A great looking guitar, sadly not playing as well as it should.  In fact they made a bit of a mess of this one, the frets are all over the place..The 11th was the highest but they were all very uneven.  You’d like to think a new guitar would be better than that but, sadly, they often aren’t.  However, don’t panic, I can sort it out.

So how exactly can I cure that problem?  Well, file everything down to the lowest common point with a fret dress…

First ensure the fretboard is completely flat and remove the nut.I tape up the fingerboard to protect it and mark the fret-tops with a marker pen.  That way I can tell when the level beam is touching.  I use adhesive sandpaper on the straight beam to do the grinding…Once the beam has gone low enough to be touching the top of each fret, I know they have to be completely even and level.  The trouble is the tops are now a little flat so each one needs to be rounded off with the fret crowning file.This one is about half done, rounding off the shoulders but still flat on top.

Almost done….

and finished, one down 21 to go!

With the frets now level and the right shape each one needs to be polished with 4 grades of micromesh to bring back the shine.

While the strings are off I like to give the fretboard a little oil..

With frets done all it needs is a standard 5 point setup…

No.1 The neck set…

just a small turn of the truss-rod needed.

No.2  The action at the 12th fret….

by adjusting the bridge height.

No. 3  The action at the 1st fret.

reduced by cutting the string slots a little deeper.

No.4  The intonation..

No.5  The pickup heights…

There we go, how it should have been when it left the factory!