Had a spare slot this week so managed to finish off the Strat’.  What a job, I like a challenge sometimes but not like this one…

Not only were the frets very uneven but the truss-rod is stuck solid.  There is a slight back-bow without the strings so I bolted it on the jig to level it before dressing the frets.

Once levelled I’ve re-shaped and polished them.

Cut a small shim to bring the angle of the neck back down.

The nut isn’t a very good fit and the slots are way too high…

so I’ve cut them down to give a reasonable action at the 1st fret.

The tremolo springs were also set far too tight, the trem’ was sitting flat on the body and would only bend notes down and not up.

With the setup completed just reset the pickup heights and it’s all done.

The moral of the story… Bolting on a new neck is not quite as easy as you might think! There’s a lot more too it if you want it to play nicely.  Buying a cheap neck can be a false economy as it will need a lot more work to get it set up properly.

To see the job in full click here.