1984 Ibanez RoadstarII RS130 Fret Dressing

The first time I worked on this vintage RS130 was way back in 2016. That was a major overhaul involving a full refret and refinish, as I recall. Since then, I've worked on the guitar a couple times, one of them to replace the stock Super 5 pickups with a set of Fender Tex-Mex™ Strat single-coils.

It was now here for a fret dressing [level, recrown and polish] as the guitar had seen a lot of use and the frets were not only full of divots; but worn flat in numerous places. After straightening the maple neck with a little judicious truss rod tweaking, the fretboard was taped off. The frets were then leveled using an aluminum sanding beam, with extra effort taken to incorporate a "fall-away" into the upper frets. Following this, the tops of the frets were re-crowned carefully; and the frets abraded and polished. Finally, the guitar was strung with Ernie Ball Super Slinkys and set up in the usual manner.

Besides fretwork, this guitar's electronics needed a thorough check-up. As it turned out, everything worked fine after servicing, save for the five-way switch; which was replaced. Then there was the matter of rusty pickup height adjustment and pickguard screws; which had to be put out to pasture. Oh yes, the Tex-Mex pickups were also treated to a fresh set of pickguard tubing.

Let's see. Have I left anything out? No, I think not. And so, I humbly take my leave. Thanks for checking in, I deeply appreciate your doing so. Till we meet again, stay home, stay safe; and God bless :)

Strat Copy - Partial Fret Dress

Yes, it's another Strat copy; this time from a jamming studio. Notes played on the 18th fret upwards were dead, ie all you could hear was just a dull 'thunk.' Neck relief was spot on, so that wasn't the problem. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the fretboard had no 'fall-away' built in, and as such; the upper frets were making contact with the strings whenever you fretted above the 17th.

The obvious solution was to dress the offending frets and create a fall-away. This was done from the 15th fret upwards, to smoothly blend in the fall-away with the rest of the frets. After the fretboard was straightened, the frets were leveled with a leveling beam and then re-crowned and polished in the usual manner. I'm glad to say that this partial fret dress took care of the dead note problem.

The other issue was with the output jack socket. Plugged in, output was weak and intermittent. The jack socket itself was loose, even after tightening the hex nut. Everything looked nice and shiny on the outside, but it was a different story once I removed the jack plate. The output jack was totally rusted and was in danger of disintegrating. So into the bin went the old rusty socket, to be replaced with a Neutrik/Rean NYS229. That's about it for this post. Thanks for dropping by, and have a nice day :)

Note: Fender®, Stratocaster®, Strat®, Telecaster®, Tele®, P Bass®, Precision Bass®, and the distinctive headstock designs of these guitars are registered trademarks of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation.

Custom Neck-Through Tele Rehab: Part Three

Quick Links:    Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

Well, let's see here. I've already refinished this Tele in Tru-Oil and installed the electronics. Now it's time to string it up and do a proper setup for maximum playability. Easier said than done, huh?

The maple fretboard's already as straight as an arrow, so I reckon there won't be much truss rod tweaking needed. So on goes the Ernie Ball Regular Slinkys, I tune up, and then realize the first issue: excessively-high action at the nut. Boy, are you going to have problems fretting barre chords such as F or Bb major!

In case you're wondering just how I determine nut action, it's pretty simple. With the guitar tuned to pitch, press any string at the 3rd fret and eyeball the distance between the bottom of that string and the top of the first fret. There should only be a tiny gap, a hair's width; one might say. I know there are more scientific ways to measure the gap using feeler gauges and what not; but eyeballing it works just fine for me. If there's just a tiny sliver of light shining through; you'll be good to go.

Anyway, out come the fret and torch nozzle files; and away we go. Now I've lowered the nut action to where I like it, the strings are sitting way too deep in their slots. And then there's the fact that this bone nut is really gnarly and needs a face lift. A nut reprofile job should kill these two birds with one stone, methinks.

I start by filing the top of the nut down to where about half the diameter of the wound strings are visible, and then do a cleanup and polish with successively finer grits of 3M Flexible Polishing Papers. I really like these polishing papers as they're flexible, durable; and offer a degree of control you won't get with regular sandpaper.

So now the nut's been taken care of. The fretboard's still relatively flat with the strings tuned up; and there's only the tiniest bit of relief in the 7th to 9th fret area. Nice, but fretting any string at the 21st and 22nd frets produces the same note. This means that the 22nd fret is way too high -- when you fret a note at the 21st fret, it's actually fretting at the 22nd!

The solution is to do a really minor fret dress on just the 22nd fret to lower it. I do just that; problem solved. Of course there's lots of fine sanding and polishing to do after lowering the fret height; but that's life. I've finally got the action and intonation just right, so I'm calling it a day on this job. Here's a YouTube video of yours truly trying out this Tele straight into my Fender Champion 40, no effects; no nuthin.

Yamaha SLG110S Silent Guitar | Part Two

◀ Part One

Full Refret

This entry is the second of two on the Yamaha SLG110S Silent Guitar. To read the previous entry (Overview), please click HERE. Now, the original frets on this guitar were so worn that there wasn't enough height left for a level and dress. That being the case, I refretted the entire fretboard with StewMac #149 fretwire. The images below outline the basic steps I took in re-fretting this Yamaha SLG110S Silent Guitar.