PLEK process change at Gibson

[phoenix 7]

Originally Posted by scott

First off I love the look of Gibson guitars. They have a certain vibe and I can see why people love them so much.
However, You guys are arguing about the wrong subject.
The biggest problem with Gibson is their neck building routine.
They dont allow enough time bettween steps for the wood to settle and relieve all of its internal stresses. Then they fret the fretboard BEFORE THEY GLUE IT TO THE NECK......This alone boggles my mind. This is by far the absolute worst way to build a neck. Wood moves after its carved, wood moves just from having glue on it. The fretboard should be glued on then leveled BEFORE the frets are installed. This is just common sense. And if they pleck them before they are finished that leaves even more room for a shity fret job. Raw Mahogany is suseptible to movement without a finish on it, it needs a hard finish to protect it from the elements. Thats why you dont see many raw Mahogany necks IMO. If you plek a turd all you have is a pleked turd. I know one particular repair man who pays his mortage every month re-pleking Gibson guitars. No kidding.

I bought my R8 in 2005. Neck and set up were perfect when I bought it. It has never needed a tweak or adjustment - ever.

[lkft]

All I know is that I have a 2010 R9 VOS and the action, fretwork, setup is phenominal out of the box...it's obvious to me that whatever they did to the process...it's working.

[Husky]

Originally Posted by MichaelK

What do they actually cost and how many did Gibson buy?

It really depends on the current exchange rate. a Plek Pro will be over $100K and less than $150 in the ballpark. They do have a less expensive model. The exchange rate can be all over the place and there are many options. For instance we still use real strings for tension but they have other options for a quicker throughput. Our Plek also cuts the nut slots and they have new options for leveling fingerboards and cutting fret slots. The way we use the machine though it actually takes much longer than a standard hand done fret dress. The worth to me is no guess work, you can program in your preferred curve and relief as well as dial in Radius, the Plek is a very powerful tool. It will identify issues such as a loose fret and any strange behavior of the neck when used for followups since the original curve can be pulled up and compared. You can also get an instant view of how and where the truss rod is working. That is the reason we have a "plek number" every guitar is stored in to the system. I was the biggest skeptic in the world until I worked with our first Plek for a few years, we just purchased our second Pro to keep up with the Rasmus guitars. No of course it can second guess wood that hasn't been properly seasoned but either can any other method. I still say the best analogy is surgery that is exploratory or using the newest advances in technology.