Looking for a Toronto area technician

[GGBB]

Hi folks.

I'm new here but having been reading for a while.  After wanting one for decades and looking around for the last couple of years, I recently acquired a used C-09.  Although it stills plays quite well and there are no buzzing issues, it has a fair bit of cowboy chord wear so I'm thinking about getting a partial fret job - I think it could play even better.  The neck is perfectly strait and flat.

Does anyone have any experiences/recommendations they can share with any repair shops in the Toronto area as far as re-frets and Larrivees go?  The ones that come to mind are 12th Fret, Guitar Shop (Mississauga), Ring Music.

I had some work done a few years ago by 12th Fret on my 1984 Takamine EF-360SC with mixed results, so I'm a little hesitant to go back.  They did a great job dressing/leveling the frets, and the intonation was perfect, but the action was far too low on the bass side (all buzz all the time) and the new bone nut was a total disaster (rough edges, poorly filed slots, uneven spacing - I replaced it myself with a stock Tusq and did a far better job).

[ronmac]

Ring is a good choice, as well as Folkway in Guelph.

[hadden]

Hope you got a refund on the nut.

[GGBB]

Hope you got a refund on the nut.

I never tried.  I should have I suppose - they probably would have been accommodating.  I actually felt stupid for not having spotted it when I inspected the guitar before leaving the store (same thing with the action which seemed fine but I really didn't play more than a few notes and not hard - and it felt great!).  I'm at the age where my close-up vision is not what it used to be so I really can't spot small details unless I used some powerful reading glasses (over top of my regular vision glasses!) or a magnifying glass, which I didn't bring.  I just assumed it would be right since after all this was 12th Fret.  And once I had it home I didn't feel much like taking it back - the 45 minute trip plus another 2-3 week wait for them to redo it (which I couldn't afford since I needed to use the guitar).  I figured it would be easier to just do it myself, and I was right.  It also gave me an opportunity to use a nut with a slightly wider string spacing which helped the feel a lot.  I also made a wedge-shaped shim for the saddle to fix the action issue.  It plays extremely well now, except that since the frets have been worked, they are lower which affects playability a bit.  It's at the point now where for a player with a lighter left hand like me it really needs new frets, and the guitar is simply not worth that kind of investment (at least financially - sonically the guitar has matured well and is a great workhorse player).  Which justified the purchase of the C-09.