Professional Guitar Setup Tiers

*Prices exclude strings. Jump to the detailed bench workflow below to see how we work.

Restring & Clean

£30

"Mini Service"

Old strings removed, fretboard deep cleaned & hydrated, frets polished, hardware tightened, and new strings installed & tuned to your preference.

Advanced & Fret Level

£120

The Ultimate Upgrade

Standard Setup plus precision fret leveling, crowning, and edge dressing, finished with a mirror polish to completely eliminate dead spots, localized buzzing, and fret wear.


The Bench Process: What We Do

Every guitar behaves differently under tension. Here is the rigorous, step-by-step breakdown of how we optimize your instrument based on the tier you choose.

01

Fretboard Therapy & Clean (All Tiers)

Strip the old, dead strings and perform a thorough physical evaluation. Unfinished fretboards (Rosewood, Ebony, Laurel) accumulate sweat, dead skin, and dust from regular playing. Deep-clean the wood using non-abrasive cleaners, then hydrate it with conditioning oils to prevent drying and cracking under volatile South Coast humidity changes. Maple boards are carefully detailed. Finally, the frets are hand-polished to remove oxidation, restoring their mirror shine and slick bending feel.

02

Geometry & Tension Calibration (Standard / Advanced)

Once the fresh strings are tuned precisely to your preferred pitch, we measure and calibrate the complex forces acting on the neck structure. This stage forms the baseline for all high-performance electric guitar setups, structural bass guitar setups, and comfortable acoustic guitar setups.

  • Truss Rod Adjustment: We adjust the internal truss rod while measuring with precision feeler gauges to set the perfect neck relief (the subtle forward bow required to let strings vibrate cleanly across the entire fingerboard layout without buzzing).
  • Action Refinement: Individual bridge saddles or structural assemblies are tailored carefully to match your fretboard's specific radius profile, safely dropping string height to accommodate your preferred playing style (low and fast vs. standard).
  • Nut Slot Optimization: Nut slots are evaluated and precisely filed to gauge height if the strings are sitting too proud, completely eliminating first-fret hand fatigue, high action, and open-string tuning instability.
03

Electronic Health & Intonation (Standard / Advanced)

A perfectly playable instrument must also sound perfectly in tune across the whole neck spectrum. We flush out scratchy, dirty control potentiometers, jacks, and switches using professional contact cleaners to guarantee quiet electronic performance. Then, using highly accurate bench tuners, we calibrate the individual bridge intonation saddles so open strings and fretted notes at the 12th fret match flawlessly. To close, pickup heights are balanced out precisely to eliminate magnetic string drag and guarantee balanced output volume across all selector toggles.

04

Precision Fret Leveling & Crowning (Advanced Only)

Over time, or straight from massive factories, frets develop uneven heights, causing localized buzzing, choking during bends, and dead notes. In this premium upgrade, the neck is locked straight under simulated string tension profiles. We use precision leveling beams to mill down high frets to a microscopically flat plane. Each fret is then meticulously recrowned back to a perfect round bead, the sharp fret edges are dressed and smoothed down for maximum thumb comfort, and the whole board receives a 4-step progressive mirror polish.


Bench Policy & Scope of Work

To maintain our focus on precision fretwork, rapid turnaround times, and flawless playability setups from our compact Portsmouth studio, we operate strictly by appointment and do not accept structural rebuilds or cosmetic finish spray work at this time.

Services We Gladly Accept:

Precision playability setups, advanced fret leveling, crowning, and polishing, hardware tracking upgrades, pickup swaps, and seasonal electronics troubleshooting.

Services We Redirect Elsewhere:

Acoustic body crack splicing, broken headstock/neck breaks, loose acoustic bridge re-gluing, structural neck resets, and major nitrocellulose or poly finish resprays.