Texas Custom Telecaster – Setup

What a lovely piece of wood, a really great looking guitar. It’s got a couple of problems, mostly just setup, but the neck isn’t on straight either.  Since the truss-rod adjustment is on the heel of the neck I’ll have to take it off anyway. I don’t need to measure that with a feeler gauge, […]

Squire Mustang – Setup

Here’s something a little different, rather than the usual round of Stratocasters etc.  An odd scale length for Fender as well, just a little shorter than the usual.  However it just wasn’t playing properly. While the string were off I also gave the fretboard a good clean…. and oil…. The scale length means none of […]

Custom Shop Fender Stratocaster

WOW What a great guitar!  It’s not often I get such lovely guitar on the bench.  However It wasn’t quite playing as well as it should, so I gave it a bit of a tweek here and there. This really is something special, when Fender put you name on it for you.  out of deference to […]

Fender Telecaster – Intonation problems

Everyone loves a Telecaster, a cassic guitar, no-one should be without one!  There is, however, one fundamental problem with the original design.  The strings are paired up on the bridge saddles and so the intonation is always a compromise, perticulrly on the D and G strings. There is a simple solution though, compensated saddles.  I’ve […]

Samick – Fret dress and setup

A nice looking guitar, sadly the build quality has rather let it down. The first problem was a dodgy volume control, a little intermittent. I was going to replace it but once I got the wiring out I found a dry joint.  I would say it was an easier fix but the biggest problem is […]

Problematic Gretsch

Had a bit of a problem with a Gretsch this week.  The owner wanted a setup to cure some fret buzzing, sadly it needed a bit more than just that.  The frets were quite uneven so they needed dressing to get the most out of it. Rather uneven frets….Grinding the frets to level the tops…Once […]

Martin – Intonation problem

Nice guitars these, usually much better than this, but the Intonation was rather badly out in this one. There didn’t seem to be any real reason for it so I started off with a new, compensated, bone saddle…It sorted out most of the problem, but not quite the Bass “E”.  Next I widened out the […]

Washburn Setup

A fairly simple job, the setup wasn’t that far out.  Having said that setting up a Floyd Rose is never easy! Before the setup I’ve also added a treble bleed circuit.  It stops the quality of the tone from fading and going “woolly” as you back off the volume. Before I start the setup I also gave […]