
I received a mint condition 2023 SE Silver Sky Rosewood today. Got a great deal from a great seller on Reverb.
Other than the G string's intonation screw being so loose it almost fell out, it's perfect. Never seen that before, the screw head was about 1/8” away from the bridge, ready to fall out. The saddle it controlled stayed in perfect placement even though the screw wasn’t holding it, so the intonation was spot-on. I just snugged the screw down. Are these bridges prone to doing that? If so I might put a drop of low strength LocTite on it or something.
I gave it a setup check and found all is as I like it except the B and high E were a tad high. Lowered them a tad and now it’s great. Intonation is perfect, nut slots are fine, fretwork seemed excellent at first glance. No sprout or high frets, no choking on big bends.
However, I noticed some rough feeling when doing bends. I was gonna change the strings anyway, (the ones on there were the originals and when I took them off they had a lot of crud on them).
Since I was changing strings, I decided to condition the fretboard with some Montepresso. After letting that sit a while and rubbing off the excess, I used all the micromesh pads I have (1500, 1800, 2400, 3200, 3600, 4000, 6000, 8000 and 12000) to polish the frets. They look like jewels now, and bending is very smooth.
I don't expect $4,000 guitar fretwork on an $850 guitar I paid $525 for. I actually enjoy doing this kind of stuff. I am better at setup stuff than I am at playing.
So far I am very pleased with the guitar!