Jackson Soloist set up

James had 'never got on' with this guitar; and brought it to me with the action set very high at the bridge. The neck had some visible 'hills and valleys' when strung up and under load and the question in my mind was whether this was all that was wrong with the guitar and whether it was correctable using the Banana fret levelling method or not.
My first discovery was that the neck was back-bowed; mental note: make sure that James feels confident making truss rod adjustments as he himself noted that this neck was very sensitive to environmental changes. Being confident with the hex key to make truss rod adjustments is vital in this case. Beyond that, I set the guitar to my preferred very low action and set about making the frets 'comply' with that action. It turned out that the slightly 'hilly' neck wasn't an insurmountable obstacle - the Banana put it right - but the real flaw in this guitar turned out to be the locking nut plus its lack of string retainer bar. It's a very poorly-designed and made piece of metalwork to be quite honest. Sure, there are few if ANY better versions but that doesn't change the fact that for such a critical piece in the playability equation, this item needs to be considerably better made.