Plek

[phragle]

Anybody have any experience?? I know Sweetwater does it and its not too bad of a drive for me...

I have an Indo SL3X that I got used for a nice price, in mint condition, but it has never played right..I have meesed with the setup to no avail. I do have a good local guy, Larry Wagner that has done my stuff before, but Im thinking of trying something different.

Is the whole Plek thing all its made out to be?

[Nightbat]

To this day I still don't know wtf a "plek" is
For all I can find it somehow shakes your frets to the correct height, shrinks the trem springs to the astronomically correct diameter, and turns you into a god without crossing the streams

[Axewielder]

[MountainDog]

I have a few guitars that have gone through the plek process, including a G&L. These guitars play great, but no better than my USA or Mexico made charvels or jacksons, or my many other guitars from other manufacturers that haven't gone thru a Plek machine. Would it help a guitar/neck that needs a lot of help?, definitely. Would I spend the $ to do it on an Indonesian guitar, probably not. I believe the Plek process is $250+, so it would depend on the price Sweetwater is charging and if spending what it costs is worth it to you on your guitar. I note sweetwater doesn't show a price, but says to call them. Gibson started pleking many years ago, but it didn't result in a lot of positive comments on the internet, and some thoughts that maybe Gibson was not doing it exactly correct. So in the right hands, with setting the guitar in the machine correctly and then checking the final result 'by hand', then it is a very good tool. Doing it quickly, just trusting the machine and throwing some strings on it without a good tech/luthier verifying it could be a waste of $.

[MountainDog]

I forgot to add this:

https://youtu.be/DlE7PmTMHUQ

[xenophobe]

If your guitar has issues that a regular fret level can't correct and you want to keep it, a plek will definitely do the trick.

At some point my ESP custom developed a very minor but complex warp that a fret level wouldn't fix. This was some time before I bought it. It was pretty minor but enough to drive me nuts. You couldn't see it, but tweaking the truss and bridge only made the buzzing wander from one area of the neck to the other. I sent it off to get plek'd and it's now as amazing as it should be.

It'll do wonders for a guitar that needs it, but won't do much for a guitar that doesn't.