Just play

This guitar (Ibanez SML721) used to be unplayable. Fret issues mainly. Someone who handled the rectification procedure might not have understood how to approach the issue to begin with. It might be from the factory, might be from the store but more importantly, whoever did it, stopped trying. That was crucial. When I took over, I approached it like how I did with the rest facing such issues:

• Straighten the neck first, which didn't happen. Action was disproportionately high at the 8th - 13th fret area
• Action comes next. That's right, check if the action conformed to the recommended settings in the manual. Get this done before any fret attention procedures.
• Shim. If the action is still disproportionately high at the upper fret area, neck shimming should be done. 
• Level checking. Mark out the problematic frets that contribute to buzzing / choking.
• Hammer time. That's right, the fatal mistake here is to start filing / crowning the fret. Some frets are merely popping out, all they need is some knocking into place & that might just be it. 
• File / crown the problem away. If that doesn't work, filing / re-crowning should be the final approach. Remember, this is irreversible & should be done after an exhaustive diagnosis had been carried out. 

I noticed that minor rectifications were required over time & that improved the guitar's playability progressively. Some remediation procedures would only kick in after a few rounds of diagnosis & patience is the order of the day. This is why I strongly advocate for owner rectification as opposed to sending the instrument over to a tech every time. Let the expert handle the issue only if expert knowledge / skills are required. 

Any further tinkering done to this guitar? Of course.

• 5-way selector made way for a 3-way version
• Seymour Duncan pickups
• Locking tuners made way for non-locking ones

That's the story of my Thursday; looking into minor improvements & just playing till it's time to stop. Indoor Thursday, so to speak.