PLEK question

[wodka]

I noticed Suhr and Heritage are now using a PLEK machine for fret dressing. Is this something TAG is considering as well? I haven't played a PLEK'd guitar yet, so I don't know how they differ. Just curious.

[joe1962]

The Plek sounds like a great idea, and I don't know if it's something Anderson is considering but I will say this: I've owned 7 Andersons so far and I have yet to find one that didn't have a perfect fret dress. I've owned several other high end guitars that had minor issues here and there. So either I've had really good luck or they really know what they are doing at TAG :)

[bruce]

Anderson uses humans to do perfect fret jobs. Why spend gobs of money to have a robot do it? You can't ask a robot how it's weekend was or what's for lunch, can you?

[Stys]

Nothing beats the human touch. Perhaps these other manufacturers wish to boost production? If this is the case, more production, machines and less human touch will equal quality issues.

[Stan Malinowski]

I have Suhr Classic which was recently built and used the PLEK machine for fret leveling. While the PLEK does produce a nice job I personally do not see (more properly) feel any appreciable difference between them and the fret jobs done by Tom, Bruce & Company on my Andersons.

Given the choice of a fret job done by a skilled human or one done on a PLEK, I would choose the human touch.

[dpeterson]

it's just like the cnc debate.... some say let the machine do the drudge work.. but pretty soon you wont need any humans. heck prs has a robot buffing machine.

so if tom got a plek machine and robot buffer, he could run the whole show ;)

Dave

[tom]

there are several issues here for me. the plek concept is "whatever is wrong with the neck, we'll fix it in the fret dress". i spoke to one plek user, and he said, we put in giant frets, and then dress them to whereever we need to to make it play. that was a paraphrase, but i think it captures the mentality. this is not a slam, it's just not my approach. in concept, the plek should do a great job at making a level playing surface., especially if you have a questionable wood surface to start with. i am not convinced the machine can hold the tolerance it says, but that is not really the issue. if this machine could sand a perfect fingerboard radius on the wood i'd be all ears. that is where a great playing neck starts. rather the plek fixes what you could not do right in the first place. with frets installed nicely on a great fingerboard surface, leveling the frets is not the hardest part of our fret job, it is the tratment to the fingerboard and fret ends. continue below

[tom]

continued. the lerning curve is long to get to the fret job we do. i could understand getting a machine that could do the whole job if it could do it the way we do. the plek does not do the whole job, so it does not make sense for us.
volume is another issue. robot buffing makes total sense to me if you are doing the numbers that prs or others are doing. we have one guy. tino, who polishes all our guitars. i have to do, or try to do his job when he is on vacation. i can barely do half of what he does in a day. if he were to get hit by a truck, i would have to really rethink how many guitars we would make. he is one in a million. it is a very hard, physically demanding job and would be perfect for a robot if cost was managable. there is no question that a cnc machine can rout better cavities in wood that a human with a pin router, so that's a no brainer to me. i am still not convinced that the plek can do a better job than a well trained caring craftsman. this may be a paul bunyan tale, but i would still put our neck with dave, bruce, charles or iain's fret work up against plek any day.

[michaelomiya]

Originally posted by tom
this may be a paul bunyan tale, but i would still put our neck with dave, bruce, charles or iain's fret work up against plek any day.

yeah, you and which Blue OX?;) :D

I'll attest to Tino's, Charle's, and Bruce's ability to KICK A$$ on any and all TAG's that I've had the pleasure of owning and playing. Consistency and the highest build-quality around - uncontested.

tom, it's just this kind of pragmatic, logical and rational kind of thinking that has rocked the foundation of the very industry you helped to create. TAG's build-quality, consistency and tone have caused others to stand-up and take notice. IMHO, TAG's are considered the hallmark of the guitar industry, a benchmark against all others should be measured.

Don't believe me? Why have all of the Gibson's, FMIC's, ESP's, Schecter's, Charvel's (now FMIC), Peavey's, Ibanez's, PRS's (private stock), et.al., created a "custom shop" brand? Because when you manufacture 800 axes in a week or a month, QC suffers. You've gotta "plek" all your frets! Were these "custom shops" around in the 80's? I know that Ibanez had one here in N. Hollywood in the late 80's, ESP was originally a custom shop in Japan.....

My point is that all of these large manufacturers are measuring their guitars as "products", as "units of output". That's fine. However, when I lay out $2K, I want an instrument, NOT something off an assembly line, that only took 1 hour and 28 minutes to manufacture.

In the minds of the discriminating player (defined as someone who appreciates the time and the attention to detail) TAG will always be the on a very, very "short list" of builders.

[King Cobra]

Originally posted by michaelomiya
yeah, you and which Blue OX?;) :D

I'll attest to Tino's, Charle's, and Bruce's ability to KICK A$$ on any and all TAG's that I've had the pleasure of owning and playing. Consistency and the highest build-quality around - uncontested.

tom, it's just this kind of pragmatic, logical and rational kind of thinking that has rocked the foundation of the very industry you helped to create. TAG's build-quality, consistency and tone have caused others to stand-up and take notice. IMHO, TAG's are considered the hallmark of the guitar industry, a benchmark against all others should be measured.

Don't believe me? Why have all of the Gibson's, FMIC's, ESP's, Schecter's, Charvel's (now FMIC), Peavey's, Ibanez's, PRS's (private stock), et.al., created a "custom shop" brand? Because when you manufacture 800 axes in a week or a month, QC suffers. You've gotta "plek" all your frets! Were these "custom shops" around in the 80's? I know that Ibanez had one here in N. Hollywood in the late 80's, ESP was originally a custom shop in Japan.....

My point is that all of these large manufacturers are measuring their guitars as "products", as "units of output". That's fine. However, when I lay out $2K, I want an instrument, NOT something off an assembly line, that only took 1 hour and 28 minutes to manufacture.

In the minds of the discriminating player (defined as someone who appreciates the time and the attention to detail) TAG will always be the on a very, very "short list" of builders.

+1

I'm new To Anderson and after 17 yrs of guitar playing and basically just a working man weekend player......I never considered myself a "Cork Sniffer" guitar player. Basically if it stayed in tune and I could wipe beer off of it it was cool. :p But the minute I played this Cobra.......probably the second..............I could see , hear and most importanly FEEL the difference . I'm hooked and my playing is at a whole new level. I hear it from everyone I play with and even my wife is impressed...........and you don't know how hard that is to do!!!!

[Stan Malinowski]

I could see , hear and most importanly FEEL the difference . I'm hooked and my playing is at a whole new level.

I am even afraid to tell King Cobra about the stainless steel frets on the later Andersons, it could cause his to have a MASSIVE GAS attack!!! :D