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Did you devise this method yourself, or possibly read it somewhere? It seems to be a very innovative way, as you state, to rough out the slot depths very quickly. So you caught that in my username, huh? I was down at the other (southern) end for about 40 years. Many years at UConn completing a doctoral degree (in philosophy ugh!). UConn started becoming great in BB right about the time I was leaving (back in those days, UConn was good only in soccer, it seems won a national championship one year). Then 5 years in TX, about 15 here in CA and now headed back to the east coast later this week for semi-retirement in FL! . |
#62
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I feel compelled to post a final installment on this thread in order to inform anyone who had been following it how the saga ended.
Until less than a week ago, I lived in Roseville, California about a two-and-a-half hour drive from Gryphon Stringed Instruments (where one can find Frank :-) ). I had gotten the action down at the first fret to the desired clearance by sanding the bone nut a bit. It happened the way that it usually does: initially, I was very cautious, so I did not take down nearly enough, and the clearance remained a bit too high. Then, on a subsequent string change, I become impatient, so I took down too much. Once again, this is how things like this normally transpire for me. :-) I was able to rectify the situation by putting on a piece of gorilla tape as a shim, so everything was working fine. But I didn't like all of that "buffer" material between the nut and the headstock (the wood shim, the gorilla tape), so, alas, I traveled down to Frank's place of employment, and placed the guitar in the hands of the master (or possibly I should write, "in the hands of one of the masters who post on this forum"). I can tell you this: Frank is not only a master of his craft, but he's also a prince of a guy. He pointed out a string spacing issue on the nut (which I hadn't even noticed), so he dug out the shim (also took off the gorilla tape :-) ) and replaced the nut. I have a 1 3/4" nut with the string spacing for a 1 11/16" nut, and I like to have more of the "pinched in" clearance on the high E side (lazy fretting hand, I guess). Frank accommodated all of this perfectly for me. He also mentioned some scratches near the nut on the headstock. I confessed: "Yes, that was me when I was trying to sand down the shim in a not-too-careful manner." I remember that he said something like, "Maybe I can take care of that for you." Well, he did a very nice job with that (I no longer have to put a thin piece of black striping tape across the headstock at the top of the nut :-) ). And he would take no more than their standard charge for replacing a nut ($90) when, in fact, he did so much more than this. (The person at the counter would not take more than this either -- just wouldn't.) I would post pictures, but I'm traveling across the country to Florida, working simply with my iPhone. One further point: I noticed later that day (when playing the guitar) that Frank also repaired another area on my headstock where I had nicked the finish during a string change. (I have been changing strings on a weekly basis for about 6 months.) Once again, no charge. I'd love to work in Frank's shop as an intern for about a month or so (for free -- of course!) in order to become reasonably grounded in these skills. Thanks, Frank! . |