Jacob's Thinline tele and Dan's Washburn bass

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

Joe's Lakland P Bass

Been taking a little time off of the repair blog while I finish up some new builds and huge projects.
Before this bass came thru the shop I had done a hand carved mac ebony nut for one of my earliest clients Arthur. He wanted to convert his 5 string Ibanez to E-C tuning. I also did a setup/neck shim on a short scale Ibanez for one of Arthur's buddies. Didn't get a chance to take any pics of those repairs but they went very well.
Then a great young bassist who I met at a Lakland get together, Joe, had inquired about some fret buzz on his Lakland P Bass. He recently said he changed from flats to rounds and was getting more buzz than he wanted. I told him to bring it by!
So I began by checking the setup. Joe likes his action very low. But unfortunately it was just to buzzy as it was currently setup. I couldn't quite dial in the amount of relief I wanted with the truss rod. Saddles looked good. One thing I did notice is that the nut slot height seemed to be way too low. So I decided on shimming the nut first to see if that would solve the problem.

And here is a shot from the side to see how much height was added

Then I went ahead and put the nut back on and re adjusted the slot height. After all that it was still buzzing way too much so I decided it needed a fret level.
Pretty standard from here on out. Got the bass on the leveling jig. Did most of the leveling work, crowned and polished the frets. A little more nut height adjustment.

And then strung it up to check it. A little more fine tuning and it was ready to go. Didn't get a final picture of this one but it came out real nice as well.
18. Arthur's Ibanez
- made hand carved Mac Ebony nut for E-C tuning
- Re string, setup, cleaned etc.
19. Arthur's friend's Ibanez short scale
- Shimmed neck, setup, re string, cleaned etc
20. Joe's Lakland P Bass
- Shimmed nut, fret level, setup, cleaned etc.