Neck reset and refret prices

HPhillipsmusic

Hi guys

Fixing up the singer of my bands old Martin 0-18, i think its early 70's. Badly in need of a refret and the neck is coming away at the heel so a reset is inevitably needed too.

Asked a couple of local luthiers about pricing, and of course it depends on a couple of things - but was quoted £500 by one chap which I thought sounded like a lot. 

Is that reasonable? What would you/have you paid for similar work?

Thanks
H

DrCornelius

Whereabouts are you ?   I've used Nick Marchant in Salisbury a few times and he is great and very reasonable- https://www.guitarrepairsuk.com/pricelist2.htm

Andy79

500 sounds about right, maybe slightly high, for a tip top job. 150 for a re fret and 250-350 for a neck set is about right. Lots of work there. Dave King would be my choice for a Martin repair if you want it done right with no doubts. 

Lewy

£500 for a neck reset, full refret and set up sounds high end of acceptable to me. I'd expect to pay £250 - £300 for the reset and £150-200 for a refret and setup.

Needless to say, for that job and for that money you should be looking at highly reputable repairers with an in depth understanding of acoustics. Wherever you are in the country, for that job on a Martin I'd be headed to Dave King.

crunchman

Depends where you are.  Around London, a refret can cost £300 at somewhere with a good reputation.  Charlie Chandler and Feline both have £300 or so for a refret on their websites.

Outside of the London area will probably be cheaper.

It also depends on how much you value you place on reputation.  People are willing to pay Charlie or Feline as they are unlikely to mess your guitar up.  I got a guitar refretted at a place in Denmark Street years ago, and they left marks in the top of the guitar.  You might go somewhere cheaper and get a good job done, but there is always that worry about how your guitar will come back.

I went on a Crimson course a while back and built a guitar.  Now I have a better idea of how much work goes into doing frets, I realise that you are never going to be able to get it done really cheaply by anyone good, unless it's someone semi-retired who is doing it to earn a bit of pocket money.

maltingsaudio

I had a mate who bought her Martin new in the 70’s and it came with a lifetime guarantee. She managed to persuade Martin to honour that 5 years ago to have its neck reset! 

Andy79

maltingsaudio said:

I had a mate who bought her Martin new in the 70’s and it came with a lifetime guarantee. She managed to persuade Martin to honour that 5 years ago to have its neck reset! 

Wow. 

imalrightjack

Mate of mine who works at Fylde is doing my 50s Hofner Senator. He estimates £200 max.

Andy79

imalrightjack said:

Mate of mine who works at Fylde is doing my 50s Hofner Senator. He estimates £200 max.

With all due respect to your mate I can’t see how that’s helpful. No decent luthier in the country will charge that low. That’s mates rates or an amateur having a go. There’s maybe 20+ hours labour in the job. Plus materials. 

earwighoney

Andy79 said:

imalrightjack said:

Mate of mine who works at Fylde is doing my 50s Hofner Senator. He estimates £200 max.

With all due respect to your mate I can’t see how that’s helpful. No decent luthier in the country will charge that low. That’s mates rates or an amateur having a go. There’s maybe 20+ hours labour in the job. Plus materials. 

If he works at Fylde he can hardly be an amateur!  It sounds like a mate's rate and a very good one at that.  

Stuckfast

If you're anywhere in East Anglia I'd recommend Keith at Imperial Guitars, near Cambridge. He did a neck reset on an ancient parlour guitar for me which turned out to be quite challenging, but he got it spot on and did a very nice bridge replacement too. His rates are very competitive also. 

FelineGuitars

70s Martin's have that non adjustable hollow tube truss rod that means you have to do some careful shaping work to the fingerboard to really get the best out of such a repair , and possibly use special fretwires like Martin did where the top part of the wire is identical but the part that goes into the slot (the tang) can be different sizes. This allows you to control the stiffness of the neck by th "compression" that the larger tang sizes create in the snug slots and the relief you may put in by having tangs that aren't so big to allow the neck to pull forward a bit under string tension. That process is a bit specialist to say the least .

If it needs a neck reset - that again isn't for the faint hearted either if you are planning on taking the neck off the guitar before refitting it.

ICBM

imalrightjack said:

Mate of mine who works at Fylde is doing my 50s Hofner Senator. He estimates £200 max.

A Hofner is easy compared to a Martin - the fingerboard isn't glued to the top so it's much easier to remove the neck, they don't have a tendency for the board to kink up at the body joint, and you've got a lot more leeway in the height of the bridge and hence the exact angle of the neck.

I've successfully reset several Hofners - but I'm not a proper luthier, and I wouldn't attempt a Martin or any other traditional flat-top.

HPhillipsmusic

Thanks so much for all the advice guys. As far as I can gather £500 doesn't sound as bonkers as it first did to me, in which case I will most likely get it to my local luthier Ray Cooper who I have a good relationship with. Will let you know how it goes!

Lewy

HPhillipsmusic said:

Thanks so much for all the advice guys. As far as I can gather £500 doesn't sound as bonkers as it first did to me, in which case I will most likely get it to my local luthier Ray Cooper who I have a good relationship with. Will let you know how it goes!

Check he’s got experience of compression fretting as per @FelineGuitars post though. You can be a great luthier/repairer without ever having done it.

breezytele

I’ve paid around £225- £250 for my refrets ;the necks have binding which always adds a little to the cost.

i think your original quote of £500 - with the neck re set - sounds entirely  reasonable