When a cheap guitar becomes your new favorite

[rct]

2 hours ago, Narwhal6 said:

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. 

Capo the first fret, press the low E down at the last full fret.  Should be .010" between top of 8th fret and bottom of low E string.

Capo off, 4/64" from the top of the 17th fret to the bottom of each string, close enough to follow the radius, that's how and where you set string height.

Intonate it.

It should play well all over the neck after you do these things.  It should be well intonated after you do these things.  If it isn't, you own a partscaster, so anything you have to do is just throwing good money after decent money.

99.98 out of 100 guitars, probably considerably more, don't have nickels under the saddles.  This isn't a "normal" situation that needs a little compensation.

Good luck with it.

rct

[NighthawkChris]

Agree with @rct with setup instructions.  If you haven't done this, please follow his instructions.  This is how a Fender is set up. 

Before we start shimming the nut on this thing, take a look a this:

http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Musician/GenSetup/NutAction/nutaction.html

There are a few ways to verify this is "optimal" but generally, I press the 3rd fret and hope to see a very slight amount of "relief" between the crown of the first fret and the bottom of the string - per string since each string is slotted to some depth.  Just didn't want to start shimming to see if things work for no good reason.  You can start screwing with getting sharp notes because it takes more pressure to depress string into fret causing it to increase in tuning. 

So if you have to depress 1st couple frets with a lot of force, probably have issue with nut slots needing to be cut lower.  If you are getting buzzes on open strings, probably have the slot(s) cut too deep.  in this case, a shim will help with slots cut too deep, but will affect ALL slots. 

I shortcut this with using feeler gauges.  After I adjust neck relief and set action, etc. only after ALL OF THIS is done, I then check with feeler gauge to see if I can fit 0.018"-0.022" range, I'd say that "nut" action is good (gauge between first fret and bottom of string with no strings fretted or capos, etc. - just as-is, stick gauge in between this region and see what you get).  If nut is adjusted (i.e., deepened a slot as you can only really make a slot deeper), need to start all over again and make sure that relief, action, etc. is good, then re-measure "nut" action.  Tedious yes, but don't know a better way to do this personally with "basic" tools. 

And to boot, slotting a nut is something you want to make sure you are angling it correctly...  You don't want to get it where the string starts binding in the slot because you will absolutely hate what it does to tuning stability.  Basically, angle slot down towards tuners.  You want a clean break angle to be made so binding and such doesn't occur. 

I have only used a shim when I had a nut that was poorly cut with too deep of slot or slots.  Sometimes it's just better to start over and get a new nut.  Just have to know what you're doing when you luthier your own crap. 

Edited August 18, 2023 by NighthawkChris

[rct]

4 hours ago, NighthawkChris said:

...Sometimes it's just better to start over and get a new nut. 

I haven't and wouldn't shim a nut.  New nut, I'll explain it to the customer later.

rct

[Dub-T-123]

I guess that the neck pocket wasn’t routed deep enough and that’s why the saddles are adjusted so high 

[merciful-evans]

22 hours ago, Dub-T-123 said:

I guess that the neck pocket wasn’t routed deep enough and that’s why the saddles are adjusted so high 

I hadn't considered that.

Veering off topic, do Fenders still have that micro-tilt screw thing? My old Strat was made before that was introduced, so I never got to try it.

[Dub-T-123]

A flush trim router bit in the neck pocket would fix the problem in no time

 

one of my Strats has the micro tilt. I think a traditional shim is better overall. It’s a set and forget type adjustment, not something that necessarily benefits from being adjustable