Guitarded

I have been thinking about a new guitar for almost a year now. I don't have an acquisition problem or anything -- I have the same electric for over two decades. I guess when you find something that works, you don't mess with it.

The problem is that the frets are worn out, seriously worn out. In the late fifties, Gibson put low flat frets on a black Les Paul Custom issuing two terms into the guitar vernacular: Black Beauty (the guitar), and Fretless Wonders (those frets). Twenty years later, they were still doing it. In 1985, when I bought the guitar (used, of course), there was slight wear on a few of the frets, no big deal.

Add twenty years of weekly playing and you have a guitar that is on the verge of being unplayable. It is on every fret between the 1st and 15th. I guess I am an equal opportunity player and don't stay in one location. (The fact is, due to a problem with the nut on the 4th and 3rd strings, I stopped playing in the "open" position a dozen years ago.) So, now you might be thinking that I am a neglectful player.

I am in the process of looking for a luthier for the refret job. I will also have this person (I should just say "he," they are all guys from what I have seen) cut a new nut - probably from bone. Finally, I need the fretboard planed around the 16th fret (a common problem with mass-produced guitars with set necks - a hump or spatula develops).

It is hard to find a luthier. Few have web pages, and the ones that do look like web pages from the mid-1990s. Many that are on the web seem a little proud of themselves. In fact, it is common for them to write things like "I have refretted 5,000 guitars in my life, so you might want to think that I know what I am talking about..." or "no one cuts fret slots like I do, in fact they don't even know that poor fret jobs can compress the fretboard and backbow the neck..." I saw stuff like that everywhere. Some say they put a dab of glue in the fret slot, and others say only ham-fisted luthiers do this. Others say that they retain the binding nubs on Les Paul necks, and others say that players who want this are "dips."

So, it might take a while to get a conversation going with an area luthier and work out a price. I hope it costs less than $500.

You might think that $500 goes an awful lot towards a new guitar. But this guitar turned 27 years old last week (January 11 - it was the 76th guitar off the line that day in Nashville). From the information in this paragraph only, some guitards could tell you the exact serial number of my instrument. I have after-market pickups (SH-55s) that are nice and understated (not DiMarzio or anything).

I have been playing other guitars because I am considering medium or medium-jumbo frets. So, this makes me think about adding a second guitar. But what do I get? That's another blog entry entirely.
--gh