Plek or not to Plek that is the question, Central FL

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Old Guitar Player said:
Maybe I'm biased, but I totally agree with your friend. Good hand-cut fret work is generally more accurate than a PLEK computer cut (in my "old man" opinion). Also, Stainless Steel frets are a nightmare if you don't have the tools required to deal with metal that hard. I'd give SS a hard pass myself, even if I were 30 years younger and still working as a tech. No thanks... loll...
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The hard pass is not an option after playing well dressed SS. It is slippery and sweet as young tight poon...
 
Exo-metal said:
The hard pass is not an option after playing well dressed SS. It is slippery and sweet as young tight poon...
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Please, feel free to enjoy all the well dressed, slippery sweet, young tight SS poon you can!
Respectfully, I'll still pass. But, thank you very much for sharing. :cool:
 
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jharpersj said:
In my experience an exceptional tech can exceed what the plek can do for less money. I had it done once and my tech's fretwork was better on my other guitars. I still dug the plek job but if you have a great tech I would go that route
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Wish I had a good tech ?
 
I’m addicted to SS frets. Once leveled, crowned, dressed and polished - they are so much more durable than nickel that they play like the day they were dressed forever.
 
A Plek machine only levels the tops of the frets right? It doesn't go into all the other stuff that has to be done after leveling does it?
Getting the tops of frets level easiest part of doing a fret job IME....extruded aluminum radiused leveling/sanding beams have high tolerance end to end in deviation and does not take a large amount of time once you have a done it a bunch of times and have a routine down, I don't even know if leveling jigs with dial indicators are really worth it compared to a precise notched straight edge....all the real skill/labor in a proper fret job is crowning/dressing/polishing the frets.

Is it wrong to think Plek jobs are very over complicated and kind of sold on customers ignorance on what actually goes into a fret job?
Does anyone know what sort of grinding tool a Plek machine uses?

A caveat is I can understand their advantage in leveling for a compound radius.
 
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Laputan Machine said:
A Plek machine only levels the tops of the frets right? It doesn't go into all the other stuff that has to be done after leveling does it?
Getting the tops of frets level easiest part of doing a fret job IME....extruded aluminum radiused leveling/sanding beams have high tolerance end to end in deviation and does not take a large amount of time once you have a done it a bunch of times and have a routine down, I don't even know if leveling jigs with dial indicators are really worth it compared to a precise notched straight edge....all the real skill/labor in a proper fret job is crowning/dressing/polishing the frets.

Is it wrong to think Plek jobs are very over complicated and kind of sold on customers ignorance on what actually goes into a fret job?
Does anyone know what sort of grinding tool a Plek machine uses?

A caveat is I can understand their advantage in leveling for a compound radius.
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My understanding is that once your old frets are removed, a PLEK rig can re-surface, re-align and/or re-level your fingerboard to some extent. In the process it can compensate for slight neck irregularities. In addition to leveling and polishing and dressing your frets, and accurately cutting nut grooves.
 
Old Guitar Player said:
My understanding is that once your old frets are removed, a PLEK rig can re-surface, re-align and/or re-level your fingerboard to some extent. In the process it can compensate for slight neck irregularities. In addition to leveling and polishing and dressing your frets, and accurately cutting nut grooves.
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You are right- the Plek essentially takes care of leveling and most crowning in one step using grinding wheels (probably diamond) that have fret dome shaped into the wheel. I don't believe it can dress fret ends however. It looks like nut slots are done with two bits, so probably not the best tool for doing nuts (E, A D use one diameter bit to do all of them, G, B, E use another singular bit to do those). Maybe that's good enough however, although I associate too wide of a nut slot with sometimes odd noises up there.
 
Laputan Machine said:
You are right- the Plek essentially takes care of leveling and most crowning in one step using grinding wheels (probably diamond) that have fret dome shaped into the wheel. I don't believe it can dress fret ends however. It looks like nut slots are done with two bits, so probably not the best tool for doing nuts (E, A D use one diameter bit to do all of them, G, B, E use another singular bit to do those). Maybe that's good enough however, although I associate too wide of a nut slot with sometimes odd noises up there.
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Of course, I'm guessing a trained technician still needs to finish the job. There's still hand work required (final fret dressing, final nut cutting*, rolling the fingerboard, setting the final bridge height, making final intonation adjustments, and of course making the final truss rod adjustments). It's not like your guitar pops out of a PLEK rig, ready to gig with! For reference, at a Guitar factory that PLEKs, it's not the final step, it's just part of the final process. :cool:

*both of my factory PLEKKED guitars, and almost every "factory" guitar I've owned going back 50 years needed some nut adjustment. I swear they cut A's & D's HIGH on purpose! Maybe my preference for 9-42 strings is the issue, who's to say?
 
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couple the plek with some buzz feitin and you're off to the races.
 
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