Question: Luke guitars

[RICK REINFRIED]

I purchased my Luke about two years ago when I decided that I "deserved" to step up to the next level of guitars (my previous ones being various Ibanez RG's). I love playing this guitar and I love the sound, but I'm noticing some serious fret wear already and I've also been having difficulty with the tremolo not returning to its "neutral" position. I've always used EB strings (the same set that they set the guitar up with). I am not what I'd consider a "heavy-handed" player, and I'm disappointed that these frets have worn down much sooner than any of my cheaper Ibanez guitars. I also tried some "nut slick" on the nut and tremolo...it didn't seem to help much and I noticed that it seemed to diminish the brightness of the sound. I've just about resigned myself to taking it into a luthier/repair shop to try and deal with these issues but I'm curious to find out if anyone else has had issues like these with their Lukes.
Thx (in advance) to any and all who care to comment!

[Headstock]

I would recommend that you contact customer support. There's a link at the bottom of the forum page called "Contact Us". They are qualified to help you out, and quite responsive.

[RICK REINFRIED]

Thanks for your suggestion and the link!
rick

[Craptaculus XVI]

Hey Rick.... I bought my Luke secondhand, and loved the tone and the trem bridge, but the low-profile frets felt weird esp. with the thicker V-shaped neck. I had my re-fretted with stainless steel 6105's on a Plek at Gary Brawer's in SF, and it brought it up to a whole 'nuther level, and certainly no shortage of brightness/mids to the tone. It's one of my main gigging guitars now; cuts through a mix wonderfully and plays like butter. It wasn't cheap, but oh so worth it.

[rickjohns]

Rick, depending on how close you are to California, I would seriously consider sendind it back to EB. Call CS and talk to Dan. They did fret work on my 2003 Axis once, and it came back better than new. I had some problems with the upper frets buzzing, and they leveled and re-crowned them. Played like a dream. You probably don't need a re-fret, just a level and crown, but let them evaluate your situation. I live all the way on the east coast, and the cost of shipping and a refret on my 2007 AXIS was too expensive (the actual work was cheap, just shipping was the deal breaker), so I went local, luckily I have a guy. But I would prefer to have EBMM do the work.

[Big Poppa]

THis is a great example of customer service thread.

Lets think about this...Do we make fret material? there are a only a couple in the world ...lots of brands re packaged...we are all buying the same material. Now for some reason your Luke is showing fret wear....Hmmm...you must love it and play it a lot.

Really not trying to be difficult or disrespectful but I cannot patronize you and tell you that we will look into it and then sigh behind your back.

The only good point here was sometime a re crowning and level will stave off the need for a refret.