Guitar Repairs, Fretting, and Setups
Hello, thanks for visiting Phat Kat Guitar Repairs, Fretting, and Setups.
In the pictures to follow will be some of the recent repairs and setups on guitars that I have done. The Blue Floral Telecaster was a fun “Clean and Polish”. The next two are owned by the same person. Both are Schecter Bass Guitars. One is a 6 string and the other is a 5 string. The work done is as follows:
My customer brought in his 6 string Schecter bass with some buzzing on the low pitch strings and also stated that he was getting some interference from florescent lighting on occasion. After inspection we agreed that a full setup with fret leveling was necessary to correct the buzzing problem. The interference problem could not be duplicated in my shop but we agreed to do some extra foil shielding in the control pocket to see if that would solve the problem.
First, the strings were removed and the dual truss rods (yes, 2 of them!) were adjusted to be certain that the neck was true. A list of high frets was made and the leveling started. I decided that working on individual frets was the fastest way to get through this one. Most of the frets were fine but a number of then on the low pitch strings were a bit high. I followed the list and verified that each one hade been corrected. I then re-crowned any that had had work done to them. Next came polishing of all the frets to make them look better than new.
The control pocket was then lined with copper foil and the controls reinstalled. (The 9 volt battery is for an active EQ tone circuit.)
The new Rotosound strings were installed and the truss rods were set to give the correct relief on each side of the fingerboard. Intonation was checked and the first rough adjustments were made. The nut and saddle height was adjusted and intonation settings were finalized.
This is a very cool guitar. The action came out a bunch lower with no buzz and the interference seems to be cured. My customer was very happy with the results. So am I.
The second Shecter bass is a 5 string version. Also very cool. While the 6 string had passive pickups and an EQ tone control, the 5 string had active pickups. For this reason they both had their own very distinct personality. At the same time both are very wonderful guitars.
The 5 string didn’t need much work on the frets and the neck has a single truss rod. The setup side of this one would be very straight forward with small adjustments to the saddles and nut to achieve the same action settings we got on the 6 string.
The larger part of the work would be the copper shielding in the electronics pocket. (we decided to shield this one as a preventative measure rather than find out later it needed it.)
Here are the photos of the 5 string while the work was being done.
This is a Blue Floral Telecaster that came through for a “Clean, Polish, and Setup”. The general condition was “Like New”. In other words, no major scratches and finish problems. The guitar had been a wall hanger and not played very much. The only real problems were that the guitar was dirty and the tuning keys had some small pitting in the polished finish. (Unless you wipe the sweat and oils from your metal parts regularly you will get metal corrosion.)
Here is what I did:
- Removed the old strings
- Cleaned (with a damp rag) all the body parts
- Removed and carefully polished the tuning keys
- Polished the frets
- Set the relief on the neck
- Installed new strings and tuned to pitch
- Adjusted action as needed
- Checked intonation
I hope that in the pictures you will be able to see the difference in the polished keys. (If you try this yourself, remember that some keys are chrome, nickel, or gold plated. BE VERY CAREFUL. Some polishing techniques will damage the parts.)
See you soon with something new,
Doc
