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Howdy folks, I'm a 2026 graduate of the two year guitar program at Red Wing (Minnesota State College Southeast). Between my two years at Red Wing I worked at Collings Guitars in Austin, TX for two years in the acoustic neck department, shaping and finish sanding ~2000 necks, radiusing and gluing ~750 fingerboards, and pressing ~100 sets of frets. I also spent a couple months in the finishing department level sanding and pore filling ~300…

Hi all, I am a newer guitar tech and after dozens of repairs this particular Simon & Patrick Luthier Cedar top SP6 acoustic dreadnought from the 90-ies with a bolt-on maple neck has been an incredible challenge. It came with a maxed out and stuck truss rod with a considerable up bow in the neck, extremely low saddle with barely any string break angle, so it needed a neck reset. Later on I figured out that it also has a pretty dras…

I have a Kalamazoo made epiphone with the most extreme fingerboard ramp I have seen. I have the neck dead straight from 1st fret to body joint and get a 1/16 of gap when I run a straight edge from 1st fret to the last fret. The frets average .040" but someone leveled the extension and those frets are half the height. Does anyone have any suggestions for flattening the extension. Clamping a block on it? If I level the board during a r…

Hi everyone, Every once in a while, I come across a bass that simply refuses to stop buzzing. Right now, I’m working on a bass (I won't name the brand, but it’s in the €2,500 range) that has a slight fretboard hump near the neck pocket. I figured that was the culprit, so I performed a fret level under string tension. The frets are now perfectly level... yet, it continues to buzz across the entire fretboard, even with fairly high a…

Hi all, new to nut slot work world, please can you help me with this mystery? fret levelling, neck relief and string action adjustment all completed to Fender 9.5" radius spec. very happy with that. the next step: 0.011” High E string’s nut slot was a bit low. I used Dave Johnson’s (MI Guitar Craft Academy) “q-tip slot raising method”: the pulled cotton strand, plus extra thin CA glue, to fill the slot, then trim it off once dry,…

I finished levelling frets on a mandolin last week, and was surprised that the frets with the worst divots worked down to .020" Had I known that I'd go that low, I might have replaced them, but it's hard to measure divot height, especially those caused by thin strings. I haven't seen much discussion on standards for fret height or guidelines to know at what point should I switch from levelling to replacement. What standards are peop…

Hello, I replaced a nut with a tusq nut. Nut slot height is correct, neck relief is good, action is good. But I’m still getting buzzing on low E and A strings on frets 1-3 primarily. I checked the fret height on fret 1 and it is sitting lower in that area specifically .038 inches. Vs .040 inches for the rest of the frets. I’m thinking this is what’s causing the buzz. Is my thinking correct? Is there something I can do other than a fret lev…

Hi everyone! I'm trying to wrap my head around this problem. I was doing some fret on a throwaway neck and found a couple of uneven frets in the middle of the neck. (I made sure to seat them down before levelling too!) While levelling, I came across an issue where the first few frets and the last few frets were being sanded down before the middle frets. I did make sure the neck was straight with a notched straight edge and the StewMac n…

Hi everyone - I recently ran into trouble making new nut for one of my necks that needed to be trued and re-fretted. I roughed in the nut as usual and then, with the bass guitar fully assembled and strung up, I started cutting the slots to depth. I use the StewMac digital nut slot depth gauge and have had good results in the past. I marked the nut's lowest points (radiused) using the guitar nut scribe tool (first time using this!) and c…

I work in guitar repair for over 20 years and this strange buzz happen only 3 times and i really going crazy. Five years ago a all parts strat neck in G string, change string, leveling frets twice thinking i made a mistake, in some point i made a rudimentar neck jig to tried to repair that neck. Work in that guitar for 3 weeks and string heigth like 3.5mm and yeat, buzzing with not so hard picking just the G, even in other tuning like F…

A customer brought me a new Hummingbird with fret buzz a few weeks ago. After performing what may be the best levelling job I've ever done, the buzz was reduced, but still noticeable, though it sounded different than normal fret buzz. When I noticed that the sound was worst when playing F2 (on the A string or D string), I did a frequency analysis and discovered that the main top resonance was at 163.9 hz, and it all made sense. Those…

This may have been covered in any number of vids by Big Daddy Proper or Paw Paw Erlewine, but I wondered how flay everyone goes when it comes to fretboard prep and refrets. For example, I currently have an old 70s SG needing a refret, Ive begun to flatten the board. I have some low spots in the middle of some frets in "cowboy-zone", but the actual fret slots are all being touched by the leveling bar, and thus, level. This is usually whe…

Is it a common problem for the fretboard on an acoustic to develop a hump around Fret #12 and higher, where the neck meets the body? If so, what is the cause, and is there something that can be done, or avoided, during the initial build process? I have two quality Zager brand guitars that both have the problem, with the problem being worse on the cheaper model. I am a newbie to fret dressing and lowering, so I first tried adjusting the…

Refretted my Yamaha Studio Lord 550 with jumbo frets. This is my second fret job. First was on a bolt-on BC Rich neck. The Studio Lord (Les Paul copy) was my first set neck project. It is pretty good. No fretting out. I set the action at 4.5/64 on bass and 3.5/64 on the high strings. Today I noticed that if I bend a high F to G (13th fret on first string), the note frets out (I can get to F # no problem by bending from the 13th).

Hi Everyone, What do you feel is the best way to remove the file marks from the frets after leveling and crowning with a fret crowning file? I'm happy with the shape and overall feel of the frets after crowning so this is an aesthetic issue more than anything. These are the files I'm using. The centered versions of 150 & 300-grit: https://www.stewmac.com/luthier-tools-and-supplies/types-of-tools/files/stewmac-compact-z-file-…

There's a video on YouTube from Chris @ Highline Guitars who wants about "proper use of a fret rocker": One thing that surprised me in the video was his suggestion that "your best option to deal with a single low fret is to re-level the entire board." I commented "Why don't you just replace/crown the low fret instead of taking the time to re-level/crown the entire board?" His claim that "it tak…

Hi everyone! So I have a Fender Custom Shop Strat in my shop at the moment, and it's a real PITA. I've leveled the frets, made a new nut, and set it up to my liking. Normally this would help remove a lot if not all fret buzz, but this guitar just keeps buzzing all over the fretboard. Every single fret buzzes. It's very prominent as well. I've heard some guitar techs say that "some guitars just buzz more than others", but I can't accept t…

Hi everyone! I'm looking for advice about heat treatments for a warped neck, I know they are a thing but I've never actually done one. I have an Epiphone Les Paul in the shop that originally I was only going to do a level/crown/polish and a setup on, but when I tried to adjust the truss rod and checked the fingerboard with a straight edge I noticed there was about .030" of relief in most of the middle section, which was pretty consisten…