kahuna

Kahuna, drop it.

You've made your point, the kit worked for you. Fine.

However, your point is rebutted by several. extremely experienced guitar builders/technicians, and rather than continue to argue with them, perhaps you should consider *why* they think the system is flawed, and weigh this against the relative quality and expense of the alternatives. Once you do, you'll find there is *nothing* to commend the Thomas & Ginex system. The fact is worked for you is largely irrelevant when balanced against the potential for it doing damage, and the fact that a better system can be assembled for less than the purchase price of the T&G product.

Anyway, if this thread continues in the direction it's been heading, it'll be closed. This forum is for intelligent discussion of guitar building and modification, not for childish circular arguements. Everyone has established their respectiive positions, if you have nothing new to add be big enough to let you arguement stand on it's merits, and walk away.

God? Is that you God? Hey, do what you've gotta do, whoever you are. People keep ragging on me, I keep responding.

And by the way, experienced by what standard? The net is full of wanna be's and pretenders.

You seem awfully sure of that. The thread history, visible for all, shows a different story. :-/

Well professor, if we look back, my first post does something few have done...I answered the asked question. Then I posted that I didn't get the "Snotty Attitudes", really not directly insulting anyone, simply I wasn't a fan of "The Snotty Attitudes". Woodenspoke responded by calling me an idiot...game on. Still with me? Still sure who started the name calling?

Neither here nor there...a bunch of people passing judgment on something they've NEVER USED...STOP THE PRESSES.

If you were smart, you would spend more time trying to find a used Erlewine 'Fret Basics' video for sale than defending a little square of metal with some pieces of sandpaper, selling for over $20.00.

See, now I wont waste my time arguing who is smarter or who's dick is bigger, very boring. I actually own several of Dan Erlwine's works mein fuhrer. And I'm not so much defending this kit as I am exposing you closed minded, tight assed geeks for what you are. Remember, I didn't start the name calling in this thread

Great system. Requires little skill, but lots of luck. Too bad one has no idea when they start doing it, if they have enough luck on hand.

The Ronco 'Shot in the dark' fret leveling system.

Order today and we'll include a full set of peel and stick glow in the dark fret-board inlays.

But wait, there's more. The next 100 customers will receive, at no extra charge, a giant inflatable guitar raft.

Soapbar, how do you attach those blinders? Do you use traditional hide glue or new age super glue? In all honesty, watching you guys and your 100% predictable responses is fairly decent free entertainment...so I guess I should be thanking you.

I guess it's wasted on you, but do you not see that you took one line from the big picture to twist something around to your myopic way of thinking once again. Ironically you took one line from a post that chided you from doing the same thing.

Even the guy who wrote that last review mentions the need to have "an open mind ". This kit involves spiritual forces that my small brain just can't understand. Seems like it would be more relevant to have "an open wallet".

Now see, quoting one sentence from a review to twist the review to your point of view is hardly fair. If I were to do that, I'd quote the whole last paragraph, like this

"The results were truly amazing. It went from a guitar that I disliked, to one of my favorites. There are no detectable buzzes anywhere and is a true pleasure to play now."

But I really think it's much better to A) read the whole review and B ) Try a product before condemning it ;-)

For starters, it didnt LEVEL the frets. It just shaved the low spots lower, and the higher spots down the same amount. Eg: it just replicated the wave that was already there. They were still uneven, and not level, so he kept going.... and going. When it came to me, i could see exactly WHY it wasnt working. Its a flawed product. Yes, im sure its perfect for guitars that should already be in the trash. Yes, it is a cheap product.

Ben is a VERY good friend of mine (we were joking on msn about the original post i made, BEFORE i clicked 'reply'... he encouraged me to do so), and the $300 he spent included refinishing and repairing damage done BY THE TOOLS, levelling and recrowning the frets (they were in a bad way), and cutting the nut down to suit.... and not in anyway to do with a lack of masking the maple to prevent sanding the lacquer. For the record, $300 here, IN AUSTRALIA is less than the price of two single coil seymour duncans. Not that i have to justify myself to some unknown, anonymous, faceless internet poster, who wont justify his relationship with the company who's products are in question. (funny that he questioned me on the same thing, yet refuses to answer to anyone else...)

Well apples and oranges Perry, it made the frets on my Seagull (not a crap guitar BTW, a well made North American product) level. True enough, it's far from automatic and I admit I may have gotten lucky on 2 guitars...but I stand by that it worked for the application I purchased it for.

Fair enough, you and Ben are friends, and you're giving him a friendly dig, it's just not obvious to people who don't know you both and it really looked like you're making fun of a customer (absolute death to a business in my books).

Anonymous, faceless internet poster? Congratulations big guy, you've just described 99.999% of the posters on this, and every bulletin board on the net. My relationship with the company? Easy there agent Mulder, no conspiracy theory here no matter how deep you look. I fully explained myself in the post you quoted in it's entirety but obviously did not read. Nor do I have to justify myself to you, a faceless, quite possible anonymous Internet poster from the other side of the world

Mattia, this is a 20 dollar kit that is targeted at people who want to do quickey fret levels on cheap guitars IMHO. For that it works fine and is decent value to me. No argument is going to change the improvement to this near death Seagull acoustic guitar sitting in front of me. The thing was completely unplayable, now it plays great, not a buzz anywhere. Was it worth 20 bucks to me for that alone, yep. If I throw the kit out today it paid for itself on one guitar. I will probably move up to more traditional tools, and this kit will have given me the confidence to do so. Could I have gone out to Home Depot and pretty much bought everything in the kit, likely...but I still think the kit is decent value.

Perry, at no point have I claimed this kit was a replacement for traditional tools or have I touted it as top quality. I've said on numerous occasions it's decent for leveling frets on cheap guitars, which is what I bought it for as I've picked up a number of throwaway guitars to practice various repairs on (haven't destroyed one yet).

As for Ben, no don't get all high and mighty on me here Perry, your post clearly stated he took too much off, he would have done that with ANY tools and you know that. Common sense dictates, just by looking at the tool, you'd want to mask off any fretboard you don't want sanded. What kills me, is you went ahead and charged Ben 300 bucks and are now laughing at him that he;ll be back in 12 months for a fret job. If I'm Ben, I'd be asking you why you didn't offer up this info before you charged me 300 bucks for a temporary repair?!?! Could you not have done a re-fret and fretboard re-fin for under 400 bucks?

LOL, and I was waiting for one of you guys to ask me the paranoid question of who I was and what I was up to. Just a guy who bought the kit and it worked for me. I did a search to read up on the kit, found some good and some bad. Google "Thomas Ginex", this thread comes up number 5 or 6. Look at my first post, it's answering the guys original question of opinions on the kit, I gave him mine. The kit worked for me, because I have a decent knowledge of guitar repair (still learning) & I use common sense. If you have no common sense and shave of 75% of the fret material with any tools, you can't blame the tools.

And Perry old boy, if you think it's acceptable to mock your customers on a forum and hope more people booger their guitars with kits like this so they can give you more money...then why would you ever think I would welcome help from someone like you?!?!

Ok, that's clever. Use foul language in an attempt to get the thread locked before Ben has any chance of telling his side of the story.

If you think that was too harsh, I edited the word for just you. Listen, everyone is entitled to their opinion. How boring is a group of people judging something they have never even seen let alone tried. So far, of the people in this thread who have actually tried this kit, ONE, ME, it has worked well for me in the application I purchased it for. Does anyone else even notice that the guys that have not even tried this kit and feel the need to make it sound like satin's evil wand are likely luthiers or guitar repairmen? Gee, can you spell vested interest in seeing tools like this fail? As for Ben's opinion, well the kit didn't booger his guitar. Ben boogered his guitar by not using common sense and not reading the instructions, seriously, if you gave a blind man a running chainsaw and he cut off his arm...would it be fair to blame the chainsaw??? Our hero Ben would have likely done the same damage with traditional tools, let's at least try and be honest here.

And soapbarstrat, since you posted a bad review here's a good one Review

It's as simple as, you reap what you sow, no? I was fine with whatever your opinion was until YOU started getting hostile. As I said, you reap what you sow.

A heckler and a philosopher...you've used your time well

It's right there in his signature line, dumbass. Perry doesn't have any need to hide from anyone or anything.

Man what a forum of hostile gosh darn guys.

Woodenspoke, you're clearly just looking for a fight and are never wrong, so best of luck to you guy.

And rhodes, if the dummy didn't tape off his maple fretboard, he really isn't too sharp and deserves to have to deal with the likes of you. Listen, this is not my way, nor have I ever said it's better than the traditional way. Once again, this kit works fine on cheaper guitars where you can't justify paying someone like you 100-150 bucks or buying your own tools for 200-300 bucks. If you follow the instructions and don't want to pay a know it all like you to fleece him and then laugh at him on your "I'm better than the rest of the world" forum, the kit will work fine. In retrospect you can create this kit yourself fairly easy for 10 or so bucks, or you can save time and buy it for 20...big difference.

But that's just it ; it's a screwy system if it's off limits for high end guitars. Decent fretting tools work on economy as well as top-of-the-line guitars.

I can't believe you think $20.00 for an aluminum plate and a few pieces of cloth backed abrasive is anything close to a good deal. *Especially* when you didn't even do it with the strings on. You could have used any decent flat block and $3.00 worth of sandpaper to do the same thing. Oh, you need those two bumps on the one side of the plate ? Ok, epoxy two shafts from some old pens onto a freakin' block then. There's your special speed-bump fret-crowning block. But you can do that same kind of quicky fret crowning with sandpaper backed by your finger.

I give up, it's just not worth arguing with a group of closed minded know it alls.

Man, I don't get the snotty attitude from some closed minded guy that refuses to even try the kit. I don't think it was designed for someone like you who has hundreds of dollars invested in fret leveling tools. Open your mind a little guy, if your too cheap to drop 20 bucks to evaluate the kit fairly, why beat the crap out of something you've never even tried? Worked fine on 2 beat up low end guitars for me...to me it paid for itself by making 1 guitar destined for landfill playable again.

Here's an easy breakdown for you, no physics required.

DON'T Use this kit on a 1959 Les Paul.

DO Use this kit on a 1997 Squier Strat.

As I understand it, with the T&G "system", the sandpaper also hits the fret-board surface when using their fret re-crowning sanding block. If that's really so, then I find it a very silly system.

That's true, it does hit the fretboard when you "re-crown". I'd tape off maple necks for sure, but it worked fine on the two rosewood board guitars I did as the fretboards were inrough shape too.

I agree that it's flat and does not radius. You have to radius by feel, I got lucky doing that twice. I would never use it on a really expensive guitar but for the low end and mid level guitars where you can't justify paying for a level or a shop full of expensive tools...it does the job very well. Also, I really don't get why they tell you to do it with the strings on and tuned to pitch. I had better results with the strings off. For 20 bucks you can get 4 or 5 unplayable guitars playable again. For me it's worth it.

I'm wondering about these Thomas & Ginex fret refinishing kits. They are sold on eBay.

First off, let me say I have bought a bunch of StewMac leveling tools, like the heavy bar that you put 3M Skit-it on, notched straight-edge, set of 4 straight edges. I am at my wits end. I can't level for crap. I just keep taking more & more off the frets and they still buzz. Why? My guess is because I am leveling without simulating the stress of strings being on it. Next to a neck jig, which I cannot buy and have no time to build from scratch, this "kit" seems logical in that - you are leveling the frets under string tension.

Does anyone see these as possibly working?

Go here to read about it.

I bought a Thomas-Ginex kit and refills on fleabay for about 30 bucks. I even searched this board and some others and saw the mixed opinions on the kit but still, I figured, what the hell, nothing ventured nothing gained. I first tried it out on a Jasmine acoustic I really loved. It was in desperate need of fret attention. I figured gamble with this kit, if it failed I was totally willing to get the guitar refretted. I went pretty easy on this guitar and did about 6 passes with each grade of paper, following the instructions. MONSTER improvement, although I may do it a 2nd time as there's still one buzz (I was really too timid my first try). 2nd attempt was yesterday. I was donated an older Seagull acoustic that was screwed. Missing parts, cracked top, separated back, filthy and brutally pitted frets. This one I didn't so much follow the rules. I left the strings off (the neck was perfectly flat with strings off) and I went at it much harder making as many as a 20 passes with each grade of paper...hey, what did I have to lose, the guitar was headed for landfill anyway.

Well, short story long ;-) I fixed all the other problems, strung her up and it plays like a dream (it sounds fantastic too, nice surprise for a guitar I invested 7 bucks total in). I couldn't be happier with the fret level and crown, it really worked great. Now I did this one more by feel than by instruction (I even re-used the paper from the first job), so maybe it was luck, but I'm pretty impressed with the results on my first two efforts.

I was really skeptical, but figured seeing as I have taken to resurrecting badly abused guitars, I had to make an attempt at fret leveling as it wouldn't make sense to pay to get them done and I can't justify the tools needed for traditional fret leveling yet. Would I ever try it on my 1981 Les Paul or my number 1 Strat...maybe not, but I have no qualms on trying it on mid to lower end guitars. I'm a fan and this Thomas-Ginex kit has earned a spot in my toolbox.