I don’t think I’ve had one of these on the bench before.  Not quite my cup of tea but different.  It’s obviously had a lot of use and needs a spot of TLC.  The frets are a little worn and the fret-board has several years worth of goop on it.  There were also a couple of high frets so a fret-dress and general cleanup is in order. 

First remove the strings and locking nut and level the fretboard.  The nut also had a couple of shims under it so I’ve taken them out, when I’ve done it’ll be possible to achieve a much lower action.

All taped up ready to dress…

After levelling and re-shaping the frets I gave it a good clean and oil.

Once it was all back together all that’s needed is to finish of the setup.  The owner wants as low an action as I can get.

Had a problem with that mind you.  With the Floyd Rose trem’ as low as it would go I still had an action of around 5/64″ at the 12th fret.  Not what I would call low, an average setup would be around 4/64th”.

The only option is to remove the neck and put in a shim right at the heel.  At the first attempt it still wasn’t right so I actually added a second one.

Finally get the strings tentioned to pitch and adjust the springs behind the guitar, so that the trem’ sits flat, a rather long and laborious job.  As soon as you adjust one string the tail moves and puts all the others out!  Once that’s done just set the intonation.  Another pain on the Floyd Rose.  The only way to do it is to do it is measure the pitch, slacken the string completely, slacken the saddle screw, move he saddle and re-tension the screw.  Once again bring the string back to tension and check it again.  I think this one took about 2 hours to finally get right.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Patience.

There we go, finish off with a good clean and polish.

A word or two from the owner…

So it went in with quite a bit of fret buzz, the intonation wasn’t great and it just generally needed a good clean and a good setup. The guitar had been used a lot by the previous owner and also by me and because I love this guitar so much I decided it was about time I got it looked at. So I took it to George and I have to say I’m extremely glad I did! I was astonished at how much better it played when I got it back. The action is lower like I wanted and I can really tell a difference in the playability. Plays like a dream. If you’re thinking of getting your guitar seen to, look no further, this is the man! Excellent job George, thanks a lot!