Guildedagain
Enlightened Member
Plecking machines, that's what we are. But what the heck is PLEK you say? In case you don't already know, it's one of those crazy CNC machines you stick the whole guitar in (strung or unstrung?) that analyzes everything that's wrong with the frets and massages everything until nirvana is achieved.
Enter my latest idea, using elbow grease and your strings to do the job.
This will probably ruin your strings so plan on changing them, or wait until that time to do this.
It dawned on me some part of the finger boards are barely worn in or still not worn in enough to be totally smooth, the wood isn't worn much or even polished from playing. Just when you go to play there, and it's not as smooth as it could, like the feel of a 50yr old Strat neck, like butter. So why not speed up the process and get it as smooth as it could be, silky smooth.
Put the guitar down on a work surface, support the neck as needed, stand or lean over the guitar to be able to apply more down pressure, determine what areas could use a bit more wear and polish and with a polishing cloth (old T shirt cotton is best) grab a couple strings at the desired areas and with both hands, go back and forth with light, moderate or even heavy pressure, like bending double stops, until you feel it smoothing out. B/G/E string can be worked toward the bass side at the same time, but I prefer to feel the B/G by themselves because they're so frequently bent together. Don't bear down over the frets, concentrate on the areas where where you actually play and bend a lot.
You can work the E strings around the edges - wood and frets - to roll them like years of playing does. 0000 steel wool can do a nice job of smoothing the edges and on fret boards in general, best done outside with the neck off the guitar. If it's a set neck, protect the pickups and electronics from steel wool fragments, which actually caused a friend of mine's Les Paul to completely malfunction on a gig years ago, all kinds of weird shorting out and on stage he couldn't tell what the hell was going on...
There's an audible difference in the amount of drag before and after. You can go on as needed until your fingers are quite sore.
You're basically smoothing and polishing the wood with the strings and the cloth at the same time, and if you get extreme with the pressure, you can the string scraping away some wood in just certain spots, obviously as needed I imagine this is how fingerboards get kind of scalloped over time, strings gliding over the wood, wearing it down and polishing it.
It's like playing twenty years of blues in 20 minutes.
Enter my latest idea, using elbow grease and your strings to do the job.
This will probably ruin your strings so plan on changing them, or wait until that time to do this.
It dawned on me some part of the finger boards are barely worn in or still not worn in enough to be totally smooth, the wood isn't worn much or even polished from playing. Just when you go to play there, and it's not as smooth as it could, like the feel of a 50yr old Strat neck, like butter. So why not speed up the process and get it as smooth as it could be, silky smooth.
Put the guitar down on a work surface, support the neck as needed, stand or lean over the guitar to be able to apply more down pressure, determine what areas could use a bit more wear and polish and with a polishing cloth (old T shirt cotton is best) grab a couple strings at the desired areas and with both hands, go back and forth with light, moderate or even heavy pressure, like bending double stops, until you feel it smoothing out. B/G/E string can be worked toward the bass side at the same time, but I prefer to feel the B/G by themselves because they're so frequently bent together. Don't bear down over the frets, concentrate on the areas where where you actually play and bend a lot.
You can work the E strings around the edges - wood and frets - to roll them like years of playing does. 0000 steel wool can do a nice job of smoothing the edges and on fret boards in general, best done outside with the neck off the guitar. If it's a set neck, protect the pickups and electronics from steel wool fragments, which actually caused a friend of mine's Les Paul to completely malfunction on a gig years ago, all kinds of weird shorting out and on stage he couldn't tell what the hell was going on...
There's an audible difference in the amount of drag before and after. You can go on as needed until your fingers are quite sore.
You're basically smoothing and polishing the wood with the strings and the cloth at the same time, and if you get extreme with the pressure, you can the string scraping away some wood in just certain spots, obviously as needed I imagine this is how fingerboards get kind of scalloped over time, strings gliding over the wood, wearing it down and polishing it.
It's like playing twenty years of blues in 20 minutes.
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Takes the gloss off the lacquer along with any sticky tendencies. I round the fretboard edges too with a combo of the same steel wool plus fine sandpaper. Just enough to make the neck feel comfy.
