Up next thru the shop were a couple of standard fret level/setups.
First up was my buddy Jacob's Fender Thinline Tele. Jacob had just recently purchased this thing used and was loving it with the exception of some weird fret buzz. He took a go at doing some fret filing before realizing he didn't really have the right tool for the job. You can see the divot in the frets below.
So immediately I knew this would need a fret level. I also saw some weirdness on the bridge. 2 of the intonation screws were bent really bad. I don't know if this was someones attempt at adjusting for intonation but I didn't like it. So I replaced the bent intonation screws with straight ones.
Then it was pretty much a standard fret file from here on out. There was a shim in the neck pocket that I eventually ended up taking out just to try to even things out. Here is a picture of the guitar in the leveling jig right before re crowning the frets.
Didn't get a final pic of this one but Jacob was very happy and I even got to play a gig with him shortly after returning it and was happy to see the guitar getting it's work out.
I also had a friend and fellow bassist Dan, bring me a bass he was thinking of buying from a friends music store. Normally when I see the word Washburn on a headstock I avoid it like the plague. But this bass was unique. Nice Bubinga top, ash body, Bartolini pickups and a heavy duty Wilkinson bridge. Dan wanted me to put it thru a setup to see if it would be worth buying.
This bass had been hanging on a hanger for probably the better part of 10 years and it showed. I started by cleaning it up and removing some very old pricing stickers. Then I went to work. Did a setup first just to see what I would be working with. There was some serious weirdness going on with the neck. I also noticed there were some pretty uneven frets. Onto the jig it went for a fret level.
After finishing my fret level I went for a setup. I was getting some really high action on the top 12 frets so I figured I would give the neck a shim and see what happened. The shim helped but didn't really solve all the problems. I re leveled to compensate for the shim and was still getting a dip in the neck around the 9th-14th frets. Turns out the neck was just very slightly misshaped from hanging for so long without any love or string changes. Good thing was, Dan likes medium action, so I was able to dial it in to an acceptable level thru the whole neck. Here is a final shot of the bass all setup and ready for action
21. Jacob's Thinline Tele
- Replaced bent intonation screws
- Fret level, re crown and polish, re string, setup, cleaned, tightened hardware
22. Dan's Washburn 5 string
- Shimmed neck pocket
- Fret level, re crown and polish, re string, setup, cleaned, tightened hardware
