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Very cool Bob.........except for the Rik - I hate Riks....

I'm a huge fan of black guitars, especially electric and I have a 2012 black HSS strat that I'm still trying to get used to. It came with .060" high frets and I absolutely hated them so I cut them down to about half of that and am liking the ax a lot more now.

Did I ever tell you guys the story about the Rik 12 string that a client insisted was restrung incorrectly? Long story short Rik handles the courses in an opposite manner from the rest of the planet.... Their truss rods suck too but because John, Paul, Ringo, and George used them folks want them. Go figure....

Cool ax collection Bob, thanks for sharing.

Yea I love black guitars also, nothing more sexy than an all black Strat (in my opinion). I actually love Ric's... There is no other guitar that has that jangly 60's vibe. And with the stereo output I know of no other guitar that can create 2 sounds at the same time. I bought that guitar new and it was a real beast to play but after taking the frets and the action down it was a nice player. As I said that was an old picture and I have since sold it but I keep my eyes open for a short scale 12 string which is what I really want in my collection.

Getting back on topic....

I think it is much more critical on an electric to use a long file or beam to level the frets than on an acoustic. It is a bit ironic because I almost exclusively do acoustics now days but when I was doing electrics all the time I only used files to level frets. I didn't make my level/beam until I was doing acoustics.

But for extremely low action on electrics (which is my preference) it is important to make sure you get frets dead level.

Cheers,
Bob

Hesh I'm looking forward to your treatise on fretwork. I personally will be tuned in thanks.


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I use long(ish) leveling blocks made in-house with two sided tape and sandpaper. I've used files in the past but I developed nice handles for the blocks and find that good ergonomics helps quite a bit when doing precision handwork like fret leveling.

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