This Ibanez came in for it’s first setup after the customer bought it used. There was a little bit of everything needed to make it just right but the main issue that stood out were the rough frets which you could hear the string scraping against during vibrato and bends. Not pleasant!

The level of them wasn’t bad at all so I didn’t want to appreciably effect the height of the frets, only smooth off the scratches on top. I went for P1000 grit to do most of the heavy lifting – I could have gotten away with P800, as most probably would, but I tend to lean towards starting at a slightly finer grit than most would and making up for it with a bit of elbow grease. I find there’s less chance of overdoing it and keeping the micro abbrasions as small as possible helps to get a nice shine at the end. After the P1000 I also did a quick pass over each fret with some P1500 before polishing them up with the steel wool.

Setup wise, the truss was tightened up a touch, the saddles lowered and radiused and the nut slots were set a little lower across all strings,  a little more on the treble side than the bass.

After picking this up the customer text saying the difference was incredible and it had allowed him to barre his first F chord. That’s a milestone in every guitarists journey and it’s genuinely quite fulfilling to know that I’ve helped him reach it.

I do love this job!