Official Luthiers Forum!

Josh,
I don't have a Plek machine, but I have had a few guitars "Pleked" by Joe Glaser in Nashville. I was very happy with the results. On the first one I had done, I was able to spend some time watching and talking as they hooked my guitar up to the machine, and made all the necessary adjustments and calculations. Even with the machine, there is still a considerable amount of time spent by a human operator, on each guitar.

But, the main thing in your situation is the cost analysis. If 200 guitars are produced annually, an employee would be required to do less than one manual fret dressing per day, to keep up with production. Hesh can chime in here on how much time it takes to do a complete fret dressing, manually. I have never kept up with the time, since I am usually working on my own vintage projects and before I retired, I did all the cost/time analysis in my day job that I ever want to do. These days, my cost/time analysis is something like: "Did I have fun doing it?" "Can I play it a while, and get my money back?" Not a very good model if you are trying to make a living. In my opinion, less than 1 unit per day would not come close to justifying the initial cost of the Plek. And, you can't eliminate the position that does the manual fret jobs, because you still need someone to run the Plek machine. The Plek would only be cost efficient in a very large volume factory, or in a repair shop that does several fret jobs per day. That is probably the case with the Glaser shop, since it is in Nashville, and we know that all "1352 guitar pickers in Nashville" want to "play as clean as mountain water".

James

Hey Trev - We don't make guitars and instead have a very busy three Luthier repair shop that has some unique capabilities from the special tooling that Dave Collins develops. As much as I wanted to entertain a guitar production effort I could not make the numbers work.

I spent 25 years in corporate America with most of it being with the largest manufacturer in history at the time and as such we all had to become efficiency experts..... studying Six Sigma, Demming, and of course "Lean" manufacturing. You know the stuff that after WWII the US discounted thinking that Demming was a Whack-job so we sent him to Japan to teach them how to manufacture. What resulted were the high quality products produced by the Hondas, Toyotas, etc. of Japan....

As such I'm always personally interested in start-ups and manufacturing concerns.

We purposefully avoided opening anything remotely resembling a music store. Mom and Pop music stores have been failing all over the US for some years now likely due to big box store and Internet competition. Folks these days often use brick and mortar stores as show rooms to try stuff out and then they whip out the IPhone and Google for a better price at Sweetwater, MF, or worse.... G*itar C*nter.... What results is the the Mom and Pop music stores fail and close down... And then we have the plethora of folks who wonder why the local store failed.... as they strum their Musician's Friend instrument that has never even been set-up beyond the very minor factory adjustments....

Anyway my interest here was two fold: First I believe that the accuracy of a Plek can be matched if not exceeded by a skilled repair person and second I wanted to throw some numbers out there to show that when one is a start-up they had better have Plek clients stacked up in a holding pattern like a major airport because the thing needs to be kept busy to pay for itself.

You also need a skilled operator so that no one tells the machine to eat itself.... Skilled operators cost $$ too.

We know a number of people who have them and were even offered an older one but we declined knowing as I do how the "demo" can stray from reality with technology at times.... There is an old joke about that but I'll spare you for now...

Great to see you back here too Trev!

Hi ya James!

We know Joe and I believe he has more than one Plek too.

Time to complete a fret dress? Well............. it depends.... It depends on if the instrument was originally manufactured to minimize set-up time by increased precision in the manufacturing steps. For example if boards are fretted off the instrument and then glued to the neck the fret dress time will likely be greater than if the board was leveled on the instrument and then it was fretted.

But If I had to commit to a time to do a fret dress on a new instrument that has been manufactured to be fairly close with the quality of the fret work an hour should be fine and half of that would not be unreasonable either. So use an hour to be safe and I completely agree with you that one Plek job daily will never justify the thing.

Which brings up another point. The folks who do make their business model work with a Plek have to keep the machine busy. No matter how many pickers there are in Nashville at some point you may run out of non-pleked-pickers (NPPs... ). What results is that you have to take in shipped in work. Shipped in work is a bit of a different animal and we personally discourage it for our situation. It forces one to be in the shipping and receiving and packing business and every single instrument shipped your way is also subjected to the risks of shipping - twice. There is box storage, accountability, packing, peanuts........... etc.

So please don't get me wrong a Plek is a fine machine and folks who have their stuff Pleked likely greatly benefit. But is it the only way to get to that level of precision set-up and fret work - no. Do current Plek prices to purchase the machine justify getting one - not for most..... Is a Plek not unlike a human in that it can be set-up to do very high precision work or the fewest possible passes, next? Yep.

No magic here and as much as I would love to play with a Plek too IMO you have to have some very special circumstances (and capitalization....) to make em work for you.

Hi James,

Thanks for the feedback.

I should have never given any numbers in regards to the idea I'm working on, but to clarify 200 annually is just a starting point. Also you guys who are familiar with the Plek, or have researched them know that they can do far more than frets. And also have significant value as an R&D tool. At this point I'm not going to put out any more details about the business model I'm considering. I could see a Plek fitting in nicely, but do understand the costs associated with one. You guys are right, it may not be worth it. All I want at this point is feedback from those who have some experience with it.

Thanks all.

_________________
Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

I believe Abe Wetcher (Pathmaker Guitars) had a Plek about $450000 annual, fewer than 10 employees. I know the business was moved from Paw Paw to Indiana a couple of years ago. I believe Abe sold the rights, not sure they are still in business.

_________________
Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Josh, they have one at SCGC. You could call Richard and talk to him about his experiences with the machine. I personally know they all love it there and think it is one of the best things they have done. Not that they ever had problems with set up before, their list of players speaks for itself, but the set ups are even better. Their volume is 3x what you are looking at, and they had most of that before they moved the Plek in. Different situation.
The machine is impressive. The cycle times aren't as fast as I thought they would, or could be. The accuracy is consistent, which is the key. You can set the machine and walk away and perform other tasks.

If you learn to fret well and the theory of the fret plane a skilled hand and that is the key A skilled hand can do as good a job as a plek. Martin had 3 running as now the operation no longer requires a skilled hand. It does save labor as one operator can load the 3 machines and not so many people fret leveling as in the past.

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Excellent video and thanks for posting it Murray.

There is a wealth of information in this video including if you noticed all fret work was being done on the guitar not the board off the guitar both with the human and the stinkin, soulless, m*chine....

The argument about carpel bicep.... and shrinkage (of the brain.......) that drudgery can lead to are new ones to me but good ones.

Most interesting is the strobe use to see what a string actually does impacting how and why we shape the board as an entire fret plane and never in issolation.

So not only will a PLEK, some PLEKs do the fret work but they can be saddle shapers and nut slot cutters as well. I'm going to add an additional "quality" to PLEK use and that is consistency across total production. Humans can have bad days, some more than others, and our requirements are a bit more complicated than some maintenance and electrons. We tend to be more uppty as well but that never happens here....

Fascinating machines, great use of technology by SCGC and others. Now enter the economics and how you make it work for you and pay for the thing..... That's a problem that PLEK has not solved by offering a Barbie starter PLEK that has a low price of entry.

Back to my carpel bicep...

Great video, I'd somehow missed that one.

_________________
Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

Great thread, thanks all. That machine is the goods.

_________________
It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I don't own one but I've operated one hundreds of times.

They do an excellent job. Load the guitar, let it scan, dial in what you want, press go and walk away. Come back 10 minutes later, and all that's left to do is really polish the frets. They are really, really nice. But the price tag is steep.

What it does in 10 minutes or less would take me an hour or more. But since I don't have the cash for that It's a leveling bar, sandpaper, files and rockers. In the end it plays just as well if I did my job right.

Just spent half the night researching PLEK....

Amazing machines but IMHO not without risk....

When considering a PLEK (or two..) one has to attempt to integrate the use of the machine into their own actual or anticipated work flow. More specifically what you want to do with a PLEK is important to consider and the requirements for repair shops and guitar manufacturing can be quite different and in reality are indeed quite different.

A PLEK PRO can do a lot of things such as cut nut slots, mill the fret slots and handle spacing, mill for fret board inlay, fret dress and crown the frets. The machine can also calculate and intonate a saddle and cut a saddle slot in the exact place that it should be.

The PRO is the most capable of the two offerings.

What a PLEK cannot do is install the frets, install nut blanks (it can mill the nut channel though), do the actual inlay work - it just mills the cavities, and it won't polish the frets.

I can see that for a manufacturer with the volume to support a PLEK that they could be a real boon and in the case of SCGC where a PLEK is used for it's inherent precision equating to real value for their clients it's a pretty cool solution.

In Gibson's case where what we see coming off the PLEK would have likely benefited from more time on the PLEK my take would be Gibson employs the PLEK to speed up production first... and for the precision second.... Not bashing Gibson but we repair guys talk and in this talk lots of us have been pretty disappointed with what we see coming off the machines at Gibson...

Back to PLEK: I've heard lots of rumors but they are rumors as to cost and it's not available on their site either. I never like when companies create a dependency on further hoops to jump though to get a simple, stinkin number...

It looks like they have been delivering PLEKS for about 14 years now and it took them 10 years to reach the 50 PLEKs sold number. That's 10 a year if averaged. It was 2004 IIRC before the very first US PLEK was delivered to Joe Glaser. Joe is also the US rep for PLEK.

Some concerns that I have are:

- Windows based technology.... not my favorite and I would have preferred either Linux or Unix over blue-screen-city windows
- Dependency on the mothership (PLEK in Germany) for maintenance and support of the software
- Hard wired ethernet only at present and justified as a reliability move. Not sure that I would agree with today's MTBF numbers for WiFi
- Proprietary technology meaning that if something happens to the mother ship in Germany PLEK owners and users are SOL
- Not sure but from what I can tell it does not install frets leaving this to we human bags of mostly water....
- PLEKs are not polishers either (that explains why Gibson stuff looks terrible with visible milling lines, etc.)
- Modular design so if you want to add nut slot cutting it's a capability that gets turned on by the mother ship when additionally licensed
- PLEK looks like a pretty small company and nothing against small beans concerns but this dependency on them for maintenance, support, upgrades, parts, knowledge base, and the data base too makes a PLEK user intimately linked to the future success of the company PLEK for better or worse. If PLEK goes teats up you can kiss your PLEK machine good bye in so much as these are likely pretty support intensive. Of course someone could step in and assume the licenses but that would take time, be disruptive, may cost users more, etc. In short if PLEK ever fails as a company any investment in their technology would likely be bad news for licensees.
- Because of the above statement I tried with the very little information available to estimate PLEKs annual sales in an effort to see how stress proof they might be. From 2001 to 2011 they sold their first 50 machines. Using an average price per average machine that I pulled out of my.... that I estimated just now.... I can see PLEK being a $5M company these days but again this is an estimate on my part.

For repair shops what we need to do may be very different.

For refrets the frets have to be removed and a human has to do this since a PLEK won't. A Plek can level the board likely although don't quote me on this I did not find it on their site.... The new frets have to be installed and the ends clipped - the PLEK does not do this either.

What the PLEK will do in the repair world is dress the frets. All instruments are different and on average the leveling and recrowning part may take me a hour manually, PLEK likely 10 minutes.

Then the ends are shaped into a pleasing shape, I suspect the PLEK will do this but did not find it on their site either.... And then we polish. Polishing can be a 20 minute thing with sandpaper and done manually. PLEKs don't polish so no time savings here. We have a machine that Dave invented that automates fret polishing and brings them to a super high shine in 3 - 5 minutes with me, less with Dave.

Just in the fretting area alone I really only see the time savings from a PLEK being in the leveling and recrowning tasks. All other tasks I still have to do manually. Not saying this is not an improvement but just how many periods of saving 50 minutes a day do we have to do to justify the cost of entry being north of six figures....

For manufacturers it looks like the PLEK is much more likely to be able to be justified price wise by the labor cost savings AND the value add of the precision that the machines impart to the PLEKed products. Nonetheless it also looks to me as if a small manufacture would struggle with the justification for licensing a PLEK.

It's very cool technology, I want one (but don't wanna pay for one.... ) and I do see the very existence of PLEK raising the bar in the trade for what precision fret work actually is.

But again I don't see a level of accuracy that cannot be matched by a skilled human which is no surprise with any processor based tech in so much as they really and usually only shine in terms of the speed that they operate tirelessly doing iteration after iteration with no need to go pee or have coffee. Not sure if the pee word is permitted on the forum or not either...

I'd like to know more and I'm inclined to contact Joe Glaser in the future but I also know full well that a PLEK is very likely not in our future because of the costs. As such I don't want to lead anyone, especially Joe, on that we are fully qualified prospects for the machine because we are not. It would be interesting to know more though so if I pursue this and find out more I will update the forum.

Lastly being an old business puke I tried as I would to get some financials on PLEK and they don't seem to exist. Must be privately held or I'm just not savvy enough with getting information on German companies. But again the financial stability of PLEK is absolutely key to any consideration of their wares in my view. This is high-technology and as such likely pretty support intensive making the machine only as good as the stability of the company behind it.

huh...just saw the Youtube video from SCGC on Plek...

skipping all of the decrease in actual physical labor, what I find intriguing is the concept of allowing for the actual waveform created by a plucked string and by doing so getting the 'lowest' action possible...

I do know from some advanced math that a plucked string is a VERY complex waveform that while on the surface may defy 'logic' in reality is quite logical...

fully used I can see where Plek would be quite beneficial (and contrary to another comment, NOT duplicatable by human hands)...in such a case I don't think it would be the time saver as 'advertised', rather an involved process of analysis of an individuals playing style and optimizing the frets (and fretboard) to that person's parameters...

since I haven't done the analysis Hesh has, I can't clearly make the following statement, but here goes:

I'm not sure how being 'proprietary' makes a life stopping problem...logically it should only limit ongoing updates to databases of styles that can make the actual modeling easier/quicker...the machine should still work without any updates, though certainly be 'limited' by lack of inclusion of new data. at some point the amount of data on playing styles should reach a plateau and be very effective irregardless of any new data entered. eh...just the ramblings of an idiot who has had enough math/science to be 'dangerous'...roflmao.

Hi ya Mike:

The problem with licensing or purchasing complex technology that in time might be unsupported if the developer perishes is that it may be and often is that at least for a while parts are not available, support such as bugs in code etc. have no one to address them, etc. It's also a given that there is no guarantee that any other company with the means to support the products would want to pick up the PLEK business.

I have no reason to believe that PLEK is not a healthy company and this should be said. But the health of PLEK as sure as a heart attack was likely very much on the minds of Richard Hover and others who licensed the technology. I would not be surprised if prospective clients wanted a limited view of the books either - I most certainly would and this is not an unusual request in the world of technology and big ticket items.

What makes it even more risky is when the technology is expensive hence upping the degree of risk.

In companies, and this happens far more than folks might think, whom ever advocated a purchase that is pricey and important and if in short order that technology becomes "unsupported" they often lose their job.

This is such a well known issue in technology and corporations that a little known company called IBM had a saying that they promoted for a couple of decades now that goes like this: "You will never lose your job by purchasing IBM..."

It's part of their FUD "fear, uncertainty, and doubt" model of marketing. Scare folks your way... It's also by definition "negative" selling which is often if not always not a very good idea in my view because it creates trust issues for the entire industry. But who am I to argue with IBM....

PLEKs are complex, expensive, and very much capable of additional things beyond leveling frets. As such my take remains that a PLEK is ultimately only as good as the stability of the company behind it.

Hesh I think your concerns are justified but do you think you would ever be able to find a highly sophisticated, very specialized machine for a very small market without all of these issues?

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Hesh, you can always lease one.
My take on them is I think they are the coolest new tool for fretwork since the diamond crown file. I want one in the same way as I want a Ferrari with a supermodel n the passenger seat; really badly and impossible. To paraphrase glazer, a plek in the hands of someone who knows how to do fretwork is an amazing tool, in the hands of an idiot, not so much ( Gibson).
I know fret work is the ride of many luthiers, so a machine that can do it can be a threat to your ego as a crafts person, but if the work flow is there to justify the cost, a plek is a good option.

Hey Kevin!

Not likely and good point. As such folks who tend to embrace technology have to know in advance that it is not without risks.

My consideration of things such as the stability of the developer of a product does not in it'self mean that I'm not willing to take that risk either. But it is a consideration, six figure purchases for Lutherie shops are not a common thing by any means... and one would want to proceed carefully I'm sure.

Truth be told I want a PLEK but I also don't want to tank the business to get one. Justifying AND paying for a PLEK is very much something that may not work for everyone....

Then again they are pretty cool....

Happy Holidays Sam!

I completely agree on all counts.

Now where do I find that supermodel?

Seriously I am interested in learning more such as lease costs and terms but I also suspect that we would not be able to justify a PLEK and still be able to eat and wine and dine that supermodel.... Granted supermodels likely don't eat much but one must be prepared anyway....

I contacted Plek for pricing info and they got back to me in less than 24 hours. If any of you guys are interested in finding out more just send them an email.

_________________
Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

Interesting podcast on the Fretboard Journal site featuring TJ Thompson talking about his PLEK machine.

The whole interview is worth a listen, but to hear the segment where he talks about the PLEK, pull the slider to 35 mins in.

http://www.fretboardjournal.com/podcast ... j-thompson

Thanks for posting. Great interview!

_________________
Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

Thank you, Hesh, for your clear eyed analysis. Reality isn't popular in our country, and I usually find myself biting my tongue so as not to say what you said.

I'm an attorney by trade, and I have spent the last 20 years mostly helping small businesses of all types from B&B's to snowboard manufacturers to shrimp farmers. A big part of what I do is help with a business plan, and I don't mean those glossy marketing pieces people prepare to convince their uncle to put money in their venture. I mean the kind of no BS financial analysis you helped outline. Unfortunately, in this day and age, most small businesses don't work. In fact, those of us professionals who made a living by helping small businesses are on the way out as well.

I love building guitars. It has been an obsession since I built my first one ten years ago. Yet, try as I might, I cannot make the numbers work. As the American middle class disappears, people able and willing to purchase craft made goods diminishes. Even working musicians can't justify paying more than $500 at CG for a Chinese made POS. That leaves only the new oligarchs. They can afford a $30K Somogyi or a $25K Benedetto without blinking. These guitars have become the craft guitar as a status symbol for players who will rarely take the guitar down from a wall. The in-between is disappearing.

You can't tap into Charles Fox's market simply by investing in a Plek machine. I suspect that there are craftsmen that can make a timepiece twice as good as a Rolex (however that would be measured) for half the price. Unfortunately, being $5K instead of $10K makes no difference to someone who wants a Rolex. Pepe Romero makes VERY beautiful classical guitars, but he is in his 30's. He has a 6 month waiting list and starts his guitars at $10K. I am sure others make just as nice or nicer guitars who have no waiting list at $3500. Thing is, if you can afford $10K+ for a guitar, you want people to say you are playing a Romero. Maybe his uncles' talent will rub off on the guy buying his guitar? At least it is good cocktail party fodder.

Again, thank you Hesh. Maybe if we all were more candid in this way we could begin to find solutions. For what its worth, I believe craftsmanship is a way of life worth preserving. We shouldn't all have to work in corporate cubicles.

Fascinating interview and thanks for posting it Murray!

Some notable highlights that I seized upon - TJ calls a PLEK a "game changer" and goes on to say that the little game that some uppty players play, "out smart out fox your Luthier...." etc. is a real thing in his world... ours too.

Most of all though what TJ seems to benefit from the most besides that great work that a PLEK can do is the ability to truly quantify the differences by having hard measurements (from a PLEK scan) of how the thing came in the door compared to how the thing is set-up in the post PLEK world. Priceless if only to shut up the know it alls.....

And really most of all - as we all saw professional standards or the term professional standards may mean very different things to different folks.... an understatement....

Those of us who deal with the public frequently and do lots of repair work, fret work, etc. our would may be a bit different from the solitary Luthier who has very limited client contact and may not do high volume repair work. We run into these folks who are often some of the better players and can be pretty demanding as well.

The challenge is always to weed though the plethora of snake oil that permeates the trade trying to understand and truly understand what is critical to quality (CTQs) for this specific client, propose a plan to meet or exceed these now defined and agreed to goals, and then in the words of the great Jean Luk Piccard..... Make It So....

Builders may never encounter these sorts, these very demanding players who have experienced fret board nirvana prior and like a junkie searching for the next fix are hell bent on getting back there. They know what they want, often are pretty talented, and not so often in my experience being unreasonable but instead simply wanting something similar to what they believe that they once had.

Hard to please - yes, unreasonable - at times, nuts - maybe but I' nuts too so what's it matter....

TJ finds that PLEK can at least for a while shut these guys up and give em what they want and that this is all good because to those who benefit it represents real........ value. Value might be the single most important word in the trade too..... regardless of if one builds, repairs, etc. Value can be objectively measured, tone can not....

I still believe that a PLEK cannot do what is impossible for a skilled human to do and after all the PLEK is in fact a human creation and all of the algorithms and code were at some point envisioned and created by we human bags of mostly water anyway. But a PLEK can do this all day over and over again with nary a complaint or request for a raise, pee break, etc.

Now who wants to give me $100K so I can get the Mr. T starter set PLEK?

Great interview!