Setting Up A Tele

[whoofnagle]

Well I am at a point now where I have a body that needs final prep before I begin to paint. However, I thought it might be worth while to string it up and see how she sounds with no electronics. Having never set up a guitar, I am not really sure if I have all of the saddles in the right position, but I do notice that I am having to raise the saddles higher than my store bought tele to get rid of the fret buzz.

I have checked my neck depth (5/8"). Any thoughts on what is going wrong? Or is this wrong? Do I need to route a tad deeper?

Also, is there a rule of thumb for the placement of each saadle- distance from the bridge ( I can always try and mirror the store bought tele)?

Bill

[82DeanZ]

Did you make the neck yourself? One thing that comes to mind is that your neck may be thicker at the heel than the Tele you are using as a reference. Just something you can check right away.

Best Regards,

Mike.

[Drak]

You just need some instruction on proper setups, including how to properly intonate each string.

Maybe someone else can provide a linky, I don't know any and am not going to type it all out, it's out there if you do a search on setups/intonation procedures.

[whoofnagle]

The neck is off an old telecaster. I will measure the neck and double check.

Drak - that is what I plan to do. Just thought I would toss the question. I was very excited to see the strings line up over the pups ( very exciting-for the first time). I have been able to tune the guitar and play a few notes, but again it just seemed like the saddles were too high.

Off to do some searching. If I find a good link I will post it.

Bill

[genbloke]

Read through here for a start> PG tutorials

VERY basically:

1. Set up the neck relief using the truss rod (the frets may need levelling if not done already).

2. Check nut slot depths are OK.

3. Set up string hieght / action to suit your taste. The saddle hieghts should follow the contour of your fretboard.

4. The 'placement of each saadle- distance from the bridge' is called intonation. this should be set so that ther note fretted on the 12th fret on each string is exactly an octave above the open string note on the same string. Do a search on 'intonation', you should find more detail on the procedure.

5. Set up the pickup hieght.

Genbloke