Now this was a really lovely guitar.  I think a late 80s, American Built Strat’

Considering its age there’s not much wrong with it.  A little bit of wear and tear on the frets…

The rest of it’s lovely, a really great colour too.

There was however one big problem that I hadn’t anticipated, the socket on the end of the truss-rod has been rounded out which made it rather difficult to adjust.  The only way to get the neck flat was to put it on the jig….

As ever I used my calibrated beam with adhesive “sandpaper”, that way I know everything has to be at the same level.

You can see, just as I was getting started where the high frets were and where the worn low spots were.

High up, the 14th fret was the biggest problem.  It was set a lot lower than all the others so I had to go further tan I really wanted too.

Once the frets are all at the same level the tops need to be re-crowned (rounded off) again.

With the frets an even height and re-shaped they need to be polished using 4 grades of micromesh.

Once the frets were done I cleaned and oiled the fretboard.

With the fretwork done I put the neck back on the guitar with my fingers crossed, How much neck set is there going to be, bearing in mind the truss-rod isn’t easily adjustable.

Luckily the gods of guitar setup were smiling on me and the set was within tolerance.  A little high but within an acceptable limit.

The rest of it is quite simple setup.  The action wasn’t far off just a little low.

so I raised up the bridge saddles just a shade.

The action up at the 1st fret was just fine, apart from the B string.  The nut slot was so low the open string wouldn’t play at all.  A little bone dust and superglue sorted that out.

Next the intonation, again not too far out but in need of a little adjustment.

Lastly the pickup heights.

There we go, a great guitar ready for another 30 or 40 years….