Anyone know what a PLEK machine costs?

[guitarcapo]

I think it would be just easier to travel to various guitar shops every 2 weeks and pickup up the guitars and take them to a shop. No set up. Hell if you got big enough they could just ship you the guitars.

[leftyDaveZ]

From what I hear they run about a 100K.

[csm]

So assuming you buy one, find premises and get the training necessary to be able to use it properly, how many jobs will you have to do before you start showing a profit?

[Jim_Soloway]

I love the idea of having one set up to travel. A vehicle like a Dodge/Freightliner Sprinter would easily be big enough to set one up and still have sufficient work space. I think if you did a bit of research, you'd be able to hook up a network with builders, stores and repair shops around the country quite easily. It does take some expertise, but my understanding is that the manufacturer does provide training.

 

And as for the notion that they aren't rugged enough for travel, it can't be all that fragile. The manufacturer brings one to the NAMM show every year and runs it on the show floor doing real work with it. With the appropriate shock prevention setup, I would think it could be made to work.

[olgluefoot]

so what happens when one of those machines goes apeshit and eats your guitar neck like a tape in a VCR? I imagine id have some nasty words for the machine operator.

 

but yes, a traveling PLEK sounds like a cool idea..

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

I would think it could be made to work.

 

By it's very nature, the "shock prevention" mechanism could render it unstable enough to be accurate. Indeed it could be transported and set up on a solid base, but I think even the shock absorption in a motor vehicle would mean that movement of the vehicle with people in it would make a nonsense of any precision. But you could write to PLEK and ask them:D

[Jim_Soloway]

By it's very nature, the "shock prevention" mechanism could render it unstable enough to be accurate. Indeed it could be transported and set up on a solid base, but I think even the shock absorption in a motor vehicle would mean that movement of the vehicle with people in it would make a nonsense of any precision. But you could write to PLEK and ask them:D

 

I think the idea of local Plek clinics is compelling enough that even if it the transport simply took the system to a temporary rented space for a few days at a time, it could still be profitable.

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

I think the idea of local Plek clinics is compelling enough that even if it the transport simply took the system to a temporary rented space for a few days at a time, it could still be profitable.

 

That would be the way to go, however build in the initial cost, plus a suitable vehicle and travel costs and could it ever be profitable?

[Jim_Soloway]

That would be the way to go, however build in the initial cost, plus a suitable vehicle and travel costs and could it ever be profitable?

 

At $200 per job (which is less than the going rate), it could gross $1000 per day fairly easily. Include travel time and you're probably at $4000 gross per week for say 40 weeks a year. That's $160,000 per year. Deduct expenses and you're not going to be fabulously wealthy, but you'd do all right.

 

EDIT I suppose the real question would be is there enough demand to do 800 Plek jobs per year? I think the answer would be yes, but I tend to be an opptimist.

[mielkea]

Man, I'd work through all my guitars if there was someone close doing PLEKs - I couldn't spring $200 for 25 guitars all at once, but over a year or two, I'd do them all (if PLEKKING is as amazing as folks make it sound.)

 

AM

[guitarcapo]

Does it grind frets or actually rework the fretboard itself? If it's the latter you'll probably have to refret after its done its job. If it's the former I think it would eat up a lot of the guitar's fret life.

[atrox]

Does it grind frets or actually rework the fretboard itself? If it's the latter you'll probably have to refret after its done its job. If it's the former I think it would eat up a lot of the guitar's fret life.

 

 

former.

 

A proper level doesn't take much (My levels are typically 3 or 4 strokes) and I'd bet a Plek would be more efficient than a human. It wouldn't even be noticeable. In fact, I have played a couple Plek'ed guitars and they look brand new.

[Bruce Bennett]

Of course, this will be a priority consideration. Unless the PLEK people say it can be subjected to the stress of being transported, I'm sure my friend would not plan to drive it around. It was a question we had, not a conclusion we'd reached. OTOH, some laser equipment is surprisingly sturdy. After all, there are laser-guided bombs, DVD players made for automobiles, and so forth.

 

ha ha ha .. Classic case of faulty logic.. or lack of information about how things "Actually" work.

 

bombs are made for one time use only and if they screw up it's not worried about. they just launch another one.

 

and CD/DVD players for autos have special circuitry that creates a delay in the playback just so the player has time to "compare" data before it's played so that any "skips" in the laser tracking can be compensated for.

 

which is not something you would want done while this machine is fileing on your frets.

[RoboPimp]

I own a plek'd guitar and I'd have to say that this process is a total waste of money.

[SweetPete]

>> I own a plek'd guitar and I'd have to say that this process is a total waste of money.

 

Interesting. I've had 3 of my guitars Plek'd, and they play outstanding. Cost for each, if I recall correctly, was $125.

[dcindc]

They cost thousands, but no where near 100 thousand. Like under 10 I think.

 

NOT movable like you are thinking.

 

Lead time measured in portions of years. I think it is like 1.5 years or more now.

 

Worth every penny that the machine, or the work, costs.

[jrockbridge]

Does it really matter how well the PLEK machine travels? I think not! As long as the damn think does something to the frets without snapping off the neck, you're in business!

 

Think about it. You travel around with this holy grail of machines, charging top dollar to tweak people's guitars. By they time they get their axe home and realize that the machine didn't do right, your on to the next town, and too far away to field any complaints. Brilliant!

 

[warriorpoet]

People here bitch about a $30 fee for complete setups, I don't think they'll shell out $200 for a PLEK, especially on their $99 Squier 51s.

You haven't been here much, have you?

[Pope on a Rope]

You haven't been here much, have you?

 

Sounds like he's spent lot's of time here.

[Aaron SS]

Seems to me like it could be just as profitable to have the machine stationary and network with stores as to a pickup/drop off system, ya?

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

They cost thousands, but no where near 100 thousand. Like under 10 I think. NOT movable like you are thinking. Lead time measured in portions of years. I think it is like 1.5 years or more now. Worth every penny that the machine, or the work, costs.

 

Hey DC:thu: Way more than 10k USD man, don't know an exact figure but I would have thought in the region of 25-30k USD. Christ man, it's 6kUSD for a top grade bandsaw:D

[CrackerD]

Yep. They were like a 100 G when they came out. Probably came down a bit, but I doupt 10 G.

 

It's a bit disappointing to drop 250 on a plek job, then have the tech tell you "I'll do your fret ends for 50 bucks extra"!!

 

 

 

However, it DOES work. If you like superslick action. If you like medium to high action, I would think a good setup would work fine. Plekking is one of those things you want to do a blindfold test on guitarists. Seeing as how everyone seems to be able to tell long neck tenons in Les Pauls by ear (on the net of course), I'd be curious how many could tell a good fret job from a Plek job!

 

[guitarcapo]

Personally I think a fretboard needs to have a compound radius to play the best. I just don't see how a Plek treatment can achieve this without shaving off some frets to the tang. The way I see it the strings are converging from the bridge to the nut. As such they lie closest against a CONE and not a CYLINDER.

Somebody needs to invent a machine that resurfaces the fingerboard to these dimensions and then guitar is refretted.

[jrockbridge]

PLEK sounds like a word that's just begging to be used as slang. For example: What the PLEK are you talking about you PLEKing moron! I don't give a PLEK what you say! You're PLEK'd in the head!

 

NOW PLEK OFF!!!!!!!!!

 

 

[Mind Riot]

Personally I think a fretboard needs to have a compound radius to play the best. I just don't see how a Plek treatment can achieve this without shaving off some frets to the tang. The way I see it the strings are converging from the bridge to the nut. As such they lie closest against a CONE and not a CYLINDER. Somebody needs to invent a machine that resurfaces the fingerboard to these dimensions and then guitar is refretted.

 

 

That may seem the case but it might not actually be so. Unless you're trying to put a tight compound radius into the frets themselves without touching the board, there really shouldn't be very much material removed either way.

 

Think of it like this: if you have a 12" radius board and you're going to get the frets leveled and you want them leveled like a compound radius board but you don't need the radius at the nut to be too far off like 7 1/2" or something, then the leveling procedure is fairly simple. You just use your leveler in the paths of the strings instead of keeping it parallel to the center of the neck like you would with a cylindrical board.

 

If you want to really change the radius then you would need to reradius the board and refret, but just leveling in the paths of the strings puts a slight compound radius into the frets themselves without touching the board and only a very slight amount of material needs to be removed to accomplish this. Luthiers and techs did this for years without realizing it's what they were doing, and there are a lot of older guitars out there with single radius boards and slightly compound radius frets from this kind of work.

 

When you think about it, if you level like a compound radius neck on a standard board then what you're really trying to do is establish a flat path on the fret tops under where each string lies. So if you think of a single radius board as being like a glass cylinder and the string as being a straight edge resting on that cylinder, the straight edge will only be in contact with the whole surface if it rests parallel to the center line of the cylinder. If it moves to one side or another, the ends are no longer contacting the glass and the straight edge rocks back and forth on the center.

 

Strings that are closer at the nut than they are at the bridge are like that off center straight edge. So to get the surface under them flat and true, all you need to remove is the small amount in the center of the cylinder that is making them rock, so to speak.

 

Picturing a water glass may make this seem like a lot, but on a cylinder with a radius as big as a fretboard it's really a tiny amount. In fact, according to one of Erlewine's books the amount you need to remove in the center when reradiusing a board to be compound can be as little as .003". I personally have always removed at least that much from the overall fret height on all the frets I've leveled, and on a normal modern fret that's .045" tall or higher losing .003", either overall from a normal leveling or a little extra in the middle to make them compound, is not a lot. And as I said, luthiers have been doing it for years with no ill effect.

 

This has nothing whatsoever to do with the PLEK machine, I just thought it was interesting. It's easy to think of a compound radius as being a really small, tight circle at the nut and flattening out to almost totally flat at the end of the board but in reality it's really a matter of thousandths of an inch.