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Topic starter
21/11/2007 11:01 pm
This is three problems in one, but I hope those of you who are good with strats (and copies) will keep reading:
I have a second hand stratocopy of unknown brand. It's pretty old, and apparently has been refinished by someone who sanded off all identifiable labels. It was quite cheap, which suits me fine. My first electric in years, and it plays pretty good- nice tone, solid wood. By the way, I live in a small country in the Andes, and it's hard as hell to get parts (or anyone who knows what to do with them) here.
I play week evenings, try to make minor improvements to the guitar on Saturdays- which leads us to the questions:
When I got it, the nut was almost cut through. I've made a new one, by sanding down a piece made for an acoustic guitar to strat dimensions. Sounds like a lot of work, but it came out very nice- the only question is how deep to cut the grooves in it- I've got the strings about 1/16 of an inch off the fretboard at the nut; it's okay, but feels a little high. How high are they on your guitars? Because I really don't want to cut too deep and have to start over!
Question 2- after a minor truss rod adjusment, the neck is nice and straight- but the action still gets high as I get higher up the fretboard. Seems to be because of the angle of the neck itself where it connects to the body. I've been told that putting a shim into the neck joint could adjust this. There are a lot of internet discussions of this- people are shimming their guitars with everything from business cards to picks. I figure that a thin piece of hard wood is a better choice- the thing I haven't found, though, is an idea of how thin. How much of a shim makes for how much of a change in the neck angle? And where/how should I measure it (the neck angle)?
Last question- I bought a new selector switch, as the old one was wobbly and didn't always connect. The new one came without instructions, diagrams, or packaging. Is there anyway to check the connections on this, to know which way it should go in? Since I didn't know, I just soldered it in the way that looked right- and it didn't work. Disconnected, tried again. Third time was the charm, and now it works fine, except for being installed backwards. (switch towards the neck connects bridge pickup, etc. But once you get used to it, it's fine.) To save the hassle next time, how could I check?
And by the way- thanks in advance for your help!
22/11/2007 12:01 pm
hello to the Andes.
when you file a nut slot you have to be careful not to file too deep. if you do the string tends to move around in the slot and make a buzz. just half the diameter of the string needs to sit in the slot. overall nut height will determine string distance from the fret board.
I have never shimmed a neck. I think you have the right understanding.
the neck should not have to be arrow straight. some bow is needed to counter the string tension.
bridge and saddle height can be adjusted to help with intonation and action.
here is a link I have found helpful in finding out the correct manner to wire pickups and switches.
http://www.guitarelectronics.com
Topic starter
22/11/2007 1:09 pm
Thanks for that-
So it seems like, if I'm seeing this right, to lower the strings at the nut, I should be reducing the height of the piece, not just grooving deeper into it?
(The electrics site was a big help, thanks!)
Best,
22/11/2007 1:20 pm
That's exactly right. The best way to reduce the nut height, if necessary, is off the bottom of the nut. So you carefully remove it and use something like sandpaper on a flat, hard surface to carefully, slowly remove material and keep trying it back in place till you get the proper height. Look on http://frets.com/ and I think you'll find excellent directions.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
22/11/2007 11:16 pm
Re Shim & truss:
I've shimmed the neck on my widdly* electric, because I just couldn't get enough of the bow out with my truss rod. I think it might be rethreading the plate it screws into, and I could feel the alan key was starting to do the same :( Anyhoo, long story short, it came back from a loan to a friend with an action of about 1/4cm at the nut and 1/2cm at the 22nd fret. It was totally unplayable, more like playing a piano . I'd written it off completely, never expected it to be fixed and that allowed me a little freedom to experiment. I tightened the truce rod more with brute force - taking it off the guitar, resting one end on the floor, one end on my right leg and putting tension in it by kneeling one it with my left and then tightening it to take up the slack**. Used a much lighter string gauge too, from slinky-top-heavy-bottoms to super-slinkys, but that was planned anyway so not a forced thing***. Managed to get it down to the tiniest little bit of bow, just right, but when I put it back on the bridge-end frets were fouling and the nut-end action was ridiculous. Shimming seemed to solve all that - I just used a couple of wide washers (but that's probably not a good idea either - the wood sounds much more sensible as it'll spread the load better) and lowered the nut. Voilá - best action I've ever had on any guitar, and now she's my 'proper' guitar. I could still do with taking the nut down a little more as I have to be very gentle when fretting open chords to avoid bending the fretted notes sharp, but I haven't quite got to that yet... Sometime soon.
I'm not saying you should do all that, and if you do you should certainly be a lot less haphazard about it, but it worked for me. All input is good, right? :)
Re switch:
Why not just turn it around physically? No need to disconnect any wires and put them back in the reverse order, just change the switch with the wires as they are... same reason I haven't lowered my nut? :mrgreen:
* Eh? What's a widdling guitar? the one I play widdly stuff on, of course!
** Look!, all the purists are crying :( I did consider it a write-off remember... I'm not even going to mention exactly how the nut is seated and what lowering it involves :wink:
*** Been playing the old gauge half my life, took me months to stop bending too much :mrgreen:
Topic starter
24/11/2007 7:41 pm
Thanks for the advice. Washers could work, and might tax my carpentry skills less.
Any idea about how much one should shim? My neck is very nearly straight, and action is good (maybe between a 32nd and a 16th of an inch) at the first fret. More like a quarter inch at the frets closest to the body.
RE the switch- no intention of resoldering, but could easily take it out and turn it around. Thing is, it doesn't matter. I'm used to switching it the wrong way now...
Thanks again,
Ande
Topic starter
25/11/2007 7:02 pm
Just dropping in to thank you all for the advice, and offer a progress report.
I was having trouble getting the nut just right- had almost the exact height, but the grooved were wobbly, as I didn't have a file quite the right size for each string. Had a minor flash of intelligence when I was destringing to shim the neck, and used the old strings themselves to re-cut the grooves. Perfect!
RE-shimming the neck. Found no material online for exactly how much shim would give the desired result- eventually decided to just have a try, using a piece of my old insurance card. (Resembles a credit card, no raised lettering, not quite as thick- slightly thinner than a dunlop 0.71 pick.) Put a strip of the card (3/8 of an inch wide) across the bottom (body) end of the neck pocket. When I re-attached, and re-strung, it was buzz city. (Strings running way too close to the neck for the entire length- buzzed absolutely everywhere.) I thought HEY I didn't really want the action THAT low, but slightly loosened the truss rod to get a little bow in the neck, raised the saddles at the bridge, and GREAT. Low action, smooth, not buzzing...
If you've got a straight neck (easy to check) and yet the action gets too high as you play closer to the body, a little tiny shim (smaller than I used, in my opinion) might be just the thing!
Best,
Ande
PS- think carefully before you lower your action too far, though. I have a pretty heavy pick style, kinda like to really HIT it- and am having to adjust that- the lower the action, the less forgiving it is of really heavy picking. Still, it's FAST as hell when you're this close to the fretboard!
26/11/2007 1:51 am
I don't yet own any proper nut files. They're pricey. When I change to larger strings and they bind in the nut slots, I use the new strings to "saw" the slots bigger.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
26/11/2007 12:08 pm
I was lucky having a father who was a jeweler. when he past away I got his work table. the files he had are great. many shapes and thicknesses. one file is killer. it is thin and flat with the file edge on the edge and not the flat sides.
maybe check out a jeweler's supply house.
Topic starter
26/11/2007 1:53 pm
Further progress report-
When I shimmed the neck, I took it a little too far- and had to raise the bridge saddles quite a lot to compensate. Oops.
But once the saddles were up- the action is quite nice. ONly one problem. Raising the saddles so much seems to have change the tension/angle of string pressure on the bridge, causing the tremolo to rise. (I didn't notice until I had the whole thing set up, was playing, and found that my trem can go both directions now.) Surprisingly, it stays in tune; works a little like a floating bridge assembly for the moment, but doesn't seem quite right. Don't have time to do anything with it till next weekend, so I'll be playing it throughout this week and let you all know how it develops!
Best,
Ande
26/11/2007 3:47 pm
adding or reducing springs will correct the angle. Ive never had to do it tho.
Topic starter
27/11/2007 4:27 pm
Thanks dogbite- sounds like it would work.
I'm not sure whether to add a spring, re-do the shim (so the bridge isn't quite so high), or just block the trem. (I rarely use it, and kind of suck at it when I do. Still, I might learn.)
Another strat query. This may sound dumb, but what are the tone controls supposed to do? Cause at the moment, they don't do anything...
Best,
Ande
27/11/2007 5:27 pm
the tone knob controls the pot that reduces or adds treble or high end to the sound. it actually bleeds the high end signal to ground. you temper your tone with that knob. it appears that yours is not connected if you cannot hear a difference when dialing it one way or the other.
Topic starter
28/11/2007 11:30 pm
Thanks everybody! It's coming along great.
After "overshimming" the neck, I had to take the bridge saddles way up, which changed the angle and started the trem tilting up...
Bit of a screw-up, really. So I was thinking about adding a spring to the trem, but it was looking like a lot of repairs to correct a bad repair. So last night I took the neck off again, sanded down the shim, and put it all back together. Action great, bridge back to normal, and the trem is right! SWEET!
Thanks for all your help- I'll be moving over to the thread on tone pots as soon as I figure out where I can buy some.
Ande
PS- does it make sense for each tone control to be wired to only one pickup? THat seems to be how it is...