's sake!!!

[rmpmcdermott]

This is simply NOT TRUE. Fret buzzing when the customer plays HIS guitar is a sign of general poor workmanship, as it could mean that either the fret job was not properly done, or that it was, but the guitar's setup is at fault... or both issues at the same time. In either case, it's the luthier's fault.

All good techs I know, as rule of thumb, once the fretwork is properly done, they set the strings up at the lowest point before it starts to buzz, then they set'em just a little bit higher, so it doesn't buzz at all, just before it does the intonation. It's NOT rocket science, man. It's common sense at its most basic level, for Pete's sake!!!

Agreed. Fret buzz is not part of the rock sound.

[73Fender]

Hi Jack, how are you buddy.
if you are thinking of sending the neck to someone in the NYC area for a world class fret job, try Ian Davlin at Lark Street Music.
He did my Gibson Johnny Smith. Absolutely world class. And not ridiculously expensive.
Good Luck.
Joe D

Thanks for that info. He's about one hour from me.

I feel bad for the OP, I have been there. Paid good money for work only to be underwhelmed or disappointed all together. I have resorted to doing my own simple set up stuff (non invasive..my one try at anything other ended badly) and also living with "good enough". But the few guitars I have here that have had the attention of a top notch guy (who requires a road trip to get to and may hold a guitar for a month) are just a level higher in play-ability.

[LtKojak]

Jack, FTR, to be able to correctly interpret the data of the Plek's reading, you do need to have some prior experience as a luthier. Looks like the guy you used did not apply the "right" settings for the task ahead, most probably due to not enough knowledge of the machine itself.

So you know, I'm personally friended with the oldest Plek operation in Italy, so I know how important it really is to know what you're doing, to routinely maintain the machine and to keep your knowledge up-to-date. All of this add up to the overhead costs, so to Plek an instrument can never be "cheap", so for normal fret leveling and crowning, using an experienced luthier and/or tech would be my first choice, unless the neck's been Plek'ed before using different relief settings for every string.

[skykomishone]

This one is easy: M L.

Jab's,

I've had him do several, and they've all been excellent. I've also had hand jobs too that weren't so great, and some that were. Just saying. Now recently, I acquired a vintage gibson, a 1946 125, that had some fret buzz on several frets. I've never done anything to frets before because I'm not a luthier, but in this case I decided to give it a whorl after a friend offered his fret filing kit. I fixed the problem on my own. The guitar plays fine. It's always good to shop around and ask questions.

Cheers,

S

[yebdox]

ML is a bit spendy, but you get what you pay for. Great reputation. Feitenized and set up my L5 15 years ago, still plays like butter. Also rebuilt an old custom 80’s strat I inherited from my cousin, (from her rock star boyfriend at the time) and it is flawless. But, I couldn’t get the money out of it now that I spent on it. So, if it’s a keeper, pay a little more for a tech with a reputation.

[zcostilla]

Wow! I just got a new guitar (Hamer Korina) and the frets are way too tall for my taste but nearly everything else is a dream as to how it feels in my hands. Was going set up an appointment to drive to Fort Wayne to have it PLEK’d by Sweetwater to lower the frets and put a Tusq nut on it on my way to Ohio but now I’m having second thoughts. I do most of my own setup work, but I’ve never learned to do frets. I wish these were all about a half millimeter lower. Maybe I’ll find a local luthier here in St Louis.

[lammie200]

...but now I’m having second thoughts... I wish these were all about a half millimeter lower...

Although I have never had Sweetwater do a Plek job I would be awfully surprised if they can't do one competently. Also, I have been told that the most a Plek machine can take off in one session is 0.05" or 1.2mm. They should be able to accommodate your wishes without it getting too expensive.

[Litterick]

I took my Gibson to my local luthier because it was buzzing at some parts of the fretboard. Not only did he see the problem immediately – it was not the fretboard but the bridge pickup that was causing the problem – but he fixed it at a very good price, and gave me a free appraisal of the state of my guitar, which was reassuring. And we had a nice chat.

I suspect a Plek operator would rely on the machine to diagnose the problem, and the machine would have been clueless.

[lammie200]

...I suspect a Plek operator would relied on the machine to diagnose the problem, and the machine would have been clueless.

Plek machines measure geometries with a high degree of precision. The first thing that it will do is indicate whether the truss rod needs adjusting and the nut is cut properly. Once the truss rod is adjusted optimally and the nut is cut right, it will deal with the frets. If your guitar was buzzing due to something not related to the truss rod, the nut, and/or the frets, the analysis by the machine would have indicated that the truss rod, nut and/or frets were not causing the buzzing.

[Litterick]

I assume the machine would not have told its operator that the problem was the pickup. Machines are very good at doing specific tasks, but incapable of working outside the remits for which they were designed.

[LtKojak]

It's becoming evident that many of the participant of this thread have not a clear idea of what a Plek machine does.

As a MRI machine, it's used to accurately "take a picture", or more accurately put, to generate a graphic interpretation of the measurements the machine took, so in the case of the MRI, you need a doctor to do a diagnose and propose the right treatment for the ailment.

In the case of the Plek, the anaology is the same: with the generated graph in hand, you still need somebody with sufficient luthier knowledge and/or experience to tell the machine the apply the right treatment.

HTH,

[zcostilla]

It's becoming evident that many of the participant of this thread have not a clear idea of what a Plek machine does.

As a MRI machine, it's used to accurately "take a picture", or more accurately put, to generate a graphic interpretation of the measurements the machine took, so in the case of the MRI, you need a doctor to do a diagnose and propose the right treatment for the ailment.

In the case of the Plek, the anaology is the same: with the generated graph in hand, you still need somebody with sufficient luthier knowledge and/or experience to tell the machine the apply the right treatment.

HTH,

This is my understanding. I guess I should’ve clarified that I’m concerned about the specific technician(s) at Sweetwater being competent to do the work correctly.

[LtKojak]

This is my understanding. I guess I should’ve clarified that I’m concerned about the specific technician(s) at Sweetwater being competent to do the work correctly.

At least in my neck of woods, all guitar techs and/or luthiers working for/with the Plek facility possess the required annual certification, obtained by attending a course in Germany.

[lammie200]

This is my understanding. I guess I should’ve clarified that I’m concerned about the specific technician(s) at Sweetwater being competent to do the work correctly.

[lammie200]

I assume the machine would not have told its operator that the problem was the pickup...

You are assuming that a tech would put the guitar in the machine before they did anything else. Granted I have only dealt with one shop that has a machine, but they have never suggested that I have a guitar plek'd before telling me that it was an option to deal with the frets.

I realize that people want to make machines the bad guys. In this case you should consider the difficulty of doing a fret job by hand and how difficult it is on the tech's hands to do one. If I needed the cylinders rebored on the engine in my car I wouldn't want someone to do them by hand.

[TNpicker]

Yes, I recently had a Plek job done in Nashville on a Strat neck and based on my research ahead of time, thought this was to be as close to perfect as one could get.

When I took it in I had one place that I was aware of where the notes would choke out when bending on the 9th fret. They did handle that completely.

But now, after playing it for a bit I've discovered that there are still places where some of the higher frets have issues with bending notes almost completely choking out. I've had to raise the action to the point where it's just outside of what's really workable for me to prevent that, way higher than the Fender factory specs for string height.

I put a fret rocker to it two nights ago and discovered a few areas with a bit of rock in them, most 19th fret and higher. Seems to me like the job was only done up to the 18th fret. Not sure how that could happen. Perhaps the tech inputs the # of frets and they accidentally put 18 instead of 22? (Hard to believe that would be.)

What's funny, I have other guitars, some of which are like $400 guitars, a Wolfgang standard and an LTD from ESP and neither of these have any issues like that and I can set both of them with action far lower than the one I had Pleked. The Plek job cost me almost as much as each of those other guitars.

I'm hoping when I call them this week that I'll find something went wrong, or they say, "That's not normal. Bring it back in.." but who knows? At this point my experience with having a guitar put through the Plek process ended up with a much worse outcome than when I had a luthier do it manually many years go.

So, either the Plek thing isn't really what it's purported to be, or something went seriously wrong in my particular case.

[lammie200]

According to this video Pleking can give you what you want. You might want to take it back in for another adjustment. The shop that I have taken my guitars to includes one follow up visit as part of their customer service.

[MaxTwang]

I brought 2 Gibson's that had been factory Plek'd to my tech to make them playable (apparently Gibson's Plek is programmed for 'roller coaster frets') the frets made the guitar unplayable. My tech said he had been concerned that luthiers would be automated out of a job, but after inspecting the Gibson's he laughed and said fixing them would take some work but he's happy to do it and he's happy to know he won't be replaced by a Plek. The luthier's hand worked fret level and dress made the guitars exquisitely playable. Steve get's all the fretwork for my factory guitars.

Last night I was playing one of my parts-casters that I had leveled and dressed myself (Warmoth neck). With a StewMac Fret/Fingerboard leveler , leveling files, and fret crowning file I was able to achieve better results than those Plek'd Gibsons on 5+ parts-casters so far (these play better than CS Fenders). Funny thing is I can level and dress frets but I have absolutely no patience to properly cut a nut

A human touch still outperforms machines when it comes to subjective metrics like 'feel'.

[rob taft]

The Plek Machine in the hands of a skilled operator/luthier will exceed the results of most luthiers/tech. Unfortunately, like any other complicated machine e.g. lathe, CNC router, the end results are determined by the competency of the operator and in the case of the Plek, there are a number of machines in use where the operators are either not qualified or just too rushed. My first Plek job was done by Joe Glaser in 2002, he did the work himself. That guitar had a decent setup before but was stellar afterwards. 18 years later that guitar is still one of the best playing ones I own. That is a testament to Joe, the Plek and the properly aged wood used in this guitar.

All that said, I decided to learn how to do this myself after getting f@@ked by a luthier who had/has a stellar reputation. So I bought the tools and learned how to do the basics and can get where I'm satisfied with the results. While in my 20's I was a inside machinist and lathe operator so I have the mechanical aptitude but addressing issues in a guitar neck isn't rocket science. And lets not even talk about the skill required to properly cut a nut which is just as critical to a good setup and in my opinion takes more skill than leveling frets/

Overly beveled fret ends are definitely skill/time related i.e. its a lot less time to run a broad file down the side then individually round the fret ends. . My Warmoth experience has been different in that most of the necks I purchased had next to no rounding/bevel. In fact most of the necks I've purchased had protruding fret ends. One of the early Eastman ElRey's I own is a disappointment because of extreme fret beveling and from talking to Otto D'Ambrosia a few years back it was something he recognized and was attempting to fix. My custom shop Elrey has perfect fretwork but it was done by Otto.

The other factor is that we are dealing with the variables of wood and even necks where I leveled the frets can over time develop rising frets just due to the wood shifting/moving in response to environmental conditions.

[Tom Karol]

I received a Boseman-made Gibson Parlor Rosewood Modern 2019 (yup, that's what they named it - it's really a J-185 with a cutaway and a Baggs pickup) as a gift a little over a year ago. It was supposedly plek'd at the factory. I was not impressed - frets were very good, but nut and bridge were far less than perfect. $40 to my guitar tech for some hand-done adjustments, and it now plays very well.