So I've one of the Wudtone under tension fret leveller bars, a couple of Hosco fret crowning files and some Crimson guitars fret rubbers and armed with this, admittedly basic setup I've managed to do five or so guitars over the last year or so. and whilst the results won't be worrying Jonathan and the team at Feline anytime soon the guitars have definitely been massively improved in terms of playability, action height, fret buzz etc.
So. The latest project I've taken on is a Flea bass that's needed a once over for a mate. I think the bar may be a little short but using the same got the neck up to tension, level and then dressed the frets, recrowned them, polished them etc etc.
It's definitely better except that I'm getting some buzz on the D & G strings from fret 9-13/14ish and it's doing my nut in.
Sighting down the edge of the neck from bridge to neck it looks like the neck might have a bit of an 'S' thing going on, as in slight underbow from nut going through flat and into a overbow which appears to peak around the 12th fret.
Weird thing is, If I try my fret rocker (sorry, forgot, got one of them too) it's saying there are no high spots there. Not totally sure what's going on but I can't get the action as low as my EBMM SUB Sterling (US one that has been refretted by Feline.....) ..
Looking at my SUB it looks like it's been dresses with a fall away from the octave up. Would that help ? And if so can I achieve that with the Wudtone beam as that seems to be all about uniform flatness rather than allowing fall away ?
Or am I fighting a fundamental flaw in the neck with the 'S' in the neck ?
Comments
The FLEA Bass was a distinctly budget instrument, constructed from low cost materials and parts. The necks are not the most stable under string tension. I could bend them with alarming ease.
Many guitars have a re-sale value. Some you'll never want to sell.
Stockist of: Earvana & Graphtech nuts, Faber Tonepros & Gotoh hardware, Fatcat bridges. Highwood Saddles.
Pickups from BKP, Oil City & Monty's pickups.
Expert guitar repairs and upgrades - fretwork our speciality! www.felineguitars.com. Facebook too!
And yes it plays wonderfully, that's part of the problem.... By comparison anything else is simply not up to scratch ! ;-)