After a taking a long hiatus from playing (15 years), over the last year I've slowly been gearing back up. As I'm on a very limited budget, I've been forced to shop for budget used instruments and gear, often getting 'fixer uppers' and applying Blood, Sweat & Tears to make them better playing & sounding.
I was a string instrument repair-person (luthier) 25 years ago, so I have skills. I've come across a very ingenious product, and after trying it for myself, thought I would pass a review on to GT forum users. Any that are good with a file, and have done a fret dress before, might want to check it out.
One of my new (to me) purchases, a used Ibanez s-470 off of Ebay, had a problem neck. With no string tension on the neck, a truss rod adjustment could get the fretboard relatively level, but after a fret dress with a large mill file, the same area of the neck (fret 7-11 on the g, b, and e strings) would still be low and fret out. After puzzling over it, I found that this area wasn't responding normally under string tension. I could loosen or tighten the truss rod, yet this area just didn't seem to be affected. What to do?
After looking all over the internet at neck replacements (very pricey option for a bound neck) and used necks on ebay, I came across this tool. The website is called Rectify-Master, and the tool is called the Katana. It allows you to do a fret dress under string tension, but with a big difference!
Stewart McDonald and others sell jigs for doing a fret dress under simulated string tension. The method doesn't take into account neck relief. In other words, you dress the frets, then loosen the truss rod to get the slight relief needed for the guitar to properly play. They were also very tweaky, very expensive, and only approximated the neck under string tension.
The Katana was very different. You adjusted neck relief first, set the tool up to that fret relief, and actually dressed the frets with the strings on. As I had two guitars that needed dressing, I decided to purchase and try it out.
As an experiment, I started with using the Katana on a very cheap used Ibanez GIO guitar. It originally played terribly, but I had done a partial fret dress (no crowning) just to get it playable to practice with. Cheap one piece neck, lowest I could set it up was with neck relief at about .0234 to .03125"
(1.5 to 2/64ths). Action was still pretty high and notes squeeky above the 12th fret, but it played a lot better than when I got it.
Ibanez-Rules site (http://www.ibanezrules.com/tech/setup/index.htm) is a great place to go if you need specs and set up guidance for Ibanez guitars. Their recommendation for proper neck relief was somewhere
between .00787 to .0118" (.2 and .3mm). Using the Katana as shown on their video ( http://rectifymaster.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=96&Itemid=80) (sorry, it's not translated, but you can get the full gist from the video), I was able to get neck relief down to .008", action to 2.5/64 ( .039") on high e string and 4/64 (.0625") on low e string. This cheap GIO plays like butter now! I can do full three fret bends!
Tool comes with enough self stick 320 sandpaper to do two recharges (I needed to do one replacement to finish the fret level). Also come with a littlebone crowning file (does one side of a fret at a time, straight 45 degree angle, not a true "crown"). I prefer a fret crowning file, but that takes much more skill to use. I would also recommend that if your frets aren't actually glued down, do so (stew mac supplies, cynacrolate glue and micro pipets here http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Glues,_adhesives/Stewart-MacDonald_Super_Glues/Super_Glue.html and here http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Glues,_adhesives/Supplies:_Applicators,_syringes/Pipettes.html ). Stew-Mac is a great source for guitar tools.
If any one needs a pointer or two on using this fret dress system, post here and I'll try and talk you through it.
Haven't started on the other guitar yet, take a week or two before I schedule time for it, but I am really impressed with this tool.
If you've ever done a fret dress before, try this out. Could really improve the playability of your guitar!!!
