No, the guitar comes in already strung up, and tuned to pitch. Im not adding then removing any strings, im using whats on it when the customer walks through the door, the only set of strings I put on are the last set that they leave with. I find out if the relief thats on th guitar, if its what they want it to be, then remove the strings, keeping it at the relief they want it at, which most of the time means adding more relief to it because with the strings gone, it straightens out a bit. Then I level the frets, but not all the way. Im setting the level to how the neck is when played, not to how it looks when the neck is dead straight. Because it wont be dead straight when they play it, agian; unless they're in that small percentage that play with a straight neck. Ive been doing it this way over the last year, having done it the way that site you linked me to did it, before. I started doing it this way when an unhappy cusomer contacted me after having the repair section of a certain chain did a level/dressing twice, and both times he didnt like the results. So i tried leveling it to the relief he set his neck to, instead of levelling it to a stright neck, which he didnt play. He was happy with the results, as so have everyone else that ive done it for since.

So when I am finished; if you were to take the neck off, adjust the truss rod so the neck itself is dead straight, you'll see that the first 2 frets and the last 2-3 frets are 'just a hair' shorter than the ones in between. So if they have extremely low action, they dont get any buzzing at the lower (1-3rd) frets. This was the problem with the first guy who came into me. I never did it that way, and planned on only doing it that way for him. But someone came in for a refret, and he hadnt picked up his guitar yet. I offered to do it the traditional way (what your link suggested), or the way i did it for this customer. He opted for the way I did for the other customer. I've since had most of the people wanting me to do it that way. Again, unless they want a dead straight neck, which i find more country players want, due to the fact the bend less.

This makes even less sense.

You say that you "level the frets, but not all the way" after removing the strings and adding more relief. Are you leveling the frets or only "sorta" leveling the frets? All you seem to be doing is removing what relief you dialed into the neck by grinding down the upper and lower frets and leaving the ones in the middle, where relief is measured, essentially untouched.

Your method is totally backwards from every other method I have seen or read about.

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Bill

Well, its good to know that reading and hearing about things make you more of an expert than actually doing it.

I don't understand why you keep talking about playing with a "dead straight neck". After leveling the frets as shown in the link, the guitar is strung up and proper relief is set. The neck is not "dead straight".

Your concept of "level frets" appears to be totally out of the mainstream of everything I have ever seen. Are you aware of any other luthiers that do it your way or are you the "exception to the rule"?

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Bill

No need to be a smarta$$. I am asking questions and trying to understand what you are doing. Maybe your other customers don't ask questions and accept what you say as gospel. I can guarantee that if I came to you to work on my guitar and you could not answer my questions without getting uppity about it, you would not work on my guitar.

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Bill

Leveling them not all the way is getting a rough levelling done, it gets finished later.

SOme people dont play with any relief in the neck, they play it "dead straight" If you take a plastic ruler, glue some wooden matchsticks to it the way a fretboard would look, its straight. Once you set the relief, they're no longer lined up straigh relative to each other.

Maybe you should buy a cheap neck, get your head off of websites, and attempt to do it yourself.

If you didnt like my answers, Id tell you to go somewhere else, because there's plenty of people that are very happy with the results.

Wow. It gets deeper with every post.



Give my regards to both of them.

You clearly resent having your methods questioned which says to me that your people skills are very limited. I'm done wasting my time here.

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Bill

Are you saying that the frets are level with the proper amount of relief set? That is not really how it is done, but OK. I just finished a level, crown, and polish and if I understand you correctly all you are doing is giving people a neck with relief (as to stay in tune up the fretboard?) and the playability of a completely flat neck. Why not just make the neck flat, level the frets, and install a compensated nut. At least then there would be a deliberate method involved that you could explain to people with Earth words.

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My ability to spell is in direct proportion to the amount of coffee I've had.

So the process of how its done is more important that the final result? We're not talking about doing refret, talking about getting them leveled so they can have the lowest action possible without any buzzing. If you have the neck set with no relief, and three action is real low, it will buzz, even if you strum it open. Of you lower the first few free frets a hair, you wont get the buzz. Obviously the dressing is dinner after.

1, not everyone is willing to spend the money on a new nut.
2, this process is done on some, but not all if them.
3, I don't have to spell everything out to someone in the shop when I have their on the bench.

This started out with someone asking of they should get a new neck with a flatter radius, I suggested full flattening compounding the frets to flatten them, because the only other option to a new neck is to re-radius the whole fretboard,which would intale doing a whole refret instead of just workibg with the existing frets, and spending 3 times as much $ when its unnecessary if you can just reshape the existing frets. I don't know why this is such a dificult thing to comprehend.
Then it went off on "why do you leave the neck on the body while doing the work" like its unheard of.

Even so, you would still flatten the neck level the frets to a new radius and then set relief.

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My ability to spell is in direct proportion to the amount of coffee I've had.

Yes, for compounding the frets, this went off into just fret leveling. After the initial leveling, on a straitg neck, I give it relief, and finish the leveling and dressing. Again, I don't have a jig to work with, everything id done with a straight edge, and eye balls.

I think I understand you now. You are only leveling a few frets at a time when there is relief in the neck. So you are not leveling the first fret relative to the fifth. I use a radius block that covers many frets at the same time.

If this is the case the entire problem has been simple communication.

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My ability to spell is in direct proportion to the amount of coffee I've had.

YES! And we got there, whew. Yes, if im doing a levelling on a neck for a guitar player that prefers a straight neck (most dont, most want relief), I use a longer straight edge that covers 5-8 frets, depending on the edge (3 edges), when i level them for a relief, i use one that covers 3, and level them relative to each other.
Again though,some other factors come into play, like how much meat is on the frets. Im not going to compound frets if they're vintage size, and have already had a crowning before, or there will just me a small amount of fret left in the middle of the neck, where the sides will have more meat. Mostly because I dont wont to make more work for myself later down the road when I have todo a refret. I did it once before, and it was a nightmare. I put the soldering iron to the edge of the fret to heat it up so the fretboard woods oils help lubricate them for extraction, and as I pulled it up with the fret plyers, they snapped in half where the fret was really low in the middle because it was compounded, while the fretboard itself wasnt.
If im doing a refret, it doesnt matter. I do the same process to remove them w/the soldering iron. If its a newer type neck. THEN i take the neck off because I use a fret press, and its just easier to manipulate. If its an older neck, I TRY to pull them out sideways, the way the older ones were installed, and put the new ones in the same way. Sticking them into the edge, then tapping them sideways so they slide into place. With the neck straight, I do a rough levelling, just to address the frets that ARE REALLY higher than the others. Now, Ive already watched them play, so i know if they have a heavy hand, and want a deal of relier. Then i use the smaller of the two straight edges, and with the relief dialed in, i level them 3 at a time, then I dress them.
I used to do all of them the same traditional way, until that one guy had problems with fret buzz at the first and second fret, thats when i attempted to do the levelling with the relief dialed in instead of straight, and the issue of the buzzing frets at the first positions went away, and the rest is history.