Here’s an oddball, is it a Left-hand or Right-hand Strat?

The owner had it custom made but it just needed a few tweeks to get the full potential from it.

The first problem was the nut.  The grooves were much too shallow which made the playing action at the first fret way too high.  But it’s too narrow anyway.I don’t particularly rate brass nuts, I use bone, so that’s what we agreed to fit.  The slot’s too big for a standard nut so I made one from a large blank.Making sure the bottom is square and flat..Grind it down to fit the slot…Put an angle on the top..and there we go, one nut ready for the slots…making sure the outer edges of the strings are equally spaced from the side of the neck..and the other strings spaced properly.  I’ll cut the slots properly when I do the setup.

The next problem are the bridge saddles.  The wasn’t enough space to correctly set the intonation.  The only way to cure that is to file a little off the end of the saddles.More of that latter, the intonation is about the last thing that gets done.

Before that, a standard setup starting with the neck set..Then the action at the 12th fret…Set the outside “E” strings first….then the other strings to match the fretboard radius.Back to the nut and cut the slots down to set the action at the 1st fret.

The nut was rather high so once the slots were done I took it out again and took a little more off the top.Then back to the bridge and the intonation.  With the springs out from the D and G strings there was just about enough room, the E and A saddles I filled down a little.There we go, ready to rock.  As I say an unusual one.  A Left-handed guitar but strung the Right-hand way.  It seems the owner is left handed and plays that way but taught himself with right handed guitars and so still strings them that way!  Never seen that before but whatever works for you!