You guys set up your own guitars?

Dan0h

Dan0h

Well-known member
My 2001 strat has a bad case of the Intonation blues. I’ve adjusted the saddles but I can seem to get the truss rod to budge and there is a slight visible bow in the neck and rattle buzz strings all over the place. I’ve decided to finally pull the trigger and take it in for a set up. Just curious if you guys do your own or pay a tech to do it and how often. I’ve had this guitar for 20 years and this will be the first service. My new Jazzmaster is perfectly set up and has made it impossible to even touch my strat as it sounds like six out of tune cats screaming in agony when ever I strum it.
 
thewintersoldier said:
Been doing it for years since it's not only cheaper in the long run, but who knows my guitars and playing style better than me.
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That was my goal but the truss rod will not budge and I really don’t want to snap it. I guess I could squirt some wd on it and let it sit for a bit.
 
I always set my basses up myself until last year when I took my main bass to a pro who somehow installed a buzz in the neck. Now I think I need a new nut somehow.

One of my good friends from college is friends with one of the Fender pro shop builders and he does work on the side who offered to do another setup and replace the nut. I'm hesitant to let someone else work on it but I feel like I ought to be able to trust someone working in the custom shop.

The other guy who worked on my bass did a *fantastic* job on my wife's (now mine, I guess, since she never plays it) acoustic guitar, but my bass came back to me a little off kilter. I think that after nearly 20 years of maintaining the same instrument to my personal tastes (even if they are "wrong" by industry standards) letting someone else work on it is like letting someone else drive your car: you get it back and the seat is too far forward, the mirrors are all funny, and it just is a bit off.
 
Well this was the motivation I needed to try again to budge that truss rod myself. The thought of a stranger Funking up, in a bad way, my strat does not sit well. Thanks forum dudes. You have most likely saved the day yet again.
 
Dan0h said:
Well this was the motivation I needed to try again to budge that truss rod myself. The thought of a stranger Funking up, in a bad way, my strat does not sit well. Thanks forum dudes. You have most likely saved the day yet again.
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Are you sure it's not tapped out? If it is then I'd probably take it to a luthier myself since I don't have a lot of experience with truss rods other than adjusting neck relief. That's why I took the acoustic in - the truss rod was tapped out and the neck was still bowed. The luthier was able to straighten the neck out and find me a few more turns in the truss with his fancy school learnin, and that was well worth the money.
 
peccary said:
Are you sure it's not tapped out? If it is then I'd probably take it to a luthier myself since I don't have a lot of experience with truss rods other than adjusting neck relief. That's why I took the acoustic in - the truss rod was tapped out and the neck was still bowed. The luthier was able to straighten the neck out and find me a few more turns in the truss with his fancy school learnin, and that was well worth the money.
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If it is tapped out it came that way from the factory and I find it hard to imagine fender would send out an American deluxe like that but you never know. My guess is that since it has never been adjusted and is 20yrs a old it’s just being stubborn.
 
thewintersoldier said:
First, loosen it before you do anything. Remove string tension and loosen the neck. If it's seized it won't move in any direction. After it's loose then try to tighten it. But don't force it.
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That’s a great idea. I will try that tonight. Thanks dude.
 
I had relatively bad experiences with setup in Brooklyn (expensive and poorly done) so I started doing it all myself. I don’t do an excellent job but it works well enough at a fraction of the price… :)
 
I am a bass player so it'll likely be different, but I use an extremely low action. I play with my fingers and use a pretty light touch, typically playing over the 20th fret. If I need to dig in I move to just behind the pickup (P bass) and the tension there keeps the noise down. I like the low action because it's nice and smooth, but I also like using the frets to get soft clicks and taps at times, working them in kind of like ghost notes. I also use flatwound strings and keep the tone rolled mostly off so that keeps the noise down as well.

Just before I had my shoulder surgery I started trying to learn to use a pick Carole Kaye style (I had never used a pick on bass till then), which does not work well with my current setup. It really needs a pretty high action to be able to work effectively. One of these days I will get another P bass and set it up with a higher action, but for the time being it's as low as I can get it.
 
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Dan0h said:
My new Jazzmaster is perfectly set up and has made it impossible to even touch my strat as it sounds like six out of tune cats screaming in agony when ever I strum it.
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JM's are notoriously difficult to setup. One of the reasons they're so maligned is because they play terribly when you sit down to play them in music stores.

No neck shim + light gauge strings + low break angle over the bridge + shallow bridge saddles + rocking bridge + spring loaded vibrato tailpiece + low paid retail employees = 🤬disaster. Meanwhile a $200 Squier Tele plays just fine out of the box.

If you could setup a Jazzmaster yourself you can handle the Strat. Keep at it!
 
spi said:
You folks have guitars?
I thought we just build pedals here.
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I sold all my guitars to buy fv-1 chips….

I build one guitar that’s somewhere on the forum. I’ve worked on a few but sometimes when the neck is twisted I just bring it in…intonation can be easy to fix but I’ve had it just totally baffle me…

What’s the scariest guitar you’ve ever worked on?
 
Big Monk said:
Ever think about swapping to the American Standard Staggered tuners? I bought a set and installed them on my Squier because of all the issues I was having finding a good set of string trees.
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I like these locking tuners, the problems I have had with tuning have been related to the neck bowing and not being able to adjust it. Until now that is!
 
thewintersoldier said:
You more than likely have a dual action truss rod. Fender has really good setup instructions online. Look them up and you can get it setup how you like it. So glad you got it up and running?
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Yes all set. Got the open and the 12th fret zeroed out and man I miss this guitar. It finally is in tune up and down the neck and took almost a solid 1/2 turn tighter. It’s super flat now. I have the saddles a wee bit proud so there is zero fret buzz up and down and I like the medium action on this strat. Jazzmaster I like it low but that feels just right low, this feels right with that extra tension as you mentioned.
 
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