Setting up the "Explorer"
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- Опубліковано 25 кві 2020
- Dressing under string tension: There are times when the guitar neck distorts ( or twists ) when the string load is exerted on the neck. This poses an extra challenge for levelling. In this video I walk you through step by step for this "worse case scenario " fret dress.
Enjoy !
#trickyfretdress
#explorerguitar
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Gratefully in your Service, Michael McConville.
Highly appreciate the time and effort you (and the customer) put into a relatively inexpensive guitar. Proves it’s the skill and dedication that makes the difference. Seems like a great guitar when it was finished.
Silky smooth to play and perfectly in tune !
The result is simply great. And relaxing arpeggios at the end are the cherry on your pie.
Congrats for the cleanliness of your explanation and the melodic pleasure of your execution 🎸🎸🎸
Thank you so much 😀 MMcC
Just tried this with my strat, work out wonderful. Thanks for the new idea 😎
I very much like the precise and concise steps to solve a problem. 👌🏼 Comes from decades of experience!💪🏼
I Love seeing you work on the explorer shape 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
Love your videos.
ua-cam.com/video/8RAVQ5RG2cE/v-deo.html
I'm so happy your amazing knowledge and teaching is finally getting out to a greater number of people. My whole body relaxes when hearing a well tuned guitar.
And yes that sense of touch, before retiring from the machine shop I used to challenge myself by putting the gauge blocks away trying to feel the comparative difference in size (and of course checking before committing to a slot). Our bodies are capable of fantastic things. Beautiful accomplishments at chasing down perfect tuning and making delicious music of course being way up there.
Thanks for all you do Mike.
I made a promise to myself many years ( 55 years ) ago ... when I was struggling and couldn't get answers for what I felt should be readily available information; that I would open the flood gates to anyone who would listen. That was how my college classes started all those years ago ... here on this channel I am just carrying on that tradition. My students would leave all of their baggage outside the classroom door .... when they entered the "Church of Guitarcheology" ... and I'd watch a kid with an orange mohawk tats and ear-loops .... side by side with a retired police sergeant ... in complete unison .. ...ogling a vintage Tele .. Lol !! By the 3rd class I could go start a baseball team with a class of total strangers .... Ha ! Life is so fleeting ... we have to keep on giving while we have something to give. Cheers Brother... please stay safe. MMcC
Right on!
Way Cool Junior !
Sounds beautiful nice job!
Thanks for listening. MMcC
I respect the skills....iam more of a player than a luthier/builder(although i have build quite a few guitars from scratch) and installed stainless steel frets in all my other guitars,cut nuts for them and all that jazz but i need so much time in order to make sure things are just right while you do it very naturally and easily assess the situation at hand....i just wish more people understood how much difference a good tech makes to even the humblest of guitars and instead of spending obscene amount of money on overpriced upgrades they should invest a bit of cash to a tech like you to dial their instrument into perfection....
Thanks for all those excellent videos of yours...
Greetings from Greece.
Thank you for that heartfelt reply ... as I get closer to retirement ... the wife and I plan to spend some time in Greece to escape the Canadian winters ... Lol ! Who knows ... maybe we will meet one day ... Blessings. Michael
Love watching your videos. It's so relaxing and educational. I love learning from you!! What compound and polish do you use on the frets and do you you sell it? Thanks for everything!
You can buy the bars of compound at most auto supply places. The die grinder that you see me use is a 110 degree angle on the handle .... the buffing pad was $5 at the local surplus store. Most of what I use is
vernacular" stuff that you can readily find. The TechDeck is the only "specialized " tool I use. I am delighted that I have inspired you ! Stay safe ... play lots of guitar ! MMcC
Excellent technique to go about getting the guitar just right. It should be go-to for all techs, new and experienced.
Only thing I thought doesn't really make a difference is the wiggle in the tom/stop bar posts. Once under tension, it's not like they will move if you do crazy bends and it's not a bigsby or les trem equipped axe either to have a means of putting it under low tension by dives.
Now maybe the overall transmission surface/mass could suffer a bit, but not sure how much. Replaced the posts/inserts along with bridge assembly in a similarly wiggly SG and honestly put back the originals after noticing was no real difference in resonance/feel.
I know they can always be replaced by more "proper" ABM/other good hardware so it's not really a big deal.
Just something that increases costs to have it like it deserves.
The nut stuff is, instead, quite a thing.
Thanks for showing this off, really interesting to watch and learn!
Also, this seems a very good copy if a bit unassuming and less fancy than others.
Thanks for chiming in Apocapsile. Stay tuned ;^ ) .... I've got an EA 345 coming up ... wait until you see the "slop" in those bridge posts !! Whew ! Cheers , MMcC
I feel like I'm having a beer in the shop with my uncle teaching me the family trade 😁
This can be pretty thirsty work. An ice-cold Tuborg Gold has been known to graze my workbench from time to time !
I was going to get that guitar.but after that.i will go to plane b get a Jackson. great job 😎
FYI: After it was all said and done... it really is a killer guitar !
Nice guitar man I wanted one at 17 years old
Once this was dialed in ..... Whew !
ESP Makes a killer Explorer style guitar.... MX 250 I believe.. " Metal Chugger " :)
ua-cam.com/video/o9jn6LKFgeY/v-deo.html. ua-cam.com/video/TNjWuZ2LNvo/v-deo.html
i have this guitar and i just changed the strings today and adjusted the action, and now the bottom three strings’ intonations are off and i’ve been adjusting them and it’s not working. what do i do?
Compensated Nut and full calibration for the string gauge and tuning that you've settled on.
One thing that surprises me is when dressing the frets you do not use a machined beam that has been machined to the correct radius of the fingerboard with stuck on various grit papers to ensure you get a radius correct the whole way down. There is no doubting your unbelievable ability to get the guitars into perfect intonation and tune. But I am still not understanding how or why a compensated nut works verses a standard "properly" cut nut.
Hi Chris. I have 100's of videos that address your questions. Here are a couple more. Qua-cam.com/video/KYdhVuyi7aQ/v-deo.html
Just an inquiry...
Is it ok to re-crown the frets without levelling?
Some of my guitar frets are bit worn out. The rest are fine though.
Thanks for the advise.
Hmmm ? Difficult to answer without actually seeing .... but if there is a lot of wear in the first 5 or 6 frets ... it may be worth considering a partial refret.
@@StringTechWorkstations thanks for the reply. Fret wear is not yet severe at the moment. I only got fret crowns flattened because of string bending.
Awesome video. Can you ad a link to where you buy the straight edge? Thanks
I buy the one metre aluminum rule at my local surplus store. Are you local ?
@@StringTechWorkstations No, I'm in Los Angeles.
Oh OK. The company is ROK that makes these rules. Do you have a surplus stores nearby ? FYI: I have been making up some sets for my students 5 straight edges / 5 sanding blocks ( For fingerboard / correction levelling and radius ) / scrub block for dressing / and 5 vinyl fret guard pads. I don't advertise because these are done in very small quantities. $235.00 Let me know if you are interested. I'm fine either way. Cheers ... stay safe. MMcC mcconvilleguitars@gmail.com PayPal
Quick question, you never explained what you did to tighten up the bridge posts. What did you do to them? Thanks!
Bass post ... telfon tape / treble post aluminum tape.
@@StringTechWorkstations thanks!
Not sure I understand (just a newbie here)- I was under the impression that most guitar necks will bend somewhat with strings being tensioned; and the truss rod is there as an adjustable way to offset that tension. I can even see some tuning differences when a well tuned guitar is moved from playing position (i.e. vertical) to laying flat on a table (gravity acting). So I guess that "normal" (is it?) bending is not what you call "distorts or twist"? Else I would think it would always be wise to dress frets under string load? Or to put it differently: what was it that (with this particular guitar) made you give up dressing the frets the regular way? (For the rest: much appreciate your video's, and your willingness to share your vast experience!)
We all know how a truss rod works and how the neck is supposed to react. There are times when the lay of the neck distorts ( or has some type of helical "twist" ) under the string pressure. These are times where it requires you to dress the frets with the strings tuned to their regular pitch ( using the intended gauge of strings ).This allows you to circumvent the inconsistencies of the lay of the neck .... and take the material out of the crowns of the frets to ensure accuracy along the fretted string path. Hope this all makes sense. Cheers ... MMcC
@@StringTechWorkstations OK, thanks! So indeed it is about unusual, unexpected deformation of the neck (e.g. twisting), not simple, regular/linear bending of the neck under string tension. Much appreciated!
@@bobcuyt4675 Yes Bob. It's very unusual to find this kind of challenge .... but the point is ... it DOES pop up from time to time. Just to put it in perspective ... probably 1 in 50 fret dresses I may run into this challenge. This is exactly why I made this video. Cheers ! MMcC
This channel is quite a find! I also am new to it, and have subscribed. Are you accepting work on electrics if I were to need something done? Thank you. 🎸🔈🔉🔊
I am booked until Late Jan / early Feb at the moment. Are you local ( near Stratford Ontario Canada ) or are you shipping ? MMcC
So who in Southeast Florida has one of these TechDecks and has been trained by you? I'm in Fort Lauderdale.
There are definitely a few TechDecks in Florida. Other than watching my Patreon detailed videos .... I'm not sure if their is someone who had attended my classes. Jeff Rice is in Atlanta Georgia ..... he has been rocking' his TechDeck for years ... Hometown Guitar Repair.
@@StringTechWorkstations Thanx man. Finding a trustworthy guitar tech is a challenge. But anybody that uses your stuff is way trustworthy from what I can see.
Can this item be purchased in UK ?.
Which item are you referring to ?
Fretting Kits / Neck Surgery Kits / 16-Pack of Comp Nut Blanks / Bridge Slotting Jig / Radius Disc sander Conversion Kits for the Drill Press / TechDeck Workstations / both XLT + GPS Models are produced locally in small quantities, and have been shipped World-Wide over the last 15 years. You'll find all of these items @ : stringtech.net or mcconvilleguitars.blogspot.com/
Great presentation, but you never addressed the wobble on the bridge studs.
They were wrapped in teflon tape, to tighten them up.
@@StringTechWorkstations You're kidding!! That's how I've always fixed that issue. I was under the impression that there was something new I never tried. Thanks for the reply!
@@alexdeleon7135 The only note of caution is when the teflon tape interrupts the connection to the bridge ground wire. In this case I will see aluminum tape for that one post.
@@StringTechWorkstations agreed
If that’s an epiphone 2020 explorer, that would have been a graph tech nut and not plastic.
Your right Tyler ... it was a Chinese version of a graph tech nut. The comp nut is Corian.
Mike, I think you should have played at least one Metallica riff.
Lol ! Ya your right ... I've gotta buy a dirt-box and crank it up \m/ !
Been a great deal of music made with no 135000 dollar pleck maching, Some Luthiers know how to make guitars play correct.
No doubt about it. The point I was making is that plenty of TechDeck owners are accomplishing the same task without dishing out $135,000.