Have you ever experienced this before? You’re tightening up your fresh new acoustic string and notice the bridge pin keeps creeping up, or maybe it even pops right out!

Why is this happening?

For the most part, the root of the problem stems from the bottom of the pin itself. It’s squared off and acts like a catch for the string’s ball end.

While this is certainly a main cause for bridge pins popping out, the entire problem stems from a couple of reasons – often combined.

The other issue is typically caused by the heaviest strings. Their greater thickness often binds against the bridge pin hole making it difficult for them to seat at all. In such cases, the solution is to either widen the bridge pin slot or enlarge the bridge pin hole.

Why is this still happening when it seems to be a common problem?

As with any guitar problem, it takes time for solutions to become the accepted norm. For instance, it wasn’t that long ago that pickup systems for acoustics didn’t include an integrated tuner, now it’s commonplace. Of course this is still not the absolute rule, but looking further back in guitar history, there was a time when there were no such things as electronic tuners at all – get my meaning?

For the time being, many manufacturers are still using common bridge pins that are squared off on the bottom. You’ll see them on highly recognized brand-name instruments (maybe you own one?) and even custom designed high-end replacement pins.

In this video, I run through the more common, and easier methods of getting the bridge pins to cooperate.

Video: How to Stop Bridge Pins from Popping Out

Transcript:

Hey all, Steve from GuitarNiche here. I’m just about to restring this lovely Seagull Entourage acoustic – very nice very nice, few years old, and as a cursory nice thing to do for the person that owns it, I noticed that the ends of these bridge pins, all of which are right here are all squared off – they’re just mass-produced plastic bridge pins.

What I’m going to do is well for one, take one of our new strings and and pop it in there and give you an idea what might happen.

Rightaway you’ll see that it’s pulling up on on the pin. Two things going on there. I’m going to address one at a time.

The pin itself: what I’ll do is simply chamer the edge here at the slot. Now I have to do this off camera so I don’t make a mess on the guitar. I’m just taking my file, you can do this on a grinder or you can do it with sandpaper, whatever works. But I’ll show you what I did very quickly, all I did there was just knock off that square edge it’s super simple.

I’ve heard people complaining about the bridge pins coming up when they’re tightening strings and it’s very common. Especially when you don’t know what the forces are behind it. It’s totally normal to ask questions and try to figure it out. Well, here’s your answer to help alleviate the problem of bridge pins pulling up. But, as you’re tightening up the strings it’s still not 100% guaranteed.

if you want to help things along a little bit take the end of the string here where it’s wound, and I’ve seen this happen even with chamered pins where the ball still gets hung up. Just because everything’s still at right angles.

What I’m going to do is put a little bit of a (hope that’s on camera there) I’ll put a little bit of a kink in that, just roll the ball over a little bit. Then I’ll pop that in and put the pin in, pull up a little bit. Push it down with my thumb if I have to.

By the time I get that wound up (I’m just going to do this super quick) just to give a little bit of tension and explain that because of those two small tiny little adjustments it’s done.

Okay you see it’s still coming up, but I’ll just push that down easy peasy. But the important thing is that it’s not the whole thing being drawn up.

Sometimes they’ll pop right out and then they’ll land and Never Never Land and, you know, have fun finding it.

Anyway I will do that for each string in turn but there’s your little tip for the day so to speak, actually two for one.

Hope you enjoyed that and we’ll we’ll carry on, get the job done.

Make sure you like and subscribe, read the description below this video. There’s lots of great resources there – freebies there’s a couple of free books and more stuff coming all the time. so get on that

As always play loud and have a great day.

Cheers!

The post How To Stop Bridge Pins From Popping Out (Easy Fix!) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

How To Setup A Gibson Les Paul Part 9: String Stretch, Tweak & Cleanup

What’s Covered:

• Stretching the strings

• Dealing with a sticky nut slot

• A quick test drive

• Final cleanup

Video: Les Paul Setup Tutorial Part 9

Transcript:

Stretching the Strings

All the strings have been intonated according to the process I just described, but it’s not necessarily in tune, and we still have a little bit of housekeeping to do.

First order is stretching those strings again. You want to get all the stretch out of those strings. I can tell if there’s any issue with the nut again, I can feel it make a little knock down here like something giving. Things might be moving into position or settling down. Once more, I’ll give the strings a good stretch again.

A little trick here, use a tuning fork, strike the 5th fret harmonic at the 5th fret, 5th string. Exactly the same pitch as the A440 tuning fork. How do you like that?

Back to the nut, heard a little “tink” on that 4th string. I’m going to deal with that. I have my amp set up so it’s a little bit gainy. It’s the way I like it. When I stretched the string. I could feel that 4th string is just sticking.

Okay, so that was essentially our last stretch, but this is a bonus for anybody watching.

Dealing with a Sticky Nut Slot

So we found a little kink going on there with the 4th string. It’s not quite doing what it’s supposed to do, so I’m going to smooth that out. I’m not trying to carve it down or anything, I’m just smoothing that out. I think I know what it is.

The winding is probably catching the back wall on this side face – very common. So we have our groove going this way, and the string is canted that way and is catching the back wall there.

If you hear that “tink” that’s what that is. It’s typically on three and three type tuners. You’re hearing the winding’s catching the back wall of the nut slot.

There, done. Cool. Just like that.

Back to the String Stretch

All righty. Stretching it. I’m tuning and tuning and tuning. I want to do it efficiently. Well that sounds just dandy.

I had the relief set at a nominal point before I got the strings up to pressure and all this. This is a wonderful example of what I’m talking about. I got the strings up to pressure to stretch out. The neck actually tipped just a hair.

The relief is in a sweet spot, it’s just in a wonderful position. I’m checking the high frets here. No fretting out. It’s not sky high or anything. Very, very, very comfortable.

Bass side is nice. There’s a nice little bit of air because bass strings need a little bit more height to do their work.

I’m going to give these another stretch. Just arbitrarily around the neck. Man, you can’t stretch the strings enough when you’re fresh. And then the next day, they’ll be perfect.

You can get them to settle down within a short time period if need be, but the next day, they’ll be really in good shape. That’s good. Beautiful.

I’m going to have to play it for a little bit to get everything to settle down to where it’s supposed to be. That bridge pickup, the controls nice and clean. Everything seems to be doing what it’s supposed to do.

Final Cleanup

The final part of this whole setup procedure will be taking some paper towels and a little bit of the polish and just going around it doing the back of the neck and the back of the body, the sides and everything really picking, cleaning house as it were. We don’t need to bore you with all of that.

Anyway, last thing, we put the truss rod cover back on. Tidy up house. Clean up after yourself. It’s all good. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that.

My name is Steve from GuitarNiche. Of course, we’re going to put that back on, all the necessary bits and call it a day. I hope you enjoyed that. It’s been a pleasure.

I hope you get something out of that, some tips and whatnot. Please stay tuned, there are tons of other videos that will explain in depth things like neck relief, how to cut a nut, and more in depth stuff like how to intonate in very, very fine detail and things like that.

Some real finesse stuff that we’re going to address are the most common problems, that we as guitar players face, string breakage, going out of tune, why does D sound great and G sound like crap. I’ll answer those questions. Anyway, thank you very much, and we’ll talk soon. Take care.

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The post How To Setup A Gibson Les Paul Part 9 (String Stretching, Tweaks And Test Drive) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

Part 8: How To Setup A Gibson Les Paul. Relief, the Nut & Setting Intonation

What’s Covered:

• Assessing Neck Relief

• Assessing the Nut

• The Concept of a Balanced Setup

• The Intonation Process

Video: Les Paul Setup Tutorial Part 8

Transcript:

Assessing Neck Relief

We’re having a look at neck relief. I want to see a gap of light around the middle of the neck here around the seventh fret between where I’m holding the string down. A gap of light roughly the same thickness as the third string itself. Now that could be more or less depending on how you like your action, but it’s one of these things where you test it out.

As a general rule for me that’s a good starting point because this neck is pretty straight. It’s my medium. It’s my midline, it’s a great starting point. Always try to start with the neck a little bit straighter than ultimately where you want it. When you start to induce compression through string pressure, relief will come around naturally.

Assessing the Nut

So now regarding the nut, I recently replaced this nut, so I know it’s in great shape, but if it had an issue I could deal with that, if it’s with a string or two was buzzing, I can show you how to repair that. There’s a couple of videos I have on that.

In most cases the nut is going to need just tiny little tweaks. So you have at your availability, you can get nut files from Stewmac or All Parts. Personally I prefer AllParts. I find that Stewmac is all well and good, but they’re more in the business of hard selling products than I’m comfortable with these days.

Overall I’m pretty happy with the condition of the nut. I’d prefer to keep the whole nut thing as a separate topic on it’s own.

The Concept of a Balanced Setup

Let me say this, within the context of the instrument, this is very very important. We have a triangular set of elements that we want to keep in balance. Think of it (action) like a perfect triangle, one point is the nut, one is the bridge, two fixed points where the string attaches to the instrument, and then there’s relief itself.

If any one of those elements is out of balance, it automatically affects the other two. So in an ideal setup, all three of those elements are in harmony, and the instrument is happy, and it functions great – all good things.

As mentioned, the nut is a fixed point. If it has issues it has to be addressed so that the strings will go through it properly, etc, etc. So that’s kind of a fixed anchor point.

The other two elements being the bridge and the relief, have a little more adjustability. Nonetheless, they should all be in harmony when everything is aligned properly.

I don’t see any real issue with the nut, this one is just dandy, so I’m going to leave that.

Now down to the bridge end, the relief is good at hand, and it’s intonation time. I’m not going to spend a great deal of time on this as well because intonation is an art form.

Different instruments they all use basically the same principle, but the process can be a little bit different instrument to instrument. And there are many different ways of going about it.

I’m going to give you the short version of how this works. First off, we just installed brand new strings. They’re fresh, they’re really elastic, and there’s a lot of unrestrained junk living in every aspect of the string.

So the first thing I’m going to do is I’m going to stretch, give the strings a good stretch.

Okay, that’s the first pass. They all dropped about a semitone to a tone.

Fact – you want to keep your guitar in tune. One of the most important things you can do is stretch your strings.

I’ve had pros come in and say, “My guitar, it’s not holding a tune.” First thing I do is stretch their strings, and they’re dropping, and I’m going, “I’m sorry man, it was just your strings.” And they’re going,”Oh okay, all right.”

Point is, always make sure your strings are stretched out fully.

Back to our guitar on the workbench, that’s one degree of stretching let’s say.

Now we’re ready to intonate. The process is we’re getting that initial elasticity out of the strings, so that they are…put it this way, if you try to intonate with the strings being fresh and elastic, your pitches are going to drop.

You’re not going to get true reads because the strings are too wrangly and unrestrained. They’re just too happy, it’s the way it is.

Anyway, I’ gonna plug this in. Actually before I do that I’m going to clean up the jack.

This is simply a piece of 220 wet dry sand paper, that’s my preference. Coarse enough to be effective, but fine enough to not really do any damage. And roll that up, I’m going to put that in the jack, and twirl that around a little bit.

I can already see some, I don’t know if you can see that dust, but that’s actually it’s not the gold plate coming off, that’s a little bit of rust coming off, or not rust but corrosion.

It’s a basic process I suppose, so I just flip that around 180 using the other end, clean that up. Okay, get rid of that. So now I know that the jack is in good shape.

Now I’m going to make sure the outer nut of the jack is tight. Give it a little torque with an open end wrench, okay? There’s a trick to keeping that from spinning around which again I’ll share that at a later date.

I was looking for the correct size on that. This is a little sloppy because it’s metric, and not imperial like it should be.

Anyway, we’re going to plug that in, all is clean. Okay, I’m going to use my treble pickup.

For more on the entire process, check our complete guide on How to Setup a Guitar.

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The Intonation Process

Being able to get a clean signal to the tuner, the tuning device whether it’s a clip on or whatever, is very important. I’m going to give you the idea of how I go about this,

I’m not going to be absolutely specific about going through each, and every string, and what not, because once you get the initial process you’ll have the idea.

Okay, I’m not using open strings, and 12 fret, or harmonics or anything like 12 fret harmonics specifically. The reason is in every other situation, whatever instrument it is,

if you don’t know for sure is that nut is absolutely cut the way it’s supposed to, you can get misreads along the entire string length. You have to know beforehand that the nut has been cut properly, and you don’t know that until you address it.

So in order to eliminate the possibility of an improperly cut nut, this is how we go about it.

I’m going to start with the fifth string, fifth fret which is a D. I’m going to set my tuner, it’s just an old analogue tuner that needles just beautiful, it’s a fluid motion, it’s not sketchy or anything like that.

And I’m going to use a 12 fret harmonic from the fifth fret (which would be the 17th fret visually), so then I’m getting that D way up the neck.

I should get it in tune first. So I’m registering a specific point on the tuner, it doesn’t matter if it’s perfectly on center right, you don’t have to be that fussy about it. Just get it so that it’s in the ballpark, but register with your eyes.

Take note of exactly where the needle sits or where the registration point is for what you’re seeing. And then I’m going to hit the twelfth fret harmonic (from that point) just to filter it a little bit, just to double check.

That’s beautiful, now up here, that point I just saw a second ago is actually registered now. It’s a little bit on the high side, which means that the scale length is too short. So I have to lengthen it.

I’m going to throw in a little bit more length into the string. Pop the string, helps to seat it, okay? To get it to sit pretty. Now I’m looking at my point, it’s still off center, but it doesn’t matter, it’s within tolerance.

For a typical 6 string electric guitar (3 plain strings and 3 wound strings), your intonation pattern at the saddles should look like the image below:

I just want to see the exact same thing at the octave note when I do this. I’m using a moderate pressure to do this too.

Okay. That’s great. If I press I can actually get that to deflect like, “Whoa.” We’ve got to use like a reasonable amount of pressure. That pitch right there is exactly the same sound, and pitch as that fretted string.

So as far as the tuner goes, it’s exactly the same thing as reading, and it’s on the fret board.

So much of what we play on the guitar is on the fret board. Use the frets on the fretboard to intonate with. You want to do it properly as it gets around any discrepancies with the nut or silly things like that. Anyway, that is the short course on the intonation process as it works.

I can double check this by using a B.

I’m taking note of where my needle sits, and then I come up here (an octave away). And it’s bang on the same spot, that tells me the string is in tune, It’s awesome.

I’m going to use that same process, and go through all my strings, and use fretted notes down here, and then a 12 frets up an octave. For each string multiple notes,

I can use just my analogue tuner, it’s not chromatic or anything just the regular string means for the guitar, and it’ll do a fantastic job.

Anyway I’m going to carry on with that, I’m going to finish that up, and we’ll get back with the home stretch. Back in a sec.

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The post How To Setup A Gibson Les Paul Part 8 (Intonation And Cutting The Nut)) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

Part 7: How To Setup A Gibson Les Paul. Adjustments and Neck Relief.

What’s Covered:

• Maintaining String Height

• Pickup Height Adjustments and Techniques

• Assessing Neck Relief

In the previous segment, How To Setup A Gibson Les Paul Part 6, we began the rebuilding process with making preliminary adjustments that put the guitar’s geometry in the ballpark. In this next section, we start to make the all-important fine adjustments starting with pickup height.

Video: Les Paul Setup Tutorial Part 7

Transcript:

Pickup Height Adjustment

So the string height seems to be pretty good. Again, I haven’t brought up the pitch yet so all the nasty business will start to happen once we get there.

But while I’m here, I’m going to make a pickup height adjustment. You can do this now or you can do this later.

We’re in the finishing phase so the instrument’s not going move around a lot from this point. The pressures induced on it is going to be minimal. If you’re paying attention, make sure in to bring the tension up so the strings are not like slack okay?

Setting Pickup Height

We’re tweaking all of the elements of the instrument systematically, one after the other coming up to the final result getting to the top of that perfect pyramid.

Remember that measurement of two dimes (.098″ or 2mm) from the pickup to the bottom of the string. Same here. Notice I have my fingers pressing the strings down on the neck near the body. I’m not way up here. I’m just here where the body and the neck meet, kind of just a nice choke place, let’s say.

Again, using that dimension of two dimes of width is common. It’s something that can stick in your head very, very easily. I’m looking for that gap between the string and the pickup here, at the neck pickup, on the bridge pickup, and on the treble side for both pickups as well.

With any kind of pickup that has a shiny surface, if you can get a reflection off that, that’s awesome because if you get that in the light just right you can use the reflection between the first string and the sixth string to really fine tune that.

Because you are going to be able to use that reflection to get exactly the same height on both sides. It’s a really cool little trick works like a charm. You can even tell immediately if it’s goofy or something like that.

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Bringing Strings to Pitch and Assessing Compression

Now I’m going to bring it up to pitch.

Using my A440 tuning fork I lock the frequency in my head. Now, we’re up into the proper pitch range. The original pitch only dropped a couple cents after I brought it up.

When you bring the guitar up to pitch, the instrument starts to do this because you are inducing pressure from one end to the other, and it starts to come under tension. It compresses.

Compression on instruments has been known and dealt with for probably as many years as the instrument has been around which is hundreds, if not about 1300 years or more.

We are looking at where the neck relief is again. When it comes to relief, that is the amount of air or concave bow in the neck. There’s a sweet spot again. There’s always a sweet spot for every adjustment.

What I look for, quickly, is to take any one of these straight edges, the strings themselves, and at about second, third fret area. Again, where the body meets the neck. I want to begin assessing where the relief currently sits, then go about adjusting it. I’ll be right back.

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The post How To Setup A Gibson Les Paul Part 7 (More Adjustments And Neck Relief) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

Part 6: How To Setup A Gibson Les Paul. Beginning Fine Adjustments.

What’s Covered:

• Adjusting pickup pole pieces

• Preliminary truss rod adjustments

• Setting the string height

• Stop tailpiece adjustments

In the last segment, How To Setup A Gibson Les Paul Part 5, we tackled the rather menial but very necessary task of housekeeping. With that out of the way, we can now begin preliminary adjustments that bring the guitar to a state of maximum performance and dependability.

Video: Les Paul Setup Tutorial Part 6

Transcript:

Adjusting Pickup Pole Pieces

While trying to adjust the pole pieces here I noticed that this last screw head is just destroyed with corrosion. I’m going to dig that out a little bit with a small screwdriver, a jeweller’s screwdriver, of course being careful not to scratch anything in the process. You’ve got to be careful that you don’t damage any of the surrounding area.

I’m going to take that screwdriver again and go around and knock off any of the junk carefully that is any of the wax that popped up and what not. It’s pretty clean actually, I’ve seen a lot worse.

Adjust the pole pieces so that when you look across that pickup face you see a nice gradual arc that would match the radius of the fret board.

On to the next step, we’re going bring a little bit more tension into the instrument by tightening up the strings. Not up to full pitch, just inducing some pressure on it. Then we’ll look at the look at the end geometry.

Preliminary Truss Rod Adjustments

First we’re going to set the height after giving the neck a quick read. It doesn’t look too bad, I’m going to straighten it out just a hair.

We are in a bit of a hurry so I’m going to bring the truss rod adjuster towards me to tighten up the truss rod. There is a separate video I did about this that explains how that little mechanism works for you.

Just a small movement, not a quarter turn or anything, just a little judgment turn. You can feel the stiffness of the truss rod, whether it is engaged or not.

If the adjuster is loose and going chatter then you have got to snug it up to the end. If it is really, really tight, you might want to try backing it off and put a bit of 3in1 Oil on the threads.

Set the neck relief as it should be for the player. Different people want their strings at different heights. I’ll give you a bit of information so that you’ll be able to do that correctly for your own playing style.

Setting the String Height

I’ve set the truss rod in what I’d consider a good median position. At about the 15th or 17th fret on the bass side, in this case, its the 16th, I want to see is that the height is about the height of two dimes or 3/32″ (.085″ or a hair over 2mm). If you’re not sure, get two dimes and look at them. That’s your gauge. In our case here, the current height is going to come down a little bit.

And then on the treble side, I am going to look around the same area where the neck meets the body. It’s just an arbitrary point that works for me. You can tinker with this and try to figure out some way that may be more specific to the way that you like to get things done.

The 15th fret area works well as a general rule. On the treble side here, I am going to re-situate the string height by adjusting that thumb wheel. I want to see the thickness of a nickel or just a hair over a 16th of an inch (.075″ or 1.8mm).

Keep in mind these are guidelines for setting a starting point, and that point is pretty low. My approach is to start from an ideal low-action position, then compensate for the player’s tastes and the instrument’s limitations as I finalize setting up the action.

So I have adjusted the truss rod. I haven’t talked about the neck yet, but I will get to that. I have made some preliminary adjustments to the truss rod.

The strings are at a nominal pressure. It is not up to pitch or anything. If things are tight and bound up it makes it very hard to adjust these things properly.

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Stop Tailpiece Adjustments

Now the tailpiece, I have a preference for where I like to see these things. This is ballpark to the fine point. I might make a small incremental adjustment down the road. But this is very much where it is going to wind up as a final position.

Now there is a certain amount of angle break here where the strings transition from the bridge to the tailpiece. That amount of angle. If you tinker with this you will find a sweet spot that works really well for your playing.

Some people want the studs right tight to the body, That’s great because the theory is you’ve got the studs tight to the body and you get maximum transference.

That’s awesome. I personally don’t notice too much of a difference either way but what I have noticed is that the amount of angle over the saddle that angular break there to the tailpiece can make a really significant change to the overall feel of how the strings play under your fingers.

So it is really worth tinkering at, but be careful because you don’t want to wreck the studs, use a proper screwdriver. You can even use a coin that’s the right size for a pretty significant slot in this stud.

The treble side it looks good to me and I am going to work on the bass side actually. I am going to be very, very careful with this thing.

Control it. The stud can be under a lot of tension unless you loosen the strings. And watching a flat end screwdriver skate across the top of a guitar is no fun.

There are tools out there that you can use to make sure that you don’t slip off and what not. I believe if you are careful enough you wouldn’t have that problem to begin with.

I have those slots are in line with each other laterally. It is a nice finish. It just looks pleasant that way. Looking from the end of the guitar I want to see the same angle of the studs to the thumb wheels.

So I can actually see the bottoms of the studs of the tailpiece. I see the same amount of reveal on each side looking straight down the middle of the instrument so that I know that this plane is exactly in line with this plane.

That’s just the way I prefer to do it. I have never, ever had any issues with that. I think it works very, very well.

I am going to take a little break and we will come back and we’ll look at getting the strings up to pitch. We are going to address the nut and we are going to deal with setting the pickup height, okay. All right, I will be right back.

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The post How To Setup A Gibson Les Paul Part 6 (Preliminary Adjustments) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

Part 6 of How To Setup A Fender Telecaster

The home stretch in setting up our Telecaster and getting it playing tip top.

Final Adjustments and Test Drive

One of THE most important elements of keeping your (or a client’s) guitar in tune is simply stretching the strings. When they’re rock solid on a well setup instrument, all the headaches associated with pitches drifting simply evaporate – leaving more room for the joy of playing and self expression.

With a few turns of the screwdriver to get the pickups at their ideal height, and a final check, this beautiful Fender Telecaster is ready for the twang test.

What’s Covered:

Video: Telecaster Setup Tutorial Part 6

Final Thoughts on the Details

Brilliance in Understated Design

The economical approach to the Telecaster’s design lends itself very well to tuning stability. The bridge is solidly built (with the exception of some models with far too many small parts).

The strings installed through the body act as excellent anchors, and the headstock design is linear to the string’s travel reducing friction points.

As long as the tuners are reasonably good and the strings have been installed properly, the one major influence on tuning stability will be the nut. It’s good practice to make sure the nut is cut properly to allow the strings to move freely.

It’s also good practice to apply a little lubricant in freshly cut nut slots to help reduce friction and expedite the process of settling in.

You can find a complete set of recommended setup tools on our Guitar Setup Tools Guide page.

Setting Pickup Height

This particular version of Reissue Telecaster in our video series had no external neck pickup height adjustment screws. Not a problem at all. The pickup is easily adjusted with the pickguard removed to expose the mounting screws. The pickguard is then easily re-installed afterwards.

Here’s some quick tips to setting your pickups to their ideal height:

Start by holding the neck with your fret hand high up on the neck close to the body. Keep your hand flat across all the strings to simulate being fretted in the upper registers.

This will give you your maximum low point as the strings leave the neck to reach their contact point at the bridge. Now you can set your neck and bridge pickups to equal heights.

Note: many modern neck pickups have a slightly reduced output to accommodate the exaggerated influence of the stings in their magnetic field. This technique is a great way account for the difference.

Look at one of the pickups from about a 45 degree angle from the side of the instrument. If you tilt the guitar forward or back accordingly, you should see a neat shadow for each string on the face of the pickup. You can use that shadow to gauge how far the strings are from the face of the pickup.

Concentrate on only the first and sixth string shadows, the middle strings are of course unnecessary. Combined with a side-long visual inspection, you should be able to set the pickup bang-on to your ideal height, equally from side to side, which should be about 3/32″ or 2.5mm depending on your tastes.

Once you have the pickup height set visually, give the guitar a listen to make sure the output is as you would expect. If there’s a noticeable difference, it’s easy enough to adjust one or the other pickup accordingly.

For a complete reference guide to eliminating guitar problems and maximizing your own guitar’s playability, check out our How To Set Up A Guitar page.

The Final Step

A good last stretch of the strings helps to seat them permanently in their new home. With the guitar finally dialled in, there’s only one thing left to do – PLAY!

Thanks for Watching!

I certainly hope you gained some insight into the guitar setup process. Although this series deals with a particular type of guitar, the principles can be applied across most other guitars as well.

If you watch some of the other guitar setup videos, you’ll definitely get a sense of how the underlying techniques work the same across a huge array of instruments. The difference of course is not so much in watching how to do it, but gaining the basic knowledge to do it yourself.

Next time you think your guitar needs an adjustment and you’re not quite sure if it’s within your wheelhouse, give yourself credit and give it a go. Experience builds confidence!

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The post How To Setup A Fender Telecaster Part 6 (Final Adjustments and Test Drive) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

Part 5: How To Setup A Gibson Les Paul.

What’s Covered in the Video:

• How to save time cleaning the body

• Detailing the body and headstock

• installing a new set of strings

• How to batch your processes and save time!

Previously in Part 4 of How To Setup A Les Paul, we began the process of prepping the guitar for the next all important process. In this segment we carry on towards our ultimate goal – a clean, perfectly set up guitar that plays beautifully.

Video: Les Paul Setup Tutorial Part 5

Transcript:

How to Save Time Cleaning a Guitar

Well, not the most fun job in the world but absolutely necessary. Dunlop 65 polish, this is good stuff. This will help pick up the dirt and fingerprints. This guitar’s not really dirty so we don’t have to worry about getting really crazy with it.

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The cleaning process described in this video segment is organized and should save you a bunch of time with housekeeping.

I have a ’79 Les Paul Custom, it was in rough condition finish wise so one day I took it apart and spent four hours getting that sucker polished up like new, and it looked spectacular! It was awesome. That was a deep clean which was long overdue.

Detailing the Body and Headstock

I’m actually going to get tight to these sides of the headstock. That’s where a lot of finger junk builds up around, where your hands are always touching the side of the headstock when you’re tuning, so you want to get at that.

Again, back to my little wooden stick, it helps me get right tight to the corners all around. I keep shifting this thing around so I’m not just pushing dirt into the same spot all the time. I keep using different parts of the paper towel here.

We want to get around that pickup selector switch, and we’ll get around the bushings. Again, I’m not too worried about these bushings here or the adjusters/thumb wheels in this case and the end screws because the instrument’s in fairly decent condition to start.

But there is a little corrosion on them for sure. I’m going to hit that again. I will be making some adjustments down here, so I’m not worried about the position of them.

Now, I’m going to be handling this instrument quite a bit, so what I’m trying to focus on here is just getting the majority of the junk off, the real garbage, the stuff that’s been caked in for a while.

To begin with, the guitar’s fairly clean so I’m happy about that. If it was nastier, then of course we’d spend more time accordingly and whatnot.

Tell-tale sign of a pick guard on Les Pauls; that nut on the back always leaves a mark on the face. If you see that you’ll know what it is.

That is if the pick guard’s not on it. I’m just gonna do the face for now, because I’ll come back to the rest of it when we’re close to being done. And as far as strings go we’re going to put on some D’Addario 10’s. Get those bad boys ready.

As for the dirt, junk goes in the junk.

Installing New Guitar Strings

Now we’re going to start throwing some new strings on and have at it.

Starting with number six, the saddles of the bridge are canted forward. I’m gonna put the fifth string aside there for a second. let’s get this sixth string installed. Note, there’s more than one right way to install strings, and I’ll do another video series on that.

When somebody tells you got to do it this way, some stuff yes, but other stuff, it’s common sense. There’s more than one right way to do many things, so I want to keep that in mind. Anyway, a little quick instruction on this,

I’m keeping the slack end of the string under control, otherwise it will control me and that doesn’t exist in my guitar world, okay. I am the person in control of such things.

Batch Your Processes

Okay, so now all the guitar hardware is locked down and, that is it’s not going to fall off anymore. I’ve put the sixth string on just to hold things in place, you know. Again, I refer back to batching your processes.

In this case, when we have loose hardware, we want to keep it under control. So I put one string on to control the environment. Now I’ll go back and do the rest of the strings, just get them installed.

Some people like to install the strings backwards. That is, top wrapping the strings over the top of the tailpiece. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, it’s a matter of preference.

You have to experiment with different things, because it comes down to the angle at which the string hits the bridge. And there’s a trick to that.

There’s a sweet spot. I’ll give you some direction on that, but ultimately, it’s going to be what you prefer. Anyway, I’ll get back to this area in a second.

I’m just going to get the rest of these strings installed. Measure off about an inch and a half or so of string which will equate to about three wraps around the tuner post. In this case, one post to the next is a good indicator.

Switch my grip, pop the string through, give it a right angle bend that locks the string in place. Now again, there’s ways to get the string locked down and whatnot. I prefer to let the string induce it’s own pressure from one wrap under the next.

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I’ll deal with the specifics of re-stringing at a later date. With the first string I make an exception with because it’s fine and prone to slippage. So I’m actually gonna do a tag end wrap on that. I took the tag end of the string and wrapped it under the string itself, which locks it in place. That’s a very common thing to do.

One of my little things is that I only do that on the first string. I’ve found that the rest of the strings, there’s no real benefit to it in my opinion.

So we have all our strings on. Nothing’s really out of joint or down here, all the working guitar hardware is in the ballpark. It’s not sky-high or goofy or anything. Everything’s kind of within tolerable range.

I’ll get rid of that the excess string ends, I’m gonna give it a haircut. These freshly installed strings are not coming off. There’s no reason that they’re gonna have to come off again. I’m going to use side cutters. Using the flat face on top of each post, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. Remove the garbage all in one shot, nice and neat.

Once again I’m going to take a quick break and we’ll get down to the business of finessing the rest of this out. Okay, All right. Back in a second.

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The post How To Setup A Gibson Les Paul Part 5 (Cleanup And Reassembly) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

Part 5 of How To Setup A Fender Telecaster

The most important elements in achieving a maximum playing instrument.

Fine Tuning Action and Intonation

We start this segment with a quick string stretch to help get the fresh strings settled in their new home.

After double checking the neck relief, we head straight for setting up the guitar’s action – that wonderful place where playability becomes maximized and the instrument really starts to shine.

First, we’ll cover the aspects of guitar action, how well it plays, which will then dictate how we set intonation. For more on the finer points of setting a guitar’s intonation, be sure to watch the video below.

When it comes to a guitar’s action, it’s not uncommon to have a guitar that plays very poorly turn into a dream machine with a little love in the right spots. The trick is knowing what spots to tweak, how much to tweak them, and maintain a global view of the instrument’s condition along the way.

Video: Telecaster Setup Tutorial Part 5

Principles of a Good Setup

Remember, a perfect guitar setup is like the three points of a perfect triangle; one is the nut, one is the bridge, and one is the relief in the neck. If any one of those points is out of joint or maladjusted – the whole unit suffers in that the other two points are along for the ride. They’re automatically made accomplices to the crime.

Of course, setting up a guitar to fit the player is also a matter of keeping the end user and their playing style in mind. He may be a shreddy shrederton noodler with a very light touch, or he may be the HULK – SMASH! – two entirely different approaches, and there’s everything else in between.

How would you categorize yourself as a player?

Keep this in mind when explaining your latest guitar woes to your friendly neighbourhood tech – it goes a long way.

A good guitar tech will ask you about what style you play, better yet, he’ll get you to play a little to watch your body language around the instrument. Even strumming two or three chords will speak volumes.

From his end, the ultimate challenge is setting up a guitar that has issues for an owner who is uber-sensitive to the finest points of his prized instrument.

If you have a favourite guitar that you know intimately, you play it constantly, almost exclusively, that instrument is therefor your primary voice. Those of us who’ve relied on a particular instrument to earn a living gig after gig know exactly what that means.

Treating the instrument with as much respect as you would dealing with it’s owner face to face is paramount. The living extension of their musicality is exposed on the workbench.

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Back to our trusty Telecaster, if there was ever an instrument that could take a beating and smile, or respond to the lightest touch with complete acceptance – the Tele is the one.

It’s amazing, Telecasters are manufactured all over the planet; US, Mexico, China (that would be Chy-na in Trump-ese), Japan, India, Indonesia, Korea and many others have laid claim to dispatching fresh Teles to the masses.

…The world truly is flat…

Depending on the iteration of the instrument, you may have a modernized fretboard radius of 9.5, 10 or 12+ inches, or you may have the typical vintage radius of 7.25 inches.

Either way way, the principles of setting guitar action remain the same, although you will find the vintage radius requires a bit more “air” under the strings due to the very round nature of the fretboard.

Be sure to watch the whole series for more on how to set up a guitar, particularly adjusting action in this segment.

Whether it’s a garage sale prize or a vintage instrument, again, they all follow the same basic principles of physics that will allow for their best voice and maximum playability.

For a list of essential tools to get the job done, visit the Guitar Setup Tools page and consider what you’d need to make your own instrument a better machine.

Coming Up Next

The final segment in the series: We go through the final string stretch (very important!) setting the pickup height, plus some last minute tweaks. And finally – THE TEST DRIVE!

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The post How To Setup A Fender Telecaster Part 5 (Fine Tuning Action and Intonation) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

Part 4: How To Setup A Gibson Les Paul.

What’s Covered:

• Cleaning the pickups

• Cleaning the hardware

• Cleaning the neck

• Polishing the frets

• Reconditioning the fretboard

Transcript:

Cleaning the pickups

We’re going to deal with pickups first. I’m going to use a little bit of polish on this piece of paper towel.

There’s other polish products and whatnot that we can use, and I’ll deal with those at a later date. I have some other videos that will discuss that. But you’ve got to stay tuned in order to see that.

This guitar hardware has got a gold finish on it and I’m not going to try to take off any of that gold or anything, obviously.

People will get a little concerned about the condition of the finish, such as rest and whatnot around pole pieces and stuff like that. And it really doesn’t hurt the sound or anything like that, it just looks ugly. Right?

And to tighten this up a little bit, I have a little wooden dowel. You can use a bamboo skewer or something like that, preferably wood instead of metal.

You don’t want to use metal. This will help me get tight into some of these corners and places. This pickup is not so bad, so the polish is helping to pick up some of that junk and whatnot.

There’s a lot of corrosion here which I could deal with, with a number of different methods. But in this case, I’m not going to get really hard-core with this. The purpose of our video here is to do basic housekeeping and whatnot.

This hard edge here really helps to get tight into the nasty bits. You’re not going to have to worry about scratching it or anything like that. So if that were metal, it would poke through.

You’d have a problem, you know what I’m saying? To get some of this extra junk off you’re going to use that tip there, and just nibble at it.

Now this is just making me cringe a little bit. The gold is so soft that it will come off very easily if you’re not careful with this, and you can see it’s evident in the top of the pickup.

I could maybe take the pickup out really have at it if I wanted to get it right – super clean again. But again, that’s not what this particular video is after. We are doing a basic set up. So I’m going to be brief about this.

Cleaning the Hardware

That’s a heck of a lot better than it was, for sure. All right, and I’m going to just turn that up a little bit and do a little bit more housekeeping here. While I’m at it I’m going to clean the tailpiece.

Do yourself a favour, don’t hold parts over the top of the guitar when you’re working them because they slip and they can fall down.

And the next thing you know you’ve got damage on the top of your instrument.

So stay away from the top of the instrument, good habit. How do you learn that kind of stuff? Well, let’s just say experience accounts for something, and some of those are hard-won lessons. Okay. That’s good to go. Now this is actually a really good shape.

And yeah, so this is a replacement. Often what happens is the gold is soft and it degrades, and a lot of bridges on Les Paul’s and other instruments will… Because your Palm is resting there so much, they just get chewed out and you wind up replacing the things. I would prefer to see that as being an original part.

You can get it from Gibson, but the price is going to be leveraged by the name. Or you can go directly to Schaller and get exactly the right part. Which is down here. Now, when I took this off it was mounted backwards.

I always like to see the saddles ramping forward. Okay, you can take it apart and turn it around. It’s a bit of a pain in the butt, but it is possible.

I’m just eyeballing this for intonation right now. I’ve got to pay attention to my own advice here, and not stay over top of the instrument.

I’m trying to make a visual point here, so I am expediting some things and not paying attention. Anyway, so here we are. Again, this is totally eyeballed.

What I have is a series of three ramps, and three ramps. Okay? So it’s like this, and then it shifts back about a sixteenth of an inch, and it does the same thing. So we have kind of a staggered sort of thing. Okay.

Three and three. Three wound strings, three plain strings. As to why?, that’s a whole other ball game which I’ll get to in another video series.

I forgot to mention another valuable tool. I have an old toothbrush, good to go. That’ll get right in there. This is thankfully pretty clean.

There are other tools and whatnot you can use to clean house with these bridges because all of those little voids and whatnot, those cavities, they’re just rotten for catching dirt and stuff, just nasty.

Video: Les Paul Setup Tutorial Part 4

I think this is… Yep. It says “Gotoh” right there. As I was suspecting that this was an aftermarket part because it was too clean. And the holes, those would be metric. They’re over-sized. It still fits and all that, but this is not the right bridge. For this era, ’93, it would be a Schaller part. It would say “Made in Germany” on the bottom.

Cleaning the Neck

I’m going to leave that off because we’re going to deal with the neck. This neck is actually in pretty good condition. If it was grungy, really grungy I would have at it more or less the same way.

But I’ll give you a quick lesson on how to deal with that. Okay, these pickups are recessed. I don’t have to worry about setting them to the right height yet.

I’m just going to take some painter’s tape here, and just mask off our work area. Low-tack. It’s got to be low-tack because you don’t want to see the finished coming up, right?

Very, very low-tack. Okay so we’re going to tackle the neck and clean the frets as well. There’s no real specific order to this, as long as the jobs are being performed in a logical sequence, it’s all good.

I have some Windex here. Sorry, if I keep adding some elements and whatnot, but as the situation arises I’ve got to keep using the tools that I need to get the job done.

I’m going to spray this on here. I’m not going to spray directly on the finish. I don’t want to get it anywhere near the finish because Gibson products will have a natural lacquer finish.

You can see the dirt coming off there, not to get it into the finish, like on the underside of the neck and stuff like that. And one thing I want to make really clear is I’m really not a fan of using steel wool.

Not a fan at all because those little bits of the steel get everywhere. They can get into your pickups, they can get on the finish, and create problems, and get on your work surface. It’s just ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly.

Anyway, there’s alternatives. All that did there was soften up the goo on the surface. You don’t have to worry about the ebony being really problematic.

If you have a lot of junk on there, you can just keep at it and eventually you’ll soften it up. The last process if you want to save yourself a step or so, dollar store brass bristles. Good stuff.

Polishing the Frets

You’ve got to be careful with polishing the frets. I’m going to use this to make a point of something. Okay. Very lightly, what this will do is get the junk out of the knees of the frets, and it will burnish the frets at the same time.

It’s not going to harm the ebony at all because ebony is so hard. This will actually give a light polish.

You can use this on the rosewood too, but you’ve got to be very, very careful with it. It still a hardy little brush, it’s metal okay? So that’s good to go, got a lot of the junk out of there.

This is 1500 grit micro mesh sandpaper, which you can find online on Amazon, stuff like that. Okay.

Or even a hardware store you can get 2000 grit, would be just dandy. Okay. Then I’m just going to give these frets a quick polish.

ou can use finer grains of course, and get a nicer shine if you really want to have at it. You can get some really good shine happening. I wasn’t pressing really hard, and I’m not worried about the ebony finish on that either.

In other words, I didn’t mask it off or worry about that because that was a pretty light buff, let’s say. Again, back with the Windex just to pick up the junk. See? Just a little bit of junk left over.

I’m not leaving it sit on there because that leaches up the oils in the wood. I want to get that off of there pretty quick.

There you go. That literally dries in seconds. I just put that on there and, seriously it’s dry. It’s already dry.

Reconditioning the Fretboard

Okay, fretboard reconditioning coming up. I’m going to dribble on a few drops. It can be a bit of an experience trying to get the lemon oil on without getting it everywhere, but this is what we do.

This works really well with rosewood and inexpensive offshore stuff. That wood can be so dry, it does suck up half the oil in no time.

All right, I’m just going to wipe off the excess. No need to let the oil sit on there because it’s not going to go anywhere or do anything because that ebony is really, really tight.

That is Housekeeping 101 on an ebony neck.

Different kinds of necks such as a clear coat maple, rosewood, stuff like that, you want to treat… well, rosewood is more or less going to be the same process, but clear coat maple is a different thing.

I’m just getting some of that extra oil off my hands. Okay so, that’s that. And then get rid of this.

Okay. I’m going to take a short break and will be back to do some basic body housekeeping, and get the rest of it done. Thanks!

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The post How To Setup A Gibson Les Paul Part 4 (Cleaning Hardware And Fretboard) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

Part 4 of How To Setup A Fender Telecaster

Getting down to brass tax and setting the stage for fine tuning.

What’s covered in the Video:

• A quick neck-to-body alignment and relief assessment

• General action setup

• Cutting the nut

• Tips to achieving a perfect guitar setup

Video: Telecaster Setup Tutorial Part 4

Transcript:

A Quick Neck Realignment and Action Check

i put a capo on here to keep these strings and everything under control. They like to pop out of the of the old school tuners if it’s not organized like that.

I took the neck off and I gave it a good tweak, it’s a judgment call. I gave it what I considered to be a good a good torque anticipating the amount of pressure it would it need to be in the state that I want it in. And then reinstalled the neck again, just two screws ’cause I might have to take it off again.

Now I’ll get that capo off there. Going to double check my alignment. Okay, that looks not too bad. This thing wants to be tilt towards treble side a little, so not doing any undo force or anything like that. That looks great.

I’m just going to set the screws again, modest pressure on your neck screws you know, you don’t torque the crap out of them. I’ve seen the screw heads just torque right down and it compresses all this wood – it distorts the plate. You don’t have to be gorilla man you know, just good moderate pressure on there and that’s dandy.

Assessing Relief

I’m going to bring this up to pitch – that was my a440 pitch fork by the way. Nice buzz there, wonder where that’s from. Well, we will find out.

Right, I’m going to take two seconds and see if I can locate what that little sizzle is all about – push the string around. Beauty, okay it was just a little softness down here little something was a little out a joint. Moving it around.

And my relief is pretty good, oh yeah, that’s real good, I like that.

At some point I will have, look around for it, I’ll have a very specific video on reading neck relief. I’ve always said I could write a book on neck relief. It’s a very interesting process involving compression, torque all sorts of interesting things and every instrument has its own little kind of thing where ,it likes this doesn’t like that or what not. It’s really quite remarkable.

Here are a couple of video examples on the subject:

Using a business card and a feeler gauge to reference neck relief for better action

How to avoid misreading neck relief

Just as an aside, I had a bass in, a brand spanking new top-of-the-line branded bass, really nice beautiful neck on it,and it was punched from the get-go. Punched. The neck was just like, I couldn’t find a happy spot on that. During the relief setup the neck would either bowed back here because of too much compression here, and it had a scoop up here. It was just… I mean this is a brand new instrument. I thought buddy, I said to the owner, take that back for warranty and he didn’t and that’s okay. That’s his choice to do that, but in my books I is a subpar instrument.

I have special tricks and things that I do to coax necks into better condition. When I see them like that, and I tried with this one, and it wouldn’t settle down – he’s got a compromised instrument that’s brand new, top end too, not cool. But it just shows even brand name stuff is not immune to the natures of force and the natural quirkiness of wood. Internal soft spots, could be whatever. It was unfortunate.

Back to our show here.

Cutting the Nut

This bit of relief looks good. The string height looks not too bad. I might work a little bit on that treble side but at the moment, I’m going to cut this nut. I’ll give you a brief rundown of how I’m going to do this. If you watchs ome of my other videos there’s a little more in-depth explanation of this process.

I have my way of doing it. It’s not the end all be all, it’s my preference. I use light and gaps let’s say, to do this, but I’m just going to make sure that we have these slots properly ramped.

The height on that low E is good. What I’m looking for is a certain amount of light gap between the string and the top of the fret using the ambient light that’s in here. When I first moved in here some time back, quite a few years now, compared to my old shop, this lighting was very different – I had to relearn the process but it only took a short time.

Anyway back cutting this a little bit to finesse the front edge of the slot there. I’m using my select files here. I’ll use certain files for certain strings. Once again, the whole nut cutting job is a story for another day.

Actually, I have some of it in another video that I got pretty in depth with it. Well, this one’s being fussy. I want to give you guys a real deep explanation on at least my process.

Here’s an example of how you can use light to cut the nut exactly the way you want it:

How to cut nut slots to the perfect depth every time.

f you can make use of it that’s awesome. Again that’s about a 50 thou needle file. This is a specific file a D string for acoustic. This is a, let’s see what is this is, this is a 16 thou, yes it’s a 16 but I’m going to look for a 20. There’s my 20. I like to use a 20 here just for starters just so I know that the walls are are good. Okay, that’s good.

It’s binding a little bit, and that’s not a problem. I’ll get in here with the 16 – just like that. Now I leave a little bit more height on the G string because it’s a wrangley string. It’s like, when you pluck it, it’s not doing this sort of thing. it’s doing this. We want to accommodate that.

Now remember this is all dependent on having the relief set up properly to begin with. On to the second string. I will use my 13. This one’s fairly high so I’m going to be a little bit more aggressive here. You can actually compensate for certain, say idiosyncrasies at the nut and your playing style if you take the time to study it properly and understand deflection, intonation and a bunch of other nifty little tidbits.

There’s more than one right way to tune a guitar. Some people will have a vice-like grip, they’re naturally heavy-handed and other people are very, very soft. Their approach is very light and the nut, the whole instrument can be set up to tailored to their particular styles, and that includes the nut. Okay, that’s dandy.

I’m going to finish up with my stubby 10 here. Notice that I don’t have it under the the button or the string tree here. That’s fine because I don’t want to wrestle with it. I’ll get a fair read with it as is. I’m being very careful not to nick the back end of the neck too, this back ridge here.

Sometimes they extend a little bit too far back during the manufacturing process and you can’t avoid but hit them, and that’s just the way it goes sometimes. Of course you don’t want to but so as I’m doing that if you can notice I cut slanted this way, slanted that way, few strokes and then back. I cut the back wall or the back, say, the trailing edge and then finesse it – just go across the slot itself at the last couple cuts.

Okay that’s really good. You can get the first string down pretty fine without worrying about any kind of buzz or anything like that so again I’m not going to get into too much more detail about that. That’s done, that is done. I know where the instrument’s sitting I won’t have to touch that again because I’m not taking the neck off at this point.

A Word on Customer Service

Funny thing might happen here, we might have some leftover compression from adjusting the trust rod which will force the neck up. I will make a point of telling my client that I had to use a couple good torques on that neck and and if it decides to move it’s not a problem, it’s just a matter of a readjustment – that’s service after the fact and that’s good business.

Okay, always, always throw that out there – that you don’t want to say, “Well, you know I couldn’t, I don’t know where it’s going to…” Yeah, don’t play that card, that’s just not cool. You want to make sure that your customer is cared for and that you’re knowledgeable enough to anticipate these natural changes, and help them to understand that it is natural and that they’re taken care of. You’re going to care of them okay, that’s a good deal.

Okay, so that being done, I’m pretty comfortable with getting those strings under there which is good to go. Give that screw up there a test – that’s good like that.

Now we’re down here, now we’re going to get into the final phase of the actual setup process which is dealing with the saddles and getting the actual action down here fixed up, or where where it’s going to wind up.

The main Factors of a Perfect Setup

I’ll relate this before I’m going to take a break, I want to relate this one thing which I come to over and over and over which is what I call the triangle of a perfect setup. That is you have three points that constitute, let’s say, the perfect setup and imagine it like a perfect triangle.

If any one of those points is out of balance the whole thing is skewed. One point is your nut, another point is the bridge, the saddles that whole area here, and the other point would be the relief in the neck.

All those things have to be in harmony to achieve the ideal setup. Once we deal with the nut, that is essentially done you should never have to worry about it again unless it wears or needs replacement through breakage or whatever. This and your relief, that’s really where the meat and potatoes is going to happen.

This, for the most part can be, once you have your your radius set you shouldn’t have to tinker with that anymore – except to maybe generally raise or lower things. You can do that like, the same amount of turns per adjuster here.

Your intonation once it’s set, unless you change the string gauges, you shouldn’t have to deal with that again either. And really, the hero in this whole thing is the relief in the neck because that will dictate how the whole thing is going to react under your hands.

I tend to to aim for a point where everything is moderate, nice, relatively easy action. I speak with the individuals. I watch them play and get a sense of how they approach the instrument and that sticks in my mind. Again, we set it up accordingly. I already have that information for this person.

Anyway, on with the show. I’m going to take a short break and get right back. Thanks.

The Telecaster: A Working man’s Tool

The beauty of a Tele is its simplicity. Originally designed for the working musician, Leo Fender’s brilliant concept included the very necessary element of serviceability.

If the instrument’s neck got damaged it was easily replaceable by removing the four neck bolts and installing a replacement neck.

While this is common for most production instruments today, back in the day it was a novel way of dealing with manufacturing an instrument for the masses.

Thanks to this component type of assembly process, the market for custom parts has allowed anyone to build their own dream guitar to their own specs.

Everything from inexpensive Telecaster guitar kits to bespoke built bodies and necks in every color, shape and style imaginable. I wonder if Leo saw that coming…

In the context of putting things together, or more accurately, back together in this case, reattaching a neck may need a bit of adjustment to sit perfectly.

Have you ever seen a guitar with the outside strings really close to one side of the neck? On the treble side this can be a huge issue as you’ll find your notes literally falling off the edge of the neck. Vibrato can be nearly impossible.

The cure is to align the neck laterally, which I cover in the first part of this video.

A Few Thoughts on Cutting The Nut

Being one of the most important elements of a great guitar setup and a key point of energy transfer, the nut always gets special attention.

In the case of our ’52 Reissue Telecaster on the bench, the material we’re working with is bone. Traditional, tonally effective and a very long lasting natural material.

If you’re curious about how to cut a nut to work in harmony with the guitar and the player, skip to the 5:07 minute mark. I go into great depth about the tools and techniques used to dress out a factory installed nut.

It’s important to note that any mass produced guitar is built within tolerances dictated by the company producing it. Fender products are no exception.

That’s not to say they aren’t a fine instruments, not at all, Teles in particular are one of the most versatile guitars ever produced regardless of region of manufacture. But the fact is, every guitar needs to be dialed in to match the owner’s playing style.

The nut happens to be one of the most critical points needing attention out of the box. Our “52 Reissue on the bench is no exception.

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PRO TIP: Individual files for each string gauge will ensure a perfect cut – but they come at a price. If you take your setup skills seriously, consider making the investment.

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Coming Up:

Everything you wanted to know about setting string height, maximizing acton and playability, plus the finer points of setting intonation.

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The post How To Setup A Fender Telecaster Part 4 (Tweaks, Tips and Cutting the Nut) first appeared on GuitarNiche.