Working Order
What Fret Dressing Actually Involves
Fret dressing is diagnostic work before it is mechanical work — the tools tell a technician what the neck is doing, not what to do next.
Section 4 of five
Working Order
What a technician does — fret work, valve biasing, capstan wear, humidity, the right-to-repair argument.
six pieces · every section-
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Working OrderValve Biasing: What a Technician Sets and Why It Drifts
The quiescent current in an output valve is a moving target — and getting it wrong degrades tone before it damages anything.
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Working OrderCapstan and Pinch-Roller Wear in Tape Machines
Whether the drive train is serviceable decides the restoration quote before anything else does.
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Working OrderWhat Humidity Does to a Solid-Top Instrument Over Time
Solid tops move. The only variable is whether that movement is controlled.
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Working OrderThe Right-to-Repair Argument Reaches Audio Hardware
Legislation written for washing machines is landing on mixing consoles, amp modellers, and audio interfaces — and the schematic question is now a policy question.
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Working OrderSerial Numbers as Evidence: How a Register Dates an Instrument
A serial number is a starting point, not a verdict — but the right register makes it a precise one.
The other sections
Section 1
The Trade
What happened to the market — the filings, the acquisitions, the channels that replaced the shop floor.
Section 2What Sells Now
The products that reshaped the floor — modellers, interfaces, microphones, controllers, and the used-market bubble.
Section 3Materials and Rules
CITES listings, timber shortages, the Lacey Act, and what the industry started building from instead.
Section 5The Long Objects
The instruments and tools that arrived, settled, and never really left — their origins, their run, their record.