Well it's on again! Our Musical Swapmeet in the illustrious Wheatsheaf Hotel 'Back Shed' A great venue with lovely people, lots of musical gear, like pedals, amps, guitars and basses, keyboards, you name it, and of course their delicious beers on tap right there at the bar! Get amongst it on Saturday the 8th of February at 1pm till 4 pm, short and sweet! Just bring anything you want to sell or trade, or just rock up with an eye for a bargain. Everyone is welcome to enjoy, buy, sell, trade or just talk music! It's all good. Forget Gumtree and the risks involved, come along to this and be in a safe, staffed environment and peruse the musical stuff!

23rd March at 1pm.

Well it's that time of year again!

Salvi's Musical Swapmeet is the place to go to safely buy, sell or trade any musical objects you may have for sale or to buy something you may be looking for! Do away with the randoms on Gumtree and mingle with a like minded bunch of people at the Glorious Wheatsheaf Hotel here on George st Thebarton, directly opposite SalvI's fine guitars. There'll be staff on hand to help you buy and sell if you need it, and there'll be delicious Wheatie beer on tap! What's not to love?! AND ITS ALL FREE! (Not the beer:P) So pile up all those things you haven't used in a year and turn it into cash this Saturday, for free. Or, bring some cash and hunt for bargains within the safety of the Wheatie walls and connect with some cool guys and gals over a topic we all love, gear! Oh, did we mention it's free? FREE! All you have to do is turn up. Last summer we had over 350 people through the door, so it's only getting bigger every year. Many bargains were had and many profits made. Win- Win! Some things to trade : Guitars, amps, pedals, posters, records, stands, parts, cases, leads, microphones, saxophones.....you get the idea. All you have to do is turn up! See you in there!

For those of you in the know, the PLEK system is a CNC ( computer numeric control) machine that will level your frets to a high tolerance and it's pretty great how it works. Gibson have one installed in their factory and all their guitars get the PLEK treatment before shipping. A few guitar shops are getting them as well and the future look ok for PLEK.

So, it's a good rig, but will Salvi's be buying a PLEK machine anytime soon? Well, no! Why you ask? Let's do a rundown on the pro's and cons of the PLEK system.

So what's so good about it?

It's accurate! How accurate? Well if it's as good as our CNC here at Salvi's, it'll be accurate to .001mm, which is pretty tight. Gibson bought one right? It must be great!

I guess that's all the pros we need, if it levels frets and does it well, what else is there?

What about cons? Well I can think of a few actually, and my problems aren't with the machine itself, it's great, it's what comes after.

We get a few PLEK refugees here in the shop, the guitar has been done, but a few months down the track and the horizons aren't as accurate as they were. Why is that?

Guitars are made of wood. The air they live in changes constantly. As soon as your guitar sees a different moisture content, it'll subtly change shape. How much? It depends, but a lot more than .001mm that's for sure. If your guitar has an aluminium or carbon fibre neck, then go for it.

For the rest of us, the benefit of CNC is lost in the real world.

Wear. If you play a lot, your frets will wear enough in a few months to lose the presumed extra accuracy of CNC.

Operator. The machine can only do so much, the frets still need to be dressed, fine crowned and the ends done. Skill at frets still rules.

Expense. When I costed the PLEK it was about $120,000 + tax and imports. That's 1000 fret levels or more to break even. And all it does is level the horizons and do a coarse crown. Skill is still required to get it right.

Point of contact. The PLEK does 1 fret at a time. It has to press the fret to get it to cut, so how much deflection is there? I don't know the answer to that.

When you consider that we can tension a guitar on the bench and use a CNC'd flat diamond file that is 400mm long to level a fingerboard, that's 400mm of contact over 14 frets or more at a time, it is impossible not to have dead accuracy of horizon.

For my money, and the benefit of our 4000+ customers, I'll stick to a diamond level for now, it's quicker, hands on, and you can have it done in you local atmospheric conditions.

If you have a synthetic guitar, and don't mind sending it off and spending extra cash, then a PLEK may be just what you're looking for.

I was surprised to see an 8 year old Custom shop not pulling up as it should. The culprit? A bad truss rod. Major surgery was required to get it going again, including the manufacture of a new stainless truss rod. The jobs not finished yet, but you get the idea...

CNC (computer numeric control) machining is super accurate and a lot of fun. This is a Les Paul style fingerboard I'm making for a custom guitar I'm making here at the workshop.

1964 Gretsch 'Chet Atkins' needed a new fingerboard and neck reset. I made a new fingerboard on the CNC and it turned out great. Click on the photo to visit our SFG Facebook page.

1964 Epiphone Texan is badly bent in the belly. I took some drastic action, but it's paid off and sounds great. Just click on the photo to visit our SFG Facebook page and see the whole Photo essay on this tricky repair!

Hey everyone, it's that time of year again! Our 4th free community swap meet. Free to vendors, buyers and browsers. Not sure what a swap meet is? Well it's a great way to swap, trade or sell or buy unwanted musical items of any description. Just turn up with stuff to sell or trade or just come along and browse. It's a lot of fun and a great way to meet like minded people or to grab a bargain or spare part. It'll be happening on Saturday August the 13th at 1pm till 4 at the amazing Wheatsheaf international Hotel and brewery right across the road from Salvi's fine guitars. It's free for all! Grab a bargain or sell you stuff! It's fun!