Have any of you heard of using plek on a guitar? This seems so unreal. When I see the care and experienced that goes into a good setup and all the final tweaking of a guitar to get it to play right, how could that be done by a machine????

http://www.plek.com/en_US/home/

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

I bought a epiphone masterbilt acoustic over at the gear page that the previous owner had plek'd. It plays wonderfully and great intonation for an acoustic instrument.

I believe Gibson and Martin both are using plek machines, not sure about fender though...

Yes. I believe that Gibson does it to it's higher end guitars at their factory, if not most of their models. There was a thread with a video of them being pleked on the forum some time back.

ME says Fender does not do it. In fact he said something to the effect that he thought it was ridiculous.

Yes Mr X. The plek machine is used by Gibson on their guitars. Plenty of other manufacturers do it too. I quizzed Mike Eldred on it, his response was, to paraphrase, "Fender guitars are all fretted and leveled by hand. You wouldn't trust a 57 strat neck to a machine would you".

I thought that with the number of guitars fender turn out that there would be some automation of the fretting process. But no, they are all fretted and leveled by hand. Except for the fret press.

I saw a video of a plek machine in operation somewhere (it was some time ago). It looks to me like the fret heights are lazer measured then filed down, measured, filed and so on and so forth until they acheive as near perfection as possible.

Sometimes forum user Mondo had his guitar plekked. He likes it, says it's ultimately only as good as the operator though. Hope he responds to this as his knowledge on this is greater than any one else I can think of.

It cost's about £180 to get your neck plekked at Charlie Chandlers. He's about the only person in the UK doing it. I'm really considering sending my MIM neck to him for plekking once I've refretted it. I'd love to sit in first time the machine reads the fretwork I've done. See just how far out I am doing it by hand.

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So the Pleking is only for the neck? What about all the other adjustments of the guitar, like truss rod, intonation, saddles, and such? One guy gave me the impression this machine "makes your guitar play wonderfully." and then their advertising talks about guitars that just don't play right and this machine fixes that. I thought, NO WAY....but a high end fret leveling machine? I could see that.

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

Here are some videos about pleking for you to look at Mr.X
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=gui ... lek+video#

One is of the Gibson Custom Shop. The one in Berlin is the best one. More detailed.
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/ ... &FORM=LKVR

My luthier only charges me $100 to do what a plek machine accomplishes.

I call that a bargain.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Very cool, Thanks Mr. Fhop.

this one is very cool! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG4BOLlKOb4

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

Excellent video - but thank god for the overdub. They're talking German! We fought 2 world wars to avoid that sort of nonsense thank you..

I'd love that job. A spot of light plekking in the morning followed by some guitar playing. a bit of lunch, a bit more plekking then the rest of the day in the office talking about guitars. Just the job..

Did anyone notice that bit where the nut was being hard shaved? I was just waiting for that nut to crack, and when it did, the video was edited to the next scene. Love it

As for the process itself - count me in. A marvellous innovation. Hand built quality for more like mass production prices. How could we not love that?
(Actually I can see a future of inverse plekk snobbery, as in "of course my neck has been botched by hand, none of that Plekk nonsense for my guitar..")

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

I wonder why Fender refuse to use it?

Theres gotta be a reason you'd think they'd be mad for it turning out so many guitars.

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Whatever Fender does, they should keep doing it. I bought a $2,800.00 Les Paul that was pleked. It was brand new, and it needed a setup as soon as I bought it.

Gibson seems to have a real problem with consistancy bot in their acoustic and electric guitars.

Fender on the other hand has very good consistancy. Just about every Strat I pick up is set up pretty much the same. Sure you can fine tune the setup to your liking, but they are very plyable right out of the gate.

The thing with automation is, people start assuming that the machine is working the way it should be, and tend to not check the result as thoroughly resulting in inconsistancy...

I think it was on that video they showed a site map of where Plek machines are located and there is one in Corona California, where Fender is located. Who else who have a machine like that in Corona?

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

My Les Paul 58 VOS is Plekd and it is hands down the best fret job I have seen. That machine is a wonder.

Big difference between what a Plek machine does and what a set-up is. EVERY guitar I buy needs a set-up once it has been in my house a few days - simple affects of humidity usually dictate a neck tweak and bridge/saddle tweaks.

Plek is used for nut work & fret leveling, not bridge and neck adjustments.


I haven't had any fret/nut issues with my Fenders, AND my Pleked Gibsons are all wonderful too, including the cheaper Tribute, the mid-priced LP, and the more-$$$ CS.

I've seen good and bad fretwork out of Fender. Both my Baja tele and American Deluxe had horrible fret level when I got them.
I can't really advocate gibsons fretwork as I think the way the binding nibs up to the fret end is a utter joke. Never seen a bad gibson fret level on any of their Standards and Customs. I've seen a few Studios with bad fret level and others that are great.

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