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Can someone enlighten me? In my woeful ignorance, I've been doing fret jobs and setups for over 30 years WITHOUT a neck jig! Despite the fact that I have never had a dissatisfied customer, I have been told that I cannot perform a PERFECT fret job without paying Stew-Mac £230 + postage for four bits of wood, a few screws and a couple of dial gauges ....and a further £60 to British Customs, which I would bitterly resent! I know William Cumpiano is slightly scathing about neck jigs, I don't know what Frank Ford uses, but I don't think I have seen it mentioned in his pages.
The only advantage I can see is the "WOW!" factor, when the customer walks in the shop and thinks. "this guy's really hi-tec!". It pays to generate mystique!
Anyone care to set me straight?

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Keep your money in your pocket & keep doing what you have been Dave. If you like the Jig take a picture of it and tell your Customers this is how I set up your Guitar . Bill.""""""""""""""""""
I side with Bill. I'm always looking for better, quicker, surer ways of doing things and, every once in a great while, I fall prey to JIG ENVY. If you're still thinking about getting one of these in a few days, tell us. and Bill and I will organized an intervention. Just keep up the good work.

Bob
Know what you mean, Bob! I gues if I'd bought every jig I 'needed' I could wave goodbye to any profit margin!
As I see it, there are only two reasons for using a jig, accuracy and speed. I'm a great browser of catalogues, but usually for ideas..I've copied quite a few ides for jigs and tools and made them myself for a fraction of the price, but only where I see an absolute necessity for them. I can't see any difficulty in making a reasonable facsimile of a neck jig, but until now I haven't seen the need. But can anyone tell me in all honesty that it does a better job? or even that it does what it says? To simulate string tension, forces are applied at right angles to the neck, yet the string tension force operates at a few degrees from the fingerboard, exerting mostly compression on the neck with a small turning moment at the nut. How accurate can this 'simulation' be?
You could really impress your customers with your hi-tech savvy and send it out to have it PLEKed......Ah yeah, another overkill way to use a computer for something that can be done easier and less expensive the old way. Then again maybe I'm just a dinosaur.
Fascinating! Just had a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG4BOLlKOb4

It's a definite must-have ! So, let me see, if I did 2 full setups a day for a 5 day working week, let's say 2 weeks off for holidays, how many years would it take to break even on my investment?

I suppose it's good for achieving a quick an accurate initial setup when the guitar is new but 6 months down the line the guitar's going to need setting up again
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I guess it's the perfect device for someone needing to do several hundred setups a day. Kinda makes me feel like a caveman with olny my files, sanding blocks and a little steel wool.
Neck Jig tutorial with pic's
If anyone is interested here is a file I downloaded a few years ago. I never built it. At 68yrs old teach an old dog new tricks ??? Fred Riggen
Attachments:
No. The whole thing is overfussing.

Reading the back of the neck, to see what's going on with the fingerboard? Re-read Don Teeters' books.

I level with U-stock & PSA sandpaper, strings on, fingerboard as flat as it'll get.

Don't EVEN get me started, on, "plek"!
Really? I'd love to hear your opinion on PLEC or PLEK or whatever the correct way is. I have sort of a one article promoting it understanding of the process but I'm very suspicious of hi tech solutions to old tech problems.
Easy: Expensive, high-tech guitar repair snake oil.
Thanks to everybody for your opinions. Mostly my own feelings are confirmed, but I would have been interested to have heard from someone who used neck jigs and had positive experiences to report so that I had a balance.

Thanks also to Fred. The Matt Vinson link was very helpful; I may just build one as relatively cheap experiment. I could always re-use the dial indicators on other jigs if I decide to junk it!.
Jeffrey, I had been meaning for a long while to get Don Teeter's book on acoustic guitar maintenance, so I appreciate you giving me the impetus to get off my butt and order it!
The reason I am so concerned with this issue, which never troubled me before, is that a new guy has set up in town, offering 'super-accurate' setups with the aid of this jig. Whilst I have no worries about the loyalty of my current customers, this guy's advertising puts him in direct competition for new customers, especially the more tech-minded!
God, don't you just hate disruptive technology?

Bob

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