About Me

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Location: Los Angeles, California, United States

I have been a Los Angeles City firefighter for 20 years. I work in the Glassell Park section of Los Angeles. In 1985-1986 I worked for Charvel/Jackson in Glendora, California. It was a great experience, regardless of it being just a $5.00 an hour job. I worked in the wood shop and did the inlaying and fretting. I did get to see Neal Schon, from Journey, in one of his videos use a guitar I worked on and fretted. That was over 23 years ago. I was watching MTV with my cousin when I saw the guitar. I said, "Jim, look, I made that guitar." "And how much did they pay you...?" he asked. "Five dollar an hour" I told him. "Five dollars?...that's it?" Then he changed the channel. Making only $5.00 per hour puts things into perspective. But it still was fun. Now, it's just simple tools and equipment. It ain't perfect, but it is fun.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Fret cutting problem

Today I was to fret the guitar, but had a problem with the fret nipper I bought. I hadn't done a fret-over-binding guitar before. I went through four feet of wire and couldn't get it right. The nipper came apart when a "c" clip came off. Maybe that was a factor in the frets getting cut way too short. The tang was getting removed along with part of the fret crown. I need to wait for new fret wire from LMI (lots this time) and an exchange of the nipper from Stew-Mac. I only ever did fretting where you filed the frets along the fingerboard edge and used binding along the edge, then scraped the binding to follow the fret contour. I'll get the mahogany Tele going some more as I wait for the parts to arrive. Be back in about a week.

posted by Mike Perez | 9:15 PM

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