A kit guitar, just needs finishing off and setting up.

It does have some problems though, the frets are very uneven and so causing quite a lot of fret-buzz.

The first fret in particular is rather low.  That’s a big problem as it means having to take every other fret down to that level.

So, off with the neck, tape the fretboard to protect it while I’m working and mark all the fret tops with a marker pen, you’ll see why later…

Make sure the neck is completely flat with a tweek on the trussrod.

Now grind down the fret tops until the tops are all level.  I use a level beam and sandpaper.

As soon as I start you can see where the beam is touching (the high points) and where it isn’t (the low points).  That’s where the marker pen comes in.

They really were all over the place.  Once the beam is touching all of the frets, all across the neck, it’s time to stop

Of course that leaves many of the frets with flat tops, like this…

What I need to do is to re-crown each fret, basically to the red line…

Using a fret crowning file..

That’s basically the fret dress and re-crown done.  Nice even, rounded frets.

Unfortunately, having had their tops filled down they are rather dull and need to be re-polished, that’s the time consuming part.

Four consecutive ever finer grades of micromesh cloth….

With that done a small spot of glue and re-fit the nut.

and re-fit the neck back onto the body.

Since the neck had been off and on again, and the truss-rod adjusted for the fret-dress it’ll all need setting up properly again.

Start with the neck curvature….

A small tweek back on the truss-rod.

Next the action half way up the neck, the bridge was a little low there.

The action at the first fret was also rather high…

so cut the nut slots down.

With the playing action about right each saddle needs to be adjusted to set the intonation.

And last of all, the pickup heights, both rather low…

And there you have it.  The chap has made a nice job of what looks to be a fairly cheap kit.  That is the problem with the cheaper kits, the overall quality of the hardware is generally poor, in this case he’s replaced most of the cheap parts with much better quality gear.  That’s fairly easy, but the uneven frets takes a lot more work.  However, now it plays nicely.

If you need any help finishing of such a project then just give me a call and I’ll see what I can do.