fretboard Archives | Szeryk Guitar Academy

This is another case of a guitar that has been constantly played, and on the road for almost 20 years! A main axe since 1996. After 3 fret levels the frets were worn down really low and it was time for this 1992 Yamaha Pacifica 1421 to under go some major surgery; a fretboard overhaul.

The old frets were carefully pulled. Fretboard completely levelled and sanded/polished to 12,000 grit, and new Stainless Steel Frets were installed. The new fret wire was meticulously polished and now resembles 24 pieces of stainless steel jewellery.

The finished result is an incredably responsive guitar that plays effortlessly! 10 gauge strings bend like 9’s, and the sustain is phenomenal.

A lot of modifications have been done to this guitar over the years. Most notably an early 80’s Floyd Rose system with 375 gram tone block were added. Direct mount EMG 85, SV and 89 pickups, and custom electronics.

This guitar sounds HUGE and has sustain for days!!

1992 Yamaha Pacifica 1421 – Fretboard Overhaul and Refret

After many years of playing and being on the road this 2001 Custom PRS McCarty was in need of new frets, which were worn right down, and no further re-leveling could be done…

One of the qualities of the guitar was the 10″ radius. To achieve bends higher than a whole step the action had to be on the higher side, especially on the B and high E string. So a slight re-radius of the fretboard was done. With the inlays only being 1/16″ thick we couldn’t get too aggressive with flattening out the fret board so a 12″ radius was chosen. Next was the right fret wire. We went with Jascar stainless .055″ wide by .095″ high. To flatten the radius out a bit more we levelled the tops of the frets to a 14″ radius. Both the fretboard and frets were sanded to a 12,000 grit. The frets were also polished beyond 12,000 grit and we were left with 22 pieces of stainless steel jewlrey… Pickups were taken apart and split for coil splitting. The nut was made from scratch with a custom string spacing. Custom electronics were push/push full bypass on the vol pot (500k) and push/push coil tap on the tone pot(500k). Sozo cap was used for the passive tone circuit. A new nut was also fabricated from scratch.

The end result is a guitar where if you wanted to you could set it up with micro action of 1/64″ at highest frets, perfectly straight truss rod and have no buzzing on any fret with light to medium attack. The strings bend effortlessly on the frets and 10 gauge strings bend like 9’s. The tone of the guitar is super sweet yet tight and ballsy with massive sustain. The push/push pots with full bypass and coil splitting capabilities of the pickups ad a lot of new versatility to the guitar… One amazing guitar for sure in both playability and tone!

April 19 2014