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Monday, 28 November 2016

Jeremy's Mahogany Les Paul: Neck Re-radius and Re-fret

Hi ho everybody, I'm continuing my run of posts with an update on my Les Paul build for Jeremy over at http://guitargas.com. Unfortunately, with the build nearing the home straight, I somehow messed up the fret levelling and ended up with frets that were all over the place. I have subsequently found out that there was a very subtle twist in the neck that I could not see, but hey- no excuses pal!

Anyway, with the frets munged beyond repair (well, by me that is ;) ), I enlisted the help of luthier extraordinaire Dingobass at Pitbull Guitars to bring the neck back from the dead. I commissioned a fret replacement and sent the neck to WA for DB to work on. By the time DB received the neck, however, it was in an even worse state than even I could have put it in. Even with a metric fuckload of bubble wrap, good old Australia Post managed to break the corner off the fretboard. Grrrr - you fuckers!!!

Why Australia Post? Why do you suck so fucking hard??
To my relief, DB assured me that he could reverse this travesty and set to work weaving his magic on the fretboard. The results were nothing short of spectacular.



With a wave of his wand, DB restores the fretboard.
With the fretboard repaired to better then new, DB set about doing a re-fret, level and re-crown on the entire neck. The results speak for themselves. An infinitely better result than muggins here could achieve with his two hands full of thumbs. Thanks DB, you're the real deal and you saved my ass.

With DB's re-fret the fretboard looks superb!
With the neck back in my hot little hands, it was time to get it set and finally move ahead with this bad boy. With some Titebond, some clamps and some prayer (all hail the Flying Spagetti Monster) the neck was soon attached and the axe was finally looking like something.

It's a guitar Jim!
To be honest with you, I'm really loving how this baby is looking. This just could be my nicest looking build to date. I think Jeremy will be pleased (I hope so anyway). Hardware assembly is next on the list, so cross fingers for no more issues!

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