Yes. The PLEK job on my Conklin did a fantastic job cutting the nut. But the luthier who owned the PLEK machine used a Dremel and tiny buffing wheel to put the final finish on the cut frets. Bass did come away absolutely amazing.
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Plekking a fretless?
- Thread starter AudioDwebe
- Start date
Yes. The PLEK job on my Conklin did a fantastic job cutting the nut. But the luthier who owned the PLEK machine used a Dremel and tiny buffing wheel to put the final finish on the cut frets. Bass did come away absolutely amazing.
Turnaround
Commercial User
With the neck jig, you replicate the neck's geometry by putting the instrument into the jig with strings tuned to pitch and set the jig dials so that you can replicate the geometry with the strings off. Once the strings are removed, you adjust the neck so that it measures exactly the same as when the strings were on. So it's a pretty good way to go about it, and darned accurate if used properly.
But I prefer the method I use, along with some other professional techs, of performing the levelling with the strings on. It's been years since I ran across this method and I really can't remember who originated it. But it quickly became my preferred method when only a modest amount of levelling is required.
Would you explain (or point to an explanation) of leveling with the strings on? I can't imagine how that is done and my curiosity is killing me.
I know it's an old thread, but I've just had my fretless StingRay Plekked and the result is astounding. Perfect radius end to end. Every note rings with the same tone and growl and responds to technique (eg mwah on demand, sliding harmonics, etc) in exactly the same way. In the pic below you can actually read the music in the reflection.
OK, some clarification. Strictly speaking, Plek is concerned with frets, but the machine is also capable of high accuracy planing and nut profiling, which is what I had done, followed by hand finishing. Overall, probably now the best fingerboard I've ever played on.
OK, some clarification. Strictly speaking, Plek is concerned with frets, but the machine is also capable of high accuracy planing and nut profiling, which is what I had done, followed by hand finishing. Overall, probably now the best fingerboard I've ever played on.
I have to be in London a couple of times for work in the next few months, and one is probably a half day. Is this a "while you wait" service or would I need to leave an instrument there for a while? I'll try ruining it myself, er, doing some more work on it, first.
You will need to leave it there, up to a couple of weeks. They will ship back to you UK for about £25.
LOL.
I've been 'ruining' my own fingerboards for years, and doing a passable job, but this is on another planet. Take most fretless basses. There are 'zones' where some characteristics are more prominent than others and some things just don't happen. For example, mwah-free zones and growl zones, bright zones amd so on. Now take all of those characteristics and merge them into one giant pallette where any and all of those colours can be produced from anywhere on the fingerboard...
I think you should put your sandpaper back in the shed and pick up the phone..
Indeed. I have one fretless that is spot on (that was professionally replaned), one that is my cheapo jam session Harley Benton, that is almost perfect (and out of the box, too). It's the last one, with TI Jazz rounds on it that has somewhat excessive growl and I've tinkered with. That should tell me something... Maybe I just have too many.
Too many? Never! I'm up to 3 fretless now. I had planned on letting the Corvette go to part-fund the Ray but, well you know how it is. The other has 30 years of memories tied up in it - too many to give it up. Then there's the fretted Ray34 which has no backup (and is a monster in its own right) so that's going nowhere.
