When a cheap guitar becomes your new favorite

[Narwhal6]

I went to a newer guitar store near me as I'd seen a  used Schecter 12 string that I wanted to check out on their website.

I played it for a few minutes and decided it wasn't for me, and then asked about a tele "parts-caster" I'd also seen on their website.

Now this was an absolute pleasure to play, and had a wonderful sound as well. It's somewhat of a stelecaster as it has a Squier strat neck on a tele style body supposedly cut from a 100 year old piece of oak furniture and the three strat style pickups and controls with a five way switch and a tele top loader bridge.

After purchasing it and bringing it home and playing it unplugged I detected some fret buzz on the G B and high E strings. The two saddles that would fix the buzz were already at the limit for height. So I took a pair of nickles and put one each under the D/G and B/E saddles and now it really sings.

I can see why many guitarists have a tele in their arsenal, they just beg to have rapid fire open string runs and for some reason those kind of riffs just come natural on a tele.

Behold the nickel-caster;

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Larsongs]

Congrats & Enjoy! A Tele is an essential Guitar..

I have a cheapie Squier CV 50’s I modded with a P90 at the Neck & a Bigsby B-5 that I really like..

I also have a Fender USA Olympic White 69 Thinline Tele that I love! It’s completely original & I have no intention of changing..

Perfect compliments to my Gibson’s..

Edited August 14, 2023 by Larsongs

[merciful-evans]

Sweet ! That's a great look. Its been a while since I bought a guitar that punched far above its weight. Its a buzz when it happens though.

enjoy !

[Sgt. Pepper]

Is that change for the bus under the saddles?

[Narwhal6]

1 hour ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

Is that change for the bus under the saddles?

Change for a payphone if there were any around.

A nickel is the exact width to catch both legs on those brass saddles, I was out of adjustment room trying to cure some fret buzz. 

Edited August 14, 2023 by Narwhal6
Spelling

[Sgt. Pepper]

1 minute ago, Narwhal6 said:

Change for a payphone if there were any around.

A nickel is the exact width to catch both legs on those brass saddles, I was out of adjustment room trying to cure some fret buzz. 

Necessity is the Frank Zappa And The Mothers Of Invention.

[mihcmac]

Very nice Tele.

Cheap guitars can turn on you Musicians Freind sold these Junior DC’s in the late 90’s in a closing out sale for 89.99.  This is one  of the few Epiphones that has actually increased in value after it was sold new, now clawing at 6X the sale. You never know what happen will with cheap guitars.

[sparquelito]

Great looking tele-shaped strat!!

I love the dark natural wood finish too.

🙂

[NighthawkChris]

Instead of pocket change, how about neck shim? To do it right is a small procedure to know how much thickness a shim is needed, but this gives you back the travel in the saddles you maxed out on. 

[merciful-evans]

2 hours ago, NighthawkChris said:

Instead of pocket change, how about neck shim? To do it right is a small procedure to know how much thickness a shim is needed, but this gives you back the travel in the saddles you maxed out on. 

It would only have occurred to me to use shim. but the nickels look cooler. No sharp edges either. The main thing is if it plays ok. 

[Narwhal6]

5 hours ago, NighthawkChris said:

Instead of pocket change, how about neck shim? To do it right is a small procedure to know how much thickness a shim is needed, but this gives you back the travel in the saddles you maxed out on. 

I may be wrong on this but a neck shim would lower the action, I needed to raise the strings to cure some buzzing. 

Although you may indeed be correct, maybe someone else can weigh in on when to use a shim? 

 

 

[NighthawkChris]

@Narwhal6, I believe you are right.  Maybe there is a shim in there already that needs to be removed 😄

I sincerely hope that you don't get upset if I said that your cheap guitar makes me laugh, haha!  That's an abomination if I ever saw one. 

Edited August 16, 2023 by NighthawkChris
for honesty

[Sgt. Pepper]

13 hours ago, NighthawkChris said:

@Narwhal6, I believe you are right.  Maybe there is a shim in there already that needs to be removed 😄

I sincerely hope that you don't get upset if I said that your cheap guitar makes me laugh, haha!  That's an abomination if I ever saw one. 

Like The Kinks said in Low Budget:

Cheap is small and not too steep
But best of all cheap is cheap

[surfpup]

4 hours ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

Like The Kinks said in Low Budget:

Cheap is small and not too steep
But best of all cheap is cheap

One of my all time favorite Kinks tunes!

[Sgt. Pepper]

13 minutes ago, surfpup said:

One of my all time favorite Kinks tunes!

Saw them twice.

[surfpup]

8 minutes ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

Saw them twice.

I saw them once... but not Low Budget era.... later version... on the Word of Mouth tour ('85) I think.

[Sgt. Pepper]

1 minute ago, surfpup said:

I saw them once... but not Low Budget era.... later version... on the Word of Mouth tour ('85) I think.

I saw that tour, and the one after. The Kinks from Something Else to Low Budget were killer. I love their weird concept album’s too.

Edited August 16, 2023 by Sgt. Pepper

[NighthawkChris]

Here’s what I thought about when I saw the OP’s guitar:

https://www.fender.com/articles/behind-the-scenes/closeup-check-out-fenders-new-parallel-universe-collection

Wasn’t trying to be a jerk but seemed like the person who put the partscaster together might have had the FenderParallel Universe style in mind…

[Sgt. Pepper]

5 minutes ago, NighthawkChris said:

Here’s what I thought about when I saw the OP’s guitar:

https://www.fender.com/articles/behind-the-scenes/closeup-check-out-fenders-new-parallel-universe-collection

Wasn’t trying to be a jerk but seemed like the person who put the partscaster together might have had the FenderParallel Universe style in mind…

I didn't see any loose change in the bridge in any of those.

I bought every part and built this when I did play electrics.

This too. The body and neck are Warmoth. The one above is all Fender.

 

Edited August 17, 2023 by Sgt. Pepper

[NighthawkChris]

@Sgt. Pepper really nice Stratocaster right there.  Both guitars are real nice looking TBH.  Could have told me that was a Jaguar and would have believed you other then the headstock telling me it's not.  After years of seeing Fenders and Gibsons, not too much leeway to alter the tried-and-true fit and finish. 

But @Narwhal6 sincerely didn't mean to just make a snarky comment to get personal about a guitar.  It's just that I'm sort of a guitar nerd, and partscasters make me chuckle a bit.  Hope you figure out what is causing the buzzes and get rid of that pocket change under the saddles so you can enjoy the guitar to its fullest 😁

[Sgt. Pepper]

22 minutes ago, NighthawkChris said:

@Sgt. Pepper really nice Stratocaster right there.  Both guitars are real nice looking TBH.  Could have told me that was a Jaguar and would have believed you other then the headstock telling me it's not.  After years of seeing Fenders and Gibsons, not too much leeway to alter the tried-and-true fit and finish. 

But @Narwhal6 sincerely didn't mean to just make a snarky comment to get personal about a guitar.  It's just that I'm sort of a guitar nerd, and partscasters make me chuckle a bit.  Hope you figure out what is causing the buzzes and get rid of that pocket change under the saddles so you can enjoy the guitar to its fullest 😁

It's a Jazzmaster. Jag's are supposed to have 2 Strat like pups with claws that stick out by the side of the pup. I'm not sure if Jag's have the thumb wheel pots? That JM was a pain to wire. 

Edited August 17, 2023 by Sgt. Pepper

[NighthawkChris]

42 minutes ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

It's a Jazzmaster. Jag's are supposed to have 2 Strat like pups with claws that stick out by the side of the pup. I'm not sure if Jag's have the thumb wheel pots? That JM was a pain to wire. 

Yes, was debating if this was a JM or Jag.  My bad 😁

[Narwhal6]

3 hours ago, NighthawkChris said:

@Sgt. Pepper really nice Stratocaster right there.  Both guitars are real nice looking TBH.  Could have told me that was a Jaguar and would have believed you other then the headstock telling me it's not.  After years of seeing Fenders and Gibsons, not too much leeway to alter the tried-and-true fit and finish. 

But @Narwhal6 sincerely didn't mean to just make a snarky comment to get personal about a guitar.  It's just that I'm sort of a guitar nerd, and partscasters make me chuckle a bit.  Hope you figure out what is causing the buzzes and get rid of that pocket change under the saddles so you can enjoy the guitar to its fullest 😁

It's all good 😊 It's a player's guitar.

Anyone who's owned or played a strat or tele would be interested to try a few licks on this to see where exactly it straddles the line regarding sound.

It's not valuable, nor will it increase in value (other than the 10¢ I added) but it sure is a joy to play.

I love the parallel universe and paranormal series BTW, maybe that's what drew me to this guitar.

Nice guitars @Sgt. Pepper

 

 

[merciful-evans]

On 8/15/2023 at 10:57 PM, Narwhal6 said:

I may be wrong on this but a neck shim would lower the action, I needed to raise the strings to cure some buzzing. 

Although you may indeed be correct, maybe someone else can weigh in on when to use a shim? 

 

 

You can shim under the nut. That will raise action from that end. If your nut is cut correctly then you could also use shim under the saddles in place of the coins. The thinnest shim will likely be .002" (2 thousandths of one inch) all the way up to what you need. You could sacrifice an old feeler gauge if you have one spare. So if you needed .013" you could use the .008" and .005" pieces together.

I cut them with tin snips but always get sharp edges. So never leave any sticking out. 

[Narwhal6]

18 hours ago, merciful-evans said:

You can shim under the nut. That will raise action from that end. If your nut is cut correctly then you could also use shim under the saddles in place of the coins. The thinnest shim will likely be .002" (2 thousandths of one inch) all the way up to what you need. You could sacrifice an old feeler gauge if you have one spare. So if you needed .013" you could use the .008" and .005" pieces together.

I cut them with tin snips but always get sharp edges. So never leave any sticking out. 

I'm wondering if the neck they used was from a vintage reissue or something. It has the larger CBS era headstock and the frets are narrow and tall, which may have added to it being difficult to set the action. 

Your idea is a good one, I may try it. I do have a feeler gauge set that only a few are used for setting the valves on my mower. I want to try some new strings on it as well, maybe 9's.

A reverse shim under the neck with the thicker end towards the headstock rather than the body would cure it too, but the coins got me up and running quickly.