I asked my son Cody to teach me part of a John Mayer song last night.

All three of my sons are gifted musically, thanks in part to some good DNA, I guess. Listening to Cody play guitar from the other room sounded like a dream ... almost made the room look foggy. And when he started singing, he sound like -- just like Mayer -- and then he put some overtones into his voice, widening or thickening the sound. This was all natural without any amplification or modification, so he was altering his voice the hard way, I guess...

It had been a long time since I'd copied another player's licks from a mirror image position. My son saw that I was having trouble picking it up, so he turned side-to-side, and I could pick up a little more. Then I started improvising way up on the strings. This seemed to put him in a competitive mode. He changed guitars from a Yamaha classical with a cedar top and beautiful tone to a Takamine steel string acoustic. He sounded great with either guitar, but had a little more wiggle room on the Takamine's longer neck. By that time, I was playing single notes with a wide vibrato, and the combination of the two guitars was magical.

I was using a yard sale special no-name student guitar ($5 -- put it back together yourself) with $20 strings. That guitar was singing, sustaining notes like I'd never heard before on any classical guitar. It sounded like a guitar that should be valued over $1,000 (although it didn't look like it!). I remember using hide-glue to put the bridge back so it would sustain more, but I sure didn't expect this.

There's an old saying: "A good guitar player can make even a poor guitar sound good." Sometimes, though, I really think that it is the guitar.

My working on guitars is mainly a means to an end. What I really like to do more than anything is to play them. I would really hate to have a job where I had to work on guitars constantly but never got to play 'em.

I've been playing this guitar the past few days. I like the fretboard radius and the general feel of the instrument. The intonation is off -- a lot -- and I've re-set it as close to right as I can by ear. The tremolo bridge has a slight angle five to ten degrees, I'd guess. The notes, both open string and fretted, have a slight buzzed or blurry sound, not ringing out clearly. I wonder if the buzz will go away if I level the bridge, or should I angle it backwards? I check the truss rod and notice that the neck is almost perfectly straight. I loosen it just a bit to give a slight relief. The notes still sound unclear, but I like the general feel of the guitar in spite of that. I also like the shade of the finish.

Right now the guitar has basically been restored at a simplistic level and looks pretty good. If I were just restoring this guitar, I would never do this, but I'm thinking of refretting it. (These frets are too skinny, anyway.) I'll spend some more time playing this guitar just to be sure that's what I want to do.

I replaced the nut yesterday. The Stew-Mac nut slotting gauge was a real help. It makes the cutting of slots go a lot faster. Since this is a temporary nut replacement, the strings were not lowered to their lowest position. I tend to keep them at least 0.030-inch above the first fret as a temporary measure. For this temporary nut, I used plastic.

I also purchased lacquer shade #28008, Ford Engine Red, by Model Master TM Custom Lacquer System, at Hobby Lobby to see if I can match the body paint color.

Back to work on the Aria Bud-Strat:

I installed the six-screw "vintage"-type bridge that I bought at Dallas Used Guitars. This bridge was a real deal; they sold me the bridge, saddles, claw, springs, and all the screws for only $10. I know this was just a loss-leader to get my attention, and it worked.

I strung up the guitar with the strings that came on it. It's pretty obvious now that the nut needs to be replaced, at least with a temporary one. For now, though, I just re-adjusted the radius of the bridge saddles to match the fretboard and balance the tremolo. I set the intonation and was ready to play.

THE PLEK MACHINE IN NORMAN, OKLAHOMA

I can tackle any kind of guitar repairs, but I'm not so good when it comes to dressing frets. To me, it's like when I trim my mustache: First a little off the left side, then a little off the right side, then back to the left side, and so on until there is practically no mustache left. With fret-dressing, I do a similar routine until the shiny new frets I just installed are filed down to nubs.

Well, this past week I got lucky. My wife, eldest son Chris, and I traveled to Norman, OK, so Chris could check out the University of Oklahoma Ph.D. physics program. While there, we got the chance to visit Norman Music Center, Inc. Norman Music Center features its very own PLEK machine. This PLEK machine is the only one around -- and I do mean the only one since the next closest ones, I'm told, are in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Nashville, Tennessee. Amazing!

What can I tell you about a PLEK machine? Well, it dresses frets... and it does it right the first time. According to the website http://www.plek.com/, the machine is a "computer controlled device that scans and dresses guitars under the actual playing conditions, strung and tuned to pitch."

Buying a PLEK machine must have been a big expense for the Norman Music Center to undertake. One of the store employees mentioned that they PLEK on average about 20 guitars per week, stating, "It pays for itself!" The store charges $175 piece rate per each guitar to be PLEKed. Figuring all the time and work involved, the customer gets a lot for the money. I don't know if $175 covers the actual work done, but it is obviously the going rate for PLEKing.

I had always visualized the PLEK machine doing all the work, but judging from the number of hand tools in the PLEK work area at the Norman Music Center, the machine operator does a lot of work, too. Larry Polk, the machine operator in Norman, demonstrated part of how the PLEK machine works. He showed me a PLEK- scan monitor view of a graph of all the frets and their string clearances, i.e., their variation from "straight." I told him that I'd similarly hand-measured the clearances on my guitars, entering the results on a Microsoft Excel graph, but then he showed me that his measurements followed each string lane/path on the fretboard, indicating the clearance from every string to every fret. Now, I surely didn't go that far! (I just did bass and treble sides to each general fret height, and -- Whew! -- that was a huge amount of work! Makes me tired just thinking about it.) I couldn't imagine myself doing all the work by hand that this PLEK machine does.

On a PLEK-scan of a guitar currently being PLEKed, Larry showed me how the fretboard originally had a giant forward bow. Just by adjusting the truss-rod, he cleared up the majority of problems. Incredible! The PLEK machine then levels each fret to a uniform clearance (straightness), all while the guitar is still strung and tuned to pitch. Larry said that guitars play beautifully after being PLEKed. I imagine they would!

The PLEK machine is such an enormously useful tool! Using this machine, the operator should be able to dress a fretboard better than any guitar technician or luthier. I was thrilled to get to see the famous PLEK machine and delighted to be able to visit about it with Larry Polk in Norman. You can see Larry's PLEK machine during business hours at the Norman Music Center, 317 W. Gray.

Reference for this article:

Norman Music Center, Inc.

317 W. Gray, Norman, OK

phone: (405) 321-8300

e-mail: larry@normanmusic.com

Preliminary work done on the Jackson Performer guitar I got in Waco a few weeks ago:

I repositioned the neck so that it is squarer with the guitar body. I had to shim it, drill pilot holes, and carefully tighten each of the screws, which took one hour. My goal was to adjust the neck so that there was exactly 4.0 mm space on each side of each of the "E" strings at the 22nd fret. So far, I have only been able to adjust the neck so that there is 3.5 mm of space on the bass side and 4.5 mm of space on the treble side. The low "E" string still seems to pop off the fretboard if I'm not careful, but otherwise the guitar plays great, although the action may still be a little high. I also tightened one strap button, added black color to the body to cover the scars and scrapes, and re-strung the guitar so that the strings are wound correctly.

Another post about my newly acquired Jackson Performer guitar, listing points of concern:

1. The screws and springs on the bridge are not consistent in length or thickness. This is impeding the intonation of this guitar. The bass string speaking length, for instance, needs to be lengthened to intone correctly, but the thickness and size of the spring will not allow the bridge insert to be moved further back.

2. Machines/Tuners: With the bottom half of the locking nut -- these types of Jackson tuners do not hold the angles of the strings low enough on the higher strings behind the nut, therefore losing sustain and tone. This guitar would probably look and sound best with modern black staggered tuners, which would tastefully solve this problem.

3. Electronics: One of the tone knobs is missing and should be replaced. Output jack, three-pots, and 5-pos switch and all wiring should be replaced. Control cavity should be shielded. The bridge pick-up magnet poles are not lined up with the string lanes, especially on the treble side. I may need to consider changing to rail-type pick-up for the bridge position. It might not hurt to upgrade all the electronics. I'm thinking three single-coil-sized humbuckers with split coils; upgraded pots, switch, and jack; shielded cavity; and safety ground.

4. Bridge: It would increase the sustain if the bridge/tone block was more solid/had more mass. It would be a significant improvement to upgrade the bridge and tone block. A trem-setter should be considered.

5. Strings: The light gauge strings now on the guitar may not provide enough mid-range tone. Maybe I should switch to a little heavier set of strings, at least try coated strings of maybe 9-42.

6. Finish: The cheap body finish does not seem consistent with the Jackson headstock finish. The Jackson logo is off-white in color, and the one-ply pickguard and pickup covers are bright white. I'm thinking of using the existing black finish, but adding some sort of sparkle and clear-coat. An easier option might be just to change the color of both pickguard and pickup covers to an off-white or black/gray sparkle/pearloid.

7. Strap Buttons: The two strap buttons are not consistent -- not the same in either style or color. They need to be replaced, and the screw holes need to be lengthened.

8. Frets: The fretboard itself seems fine, but the frets are dirty and should be polished.