Amp360
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2012
- Messages
- 943
I have had this Stratocaster for a long time now. It had no frets left so I re-fretted it myself and I'm happy to say it came out really well.
I got it in kind of a crazy situation where someone had owned me money for over a year and they ended up giving me this as payment, so I don't know a lot about it. It was very unplayable, but I had gotten it working ok. I have a very light touch and don't mind low frets, so it was ok, but I knew it needed some work.
When I was putting it back together I noticed the height adjusters for the saddles were all mismatched. Some were very long, some were short and some were half and half. There was also a big shim in the pocket and the neck was missing one screw.
Anyway, when I got the neck off and unloosened the truss rod, and let it sit for a day. When I checked it out the neck was almost perfectly straight. I put some oil down the rod and it works fine. The re-fret was pretty straightforward and I took the shim out and bolted on the neck - with four bolts!
It was nearly perfect (on the low side) with no relief but one note was fretting out (15th fret high e). I did about an 8th of a turn and it was better but the guitar didn't feel quite right.
I spent a few hours checking the frets, took the bridge off, and re-arranged the screws. Then I changed the springs to be straight and got the bridge off the body just a hair and it's almost there. I did maybe another 1/16th of a turn (barely moving it) and a little while later it's really nice, but about 1% not to my liking - which is fine.
The issue is the adjustment screws are pretty high up. They're fine on all the strings and the action is low, but I would like to come up maybe 1 or 2 64s on the high e, but I don't think there's enough thread left.
Part of me is saying shim it, but part of me is hoping that sitting after the truss rod may resolve this. Any Strat experts?
Also, the tremolo is working better than any I've ever had. It's smooth and returning to pitch beautifully. I've set the intonation with my old Conn Strobe and it's spot on perfect so I don't want to change too much.
I got it in kind of a crazy situation where someone had owned me money for over a year and they ended up giving me this as payment, so I don't know a lot about it. It was very unplayable, but I had gotten it working ok. I have a very light touch and don't mind low frets, so it was ok, but I knew it needed some work.
When I was putting it back together I noticed the height adjusters for the saddles were all mismatched. Some were very long, some were short and some were half and half. There was also a big shim in the pocket and the neck was missing one screw.
Anyway, when I got the neck off and unloosened the truss rod, and let it sit for a day. When I checked it out the neck was almost perfectly straight. I put some oil down the rod and it works fine. The re-fret was pretty straightforward and I took the shim out and bolted on the neck - with four bolts!
It was nearly perfect (on the low side) with no relief but one note was fretting out (15th fret high e). I did about an 8th of a turn and it was better but the guitar didn't feel quite right.
I spent a few hours checking the frets, took the bridge off, and re-arranged the screws. Then I changed the springs to be straight and got the bridge off the body just a hair and it's almost there. I did maybe another 1/16th of a turn (barely moving it) and a little while later it's really nice, but about 1% not to my liking - which is fine.
The issue is the adjustment screws are pretty high up. They're fine on all the strings and the action is low, but I would like to come up maybe 1 or 2 64s on the high e, but I don't think there's enough thread left.
Part of me is saying shim it, but part of me is hoping that sitting after the truss rod may resolve this. Any Strat experts?
Also, the tremolo is working better than any I've ever had. It's smooth and returning to pitch beautifully. I've set the intonation with my old Conn Strobe and it's spot on perfect so I don't want to change too much.