Fender Stratocaster – Build

Putting a guitar together may seem easy but the devil is in the detail! Despite what it says I suspect this neck isn’t genuine Fender, if it is, it’s a Friday afternoon special, the frets are all over the place.  If It’s to play nicely they’ll need levelling first. The masking tape is to protect […]

Fender Jazz Bass – Setup

What’s in a Bass setup?  Much the same as a guitar really, just slightly different settings to allow for the heavier strings… The neck had a little too much set, or curve…. so a tweek of the truss-rod. With the neck flattened out a little it did bring the action at the 12th fret down […]

Telecaster – New Machine Heads

These were a nice touch I thought, a nice upgrade. There’s nothing wrong with the old heads, but the owner wanted Black ones The new ones are slightly different, and need new holes for the screws.  Making sure they’re all lined up squarely. There we go. Match the guitar quite nicely. To see what else […]

Fender Precision Bass – Setup

A great looking guitar, just not playing at all well.  I didn’t really need to measure the action, more like a step-ladder to reach it! Yeh, that’s possibly the highest action I’ve ever seen, even on a Bass. The bridge saddles were quite low though, and those pickups are rather close to the strings. While […]

Fender Acoustic – Setup with lower action

There’s nothing worse than trying to learn the guitar on one that’s really hard to play!  The action on this one was very high which is only ever going to give you sore fingers! Measuring up at the 12th fret the action’s way too high… The frets are a little uneven so I’ll never be […]

Fender Acoustic – Action Height

Here’s a common problem.  A nice guitar but the action is a little high.  It can put you off, you’re not going o persevere if the guitar is hard to play.  However don’t worry, as long as the guitar is basically sound and the frets are level it can be sorted. Looking up at the 12th fret the […]

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 […]

US Telecaster – Setup

Why should a brand new guitar like this need a setup.  Simple answer, it shouldn’t.  However it’s been built a long way away, in a Californian desert, and travelled half way round the world.  How many temperature and humidity changes has it been through? It’s not really that bad, just needs a twist here and […]

Fender Stratocaster – Custom build

A collection of bits and pieces, put together should make a nice guitar… To make it a really great guitar, rather than just an average one I levelled the frets.  Firstly making sure the neck is level.With it nice and flat, grind down the fret tops to a common level….Once levelled each fret needs to […]