Post by guitarmakermark on Aug 8, 2010 15:53:22 GMT -8
Does your guitar or bass leave something to be desired, action-wise?
Perhaps you have an older cherished instrument, which you would like to have repaired or restored/refurbished?
Most instruments, new or old, high-end or inexpensive, can benefit from a thorough fine-adjustment of the action and intonation. Let me bring your axe to its finest level of performance, precision and satisfaction. Pamper your musicianship with a properly set up musician's tool....your guitar!
Acoustic or electric, six-string or bass, any guitar can be made to play better and sound better than it currently does. For example, many acoustic guitars can be made to sound better by voicing the soundboard to strengthen, focus and enrich tone.
I do high-end, precision setups, setting the foundation for your instrument to produce its best tone and lowest action. This I accomplish by removing the factors which inhibit tone. For example, I specialize in custom corrective woodworking, neck re-sets and custom corrective fretwork, including complete and/or partial re-fret jobs. (See additional text below....)
I also do other corrective woodworking repairs, such as re-gluing loose or broken top and back braces, re-mounting pickguards, and other needed repairs, including general restoration and refurbishing of older instruments.
My electronic repairs and upgrades can enhance and optimize your electric guitar's signal. . Perhaps you would like to have a high-quality pickup system installed on your acoustic guitar, or maybe an on-board distortion circuit install on your guitar's tone control.
Floyd Rose service and adjustments, other tremelo and hardware repairs/upgrades, too.
I also offer pickup coil repair and re-winding; I can overwind your guitar's pickups to hot-rod them, or bring a dead pickup back to life. Don't replace that vintage pickup....have it re-wound instead!
When "good enough" just isn't good enough, treat yourself to a Precision action set-up!
Reasonable, competitive rates, 18 years guitarmaking, repair and set-up experience.
RedFeather Guitars....916-203-4896, or email me at:
guitarmakermark@yahoo.com
Ask also about our custom guitar-making services.
Some things to know, regarding my Custom Corrective Fretwork.....
The lie of the frets is an area where almost every factory guitar can be improved; where the lie of frets is just a generalized crescent-shaped line, and not set to accomodate the profile of the vibrating strings on that particular guitar. Take a 12-inch straightedge and place it on edge on the fretboard so that it spans the first few frets. Now slide the straightedge off the first fret, toward the bridge....chances are you will feel the straightedge drop onto the second fret with a loud click, then onto the third fret, etc. What you are feeling (and hearing) is the nut end of the fretboard showing you a too-steep curve between the nut and the 7th or 8th frets.
This is the factory-built curve, not correctly designed to give proper relief at the 7th or 8th fret, and this curve is much more severe than it needs to be. On a properly profiled fretboard, this dropoff will be much more gradual, to more closely match the actual curvature profile of the vibrating strings. On most factory guitars, this non-precsion neck curve is nothing more than the result of the pull of the strings on the neck, and truly precision neck relief can only be accomplished by very judicious levelling of frets to a specific, precise curve pattern, dictated by the individual guitar, paying close attention to the amplitude of nodes and anti-nodes along the length of the vibrating string. Once this precision neck profile is achieved, the guitar's action can be set quite low, with a minimum of fret buzzes.
Factories do not have time for this level of precision in building; they just mill the fretboard flat from end to end, for the sake of manufacturing efficiency and rely upon the truss rod to try to achieve "proper" relief. The guitar's truss rod can help in a limited way, to improve this situation, but here again it is a mass-produced, non-precision solution in most cases.
Another limiting factor is that many, if not most mass-produced guitars leave the factory with frets not fully seated in their slots, with frets grossly unlevel and sometimes even loose in their slots. This is especially true with guitars imported from Pacific Rim nations. Before precision fret levelling can begin, the frets need to be fully seated and secured in their slots.
Custom precision fret levelling also corrects another very frequent problem in guitar fretboards, that of the "rising tongue," where the frets take a marked uphill climb, in the region just past the neck/body joint. This rising tongue looks sort of like a ski-jump, in profile, when viewed against a straightedge. The proper condition for this area of the fretboard is for the frets to fall away from the line of the strings, not to reach up closer to the string-line. Without correcting the rising tongue condtion, any attempt to lower the guitar's action is to invite strings slapping on frets....fret buzz.
In my shop, I go to great lengths to correct the above-described conditions, when performing an ultra-precision setup on a guitar. When your guitar leaves my shop after a precision setup, the action will be as smooth as can be, with a minimum of fret buzzes.
These are the goals of my precision corrective fretwork and action setup work!
Thanks for reading!
Perhaps you have an older cherished instrument, which you would like to have repaired or restored/refurbished?
Most instruments, new or old, high-end or inexpensive, can benefit from a thorough fine-adjustment of the action and intonation. Let me bring your axe to its finest level of performance, precision and satisfaction. Pamper your musicianship with a properly set up musician's tool....your guitar!
Acoustic or electric, six-string or bass, any guitar can be made to play better and sound better than it currently does. For example, many acoustic guitars can be made to sound better by voicing the soundboard to strengthen, focus and enrich tone.
I do high-end, precision setups, setting the foundation for your instrument to produce its best tone and lowest action. This I accomplish by removing the factors which inhibit tone. For example, I specialize in custom corrective woodworking, neck re-sets and custom corrective fretwork, including complete and/or partial re-fret jobs. (See additional text below....)
I also do other corrective woodworking repairs, such as re-gluing loose or broken top and back braces, re-mounting pickguards, and other needed repairs, including general restoration and refurbishing of older instruments.
My electronic repairs and upgrades can enhance and optimize your electric guitar's signal. . Perhaps you would like to have a high-quality pickup system installed on your acoustic guitar, or maybe an on-board distortion circuit install on your guitar's tone control.
Floyd Rose service and adjustments, other tremelo and hardware repairs/upgrades, too.
I also offer pickup coil repair and re-winding; I can overwind your guitar's pickups to hot-rod them, or bring a dead pickup back to life. Don't replace that vintage pickup....have it re-wound instead!
When "good enough" just isn't good enough, treat yourself to a Precision action set-up!
Reasonable, competitive rates, 18 years guitarmaking, repair and set-up experience.
RedFeather Guitars....916-203-4896, or email me at:
guitarmakermark@yahoo.com
Ask also about our custom guitar-making services.
Some things to know, regarding my Custom Corrective Fretwork.....
The lie of the frets is an area where almost every factory guitar can be improved; where the lie of frets is just a generalized crescent-shaped line, and not set to accomodate the profile of the vibrating strings on that particular guitar. Take a 12-inch straightedge and place it on edge on the fretboard so that it spans the first few frets. Now slide the straightedge off the first fret, toward the bridge....chances are you will feel the straightedge drop onto the second fret with a loud click, then onto the third fret, etc. What you are feeling (and hearing) is the nut end of the fretboard showing you a too-steep curve between the nut and the 7th or 8th frets.
This is the factory-built curve, not correctly designed to give proper relief at the 7th or 8th fret, and this curve is much more severe than it needs to be. On a properly profiled fretboard, this dropoff will be much more gradual, to more closely match the actual curvature profile of the vibrating strings. On most factory guitars, this non-precsion neck curve is nothing more than the result of the pull of the strings on the neck, and truly precision neck relief can only be accomplished by very judicious levelling of frets to a specific, precise curve pattern, dictated by the individual guitar, paying close attention to the amplitude of nodes and anti-nodes along the length of the vibrating string. Once this precision neck profile is achieved, the guitar's action can be set quite low, with a minimum of fret buzzes.
Factories do not have time for this level of precision in building; they just mill the fretboard flat from end to end, for the sake of manufacturing efficiency and rely upon the truss rod to try to achieve "proper" relief. The guitar's truss rod can help in a limited way, to improve this situation, but here again it is a mass-produced, non-precision solution in most cases.
Another limiting factor is that many, if not most mass-produced guitars leave the factory with frets not fully seated in their slots, with frets grossly unlevel and sometimes even loose in their slots. This is especially true with guitars imported from Pacific Rim nations. Before precision fret levelling can begin, the frets need to be fully seated and secured in their slots.
Custom precision fret levelling also corrects another very frequent problem in guitar fretboards, that of the "rising tongue," where the frets take a marked uphill climb, in the region just past the neck/body joint. This rising tongue looks sort of like a ski-jump, in profile, when viewed against a straightedge. The proper condition for this area of the fretboard is for the frets to fall away from the line of the strings, not to reach up closer to the string-line. Without correcting the rising tongue condtion, any attempt to lower the guitar's action is to invite strings slapping on frets....fret buzz.
In my shop, I go to great lengths to correct the above-described conditions, when performing an ultra-precision setup on a guitar. When your guitar leaves my shop after a precision setup, the action will be as smooth as can be, with a minimum of fret buzzes.
These are the goals of my precision corrective fretwork and action setup work!
Thanks for reading!