Part of me is a do-it-yourself-er and the other part of me is in favour of taking it to the experts regardless of the cost. After my third attempt at shaping a bone nut for a partcaster Telestyle guitar I built a year and a half ago I thought it would be appropriate to take the guitar to a proper luthier, a fellow who had done basic set ups on four of my different guitars over a period of about five years. I'm a far cry from some customers who include the who's who of Montreal musicians -- who probably get the same guitar tuned up every three to six months.
I had done my own set-up work on the parts-caster Tele using principles passed on to me by YouTube 'friends' and a couple of techniques passed on by real luthiers.
The thing that I missed was the importance of crowning the frets using an ordinary triangular file that has the sharp corners filed off. So my relatively new Tele had somewhat flattened frets -- so before he would touch it I would need to get it refretted ($400 -$500), then get a new bone nut fitted ($60), then get a proper $120 setup.
All I wanted to do was create a kickass guitar out of a bunch of parts -- and now I'm wondering if he saw the Soup **** episode of Seinfeld. "Out of my shop. Don't come back until you return with a new neck that hasn't had the frets flattened, or else be prepared to pay around $600 for the combination of new frets, new nut and proper setup.
I don't think he's really hosing me. He might be upset that one of his marginal customers is exploring the world of partscasters. Anyway he shocked me a bit. Enough to buy a $7.00 file and then grind down the corners so I too could have my own personal 'prison file' and have a go at rounding what remains of my flattened (or improperly crowned) frets.
I had done my own set-up work on the parts-caster Tele using principles passed on to me by YouTube 'friends' and a couple of techniques passed on by real luthiers.
The thing that I missed was the importance of crowning the frets using an ordinary triangular file that has the sharp corners filed off. So my relatively new Tele had somewhat flattened frets -- so before he would touch it I would need to get it refretted ($400 -$500), then get a new bone nut fitted ($60), then get a proper $120 setup.
All I wanted to do was create a kickass guitar out of a bunch of parts -- and now I'm wondering if he saw the Soup **** episode of Seinfeld. "Out of my shop. Don't come back until you return with a new neck that hasn't had the frets flattened, or else be prepared to pay around $600 for the combination of new frets, new nut and proper setup.
I don't think he's really hosing me. He might be upset that one of his marginal customers is exploring the world of partscasters. Anyway he shocked me a bit. Enough to buy a $7.00 file and then grind down the corners so I too could have my own personal 'prison file' and have a go at rounding what remains of my flattened (or improperly crowned) frets.