Setting up a Kentucky KM-140S mandolin - Part I: Fret leveling and crowning

Assessing and beginning the setup of a Kentucky KM-140S mandolin. Not sponsored by Stew-Mac. :-)

[@sesa1076]

Really thanks for taking the time to do these videos!

[@jeddhaberstro9922]

Love this - clearly explained and I learned a lot!

[@sesa1076]

Hi, I’ve Behringer trouble finding information, but I recently bought a cheap, no truss-rod mandolin and it has several dead frets. It was gonna cost me more in shipping costs to return it so I’m stuck with it. I’m sure with no truss rod that it could be unfixable. But is there any way I can get it to at least be playable? I fear the neck might even be twisted a little bit, but not sure. Around the fourth fret the higher stringsfret out at the same nite fir several more frets. Is it just a matter of finding the offending fret and trying to lower it a little? I wanna get some advice before I start trying things, so any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

[@MartinJacobsonInstruments]

Follow the same process I use in the video. 1 mark the tops of all frets with sharpie 2 sand until all the frets are level checking frequently and using a known flat sanding block 3 hopefully there is still enough fret left to be playable