Re: help! frets too high? Bridge too low? Colombian mandolin
Checking just to find uneven frets isn't particularly difficult. Way back, I cut an old steel ruler into various lengths that can be rocked across 3 frets at a time to find out who's high or low. It's done almost more by feel, and hearing the clicks, than it is by sight. The actual leveling you might leave to a pro.
Stewart-MacDonald now makes a "fret rocker" that does the same job a bit more eloquently, and more expensively. I DO recommend looking up the Stew-Mac tool as they give some good hints as to what you're looking for. Apply that knowledge to, oh let's say, an old cut-up ruler?
(Just looked, and here's Stew-Mac's: http://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools...et_Rocker.html
Sort of hate to say it, but folks on eBay are selling knock-offs for way cheaper.)
For a real understanding, Rob Meldrum's on-request set-up e-book should be most helpful (just ask via PM to Café member "Robster", I think). There's also Frets.com for how to handle all sorts of related issues.
- Ed
"Then one day we weren't as young as before
Our mistakes weren't quite so easy to undo
But by all those roads, my friend, we've travelled down
I'm a better man for just the knowin' of you."
- Ian Tyson
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