Official Luthiers Forum!

Recently learned about these Plek machines.

As primarily a guitar repairer does this mean i am beginning to be replaced by a machine?!


Does anyone have more info on them?

http://www.plek.com/en_US/home/


anyone experienced a finished product?



Slightly scared,
Jack!

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Ive run this same post through a few at TDPRI and Basschat put i wondered if anyone here has any input?

General consensus seems to be that they're not amazing and you can achieve just as good if not better results by hand and save thousands of pounds...


Jack

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Stringed instrument Set up and Repair based in Manchester - UK
http://www.jacksinstrumenservices.com

Hello,
I do small repairs and setups for Best Buy, where we have a few Les Pauls that have been "Pleked". It's effectively a gimmick, near as I can tell. I can see how it can do an amazingly better job than a person, but the wood will move so much throughout the course of even 6 months, the benefits from that kind of precision are lost.

I've had to do fretwork on both of those guitars due to changes in the wood from shipping to Colorado. If you plan on having a machine in your shop, it's expensive as any cnc gear can be, but effective at doing the work for you to free up time.

As far as being a threat, I doubt it. The cost is prohibitive for most repairmen, and I've found that everyone I talk to about it as a selling point for the guitars have no idea what it is. If you do a good job by hand, and charge fair prices, I doubt it'll even come up.

Cheers,
Kyle.

I doubt many shops could afford this machine. This seems to be a machine that can only do one thing. Frets. It wouldn't be something i would buy. Now a CNC machines has man uses in the shop. I see maybe a use in large production factories though. I think the average repairman job is safe for now. That until the Star Trek replicators are built then we will all be out of a job.

Wow, what a gizmo. How much do they cost? Maybe Lance should call them about being a forum sponsor..........

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It's not the miles ahead, it's the stone in your shoe


In Markham,Virginia

Gibson is using them, at least on their new Dusk Tiger robo-guitar......

http://www2.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/Les-Paul/Gibson-USA/Dusk-Tiger/Body.aspx

_________________
It's not the miles ahead, it's the stone in your shoe


In Markham,Virginia

I guess Gibson is using there 6 machines on more then the tiger guitar. So are a lot of other people.
http://www.plek.com/en_US/referenzen/produktion/

You gotta love the hype on the Gibson site:

"the expert craftsmen at Gibson USA carve out carefully mapped-out chambers in the body using a CNC router"

Could be worse...you should see what they'll do without one! (there's a thread on the MIMF about massive scallops left on their fretboards by the guy running them through the shaper)

_________________
Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

The Plek machines require a high level of fretwork skill to get the best out of the machine.
The machine will make recommendations but the skill and intuition of the operator is still the best set of tools in the shop, after all the tech or luthier still must interpret what the player needs.
The new top of the line machines are about $165K and will cut a nut ,level a problem fretboard, etc... but most of the folks that I know use them for "fretwork only" most of the time, relying on the hard won skills developed over the years to fix the beastly jobs.

One other benefit of using Plek machines is an accurate record of the state of a guitar in measurable terms. Using the stats generated by the machine you can identify and fix subtle problems even if you tweak things up by hand in the end.

Have no fear of being replaced if you do quality work.
Who knows, the really whacked time eating jobs may go to the Plek boys ,leaving you time to do more of the quick and profitable jobs with the saved hours.
It may be a blessing in the end.