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Hi, I have an early 80's US-made Tele which hasn't had a setup in at least 15 years. Lately I've noticed intonation problems, so I thought I'd see if I can fix it myself. This model lets me individually adjust each string's intonation. I tried the method where you tune the string, then check 12th fret harmonic and fretted, adjust intonation, retune the string, and try again until it's in tune. All of my strings initially are sharp when fretted at 12th fret. I tried starting with the E and B strings. What I found is that when I get it right at 12th fret, the fretted notes seem to get sharper as I go further down the neck towards nut, and they get flatter as I go up the neck to bridge. Any suggestions on diagnosing this? - my strings are not brand new, and I will probably put on new strings tomorrow and try again, but they really aren't more than a few weeks old and have not been played very much - I have medium gauge strings on, back in the day I used to play lights but I've moved up to mediums. I know string gauge can impact intonation, but would this be my problem? - string height seems pretty good to me. My G string might be a tad low, as I get a little buzz if I play it hard down by the nut. BTW intonation on the G seems to be the furthest out of all the strings. So what is most likely my problem?

Thanks for the comments and advice. Tonight I took some measurements- the guitar is intended to be a 25" scale (based on nut-saddle and nut-12fret measurements), but it appears to be about 1/32" too long. This is based on the nut-12 length as well as also checking some of the other fret distances from nut. My saddle is fixed not adjustable, so I can't just move the saddle positions, and in any case, this wouldn't change the nut-fret distances. Questions: 1) Would the scale length being slightly longer than intended be consistent with a fretted note being sharp relative to the open string? I believe so, but need a sanity check. 2) I would like to solve this problem by sanding away about 1/32" of the fretboard where it meets the nut. This would appear to solve my problem, putting the frets the correct distance from nut and also putting the saddle at the right distance. Is this an acceptable approach?

But if the saddle were in the wrong place, wouldn't that change the scale length, thereby causing the harmonic to not appear at the 12th fret, but slightly higher or lower? Joe

So I picked up an inexpensive guitar which I am using for a rebuild project. I stripped it down and repainted, and am planning to replace the plastic nut with a bone nut. I have the nut roughed out, but have this problem -- I tune the string to pitch, and confirm that the harmonic at the 12th fret is also in pitch, but when I fret the note at the 12th fret (or fret any note for that matter) the pitch is sharp. To confirm the problem didn't lie with my new nut, I put the old plastic nut back on... and same problem. So what's my problem? Is it string height? The strings are kind of high.

THanks for the advice. I guess I'm going to have to take the plunge and try cutting fret slots. I had tried this out on some test wood and was having trouble getting a consistent cut, even though I was using a miter box and a pull saw. Gonna have to practice some more. I was thinking maybe I could save some work by painting frets on.

I'm getting close to finishing my first lap steel build. I'm down to the fretboard and have questions. I'm planning to use a rosewood fingerboard blank as the fretboard, it looks sharp on the guitar. I don't want to go to the extent of cutting slots and putting in frets since this won't ever be fingered. I'm thinking the alternative would be to paint fret lines onto the fingerboard. Questions: 1) Any suggestions on what kind of paint to use on rosewood? 2) Any suggestions on what to use to mask off the fingerboard so each line is the same width? I know if I do it by eye they won't be identical. Thanks for any advice.

If you have had experience using the Stewmac archtop bridge with bone saddle, perhaps you can answer a question for me... I'm going to mount this on a guitar project I've been working on. I can't figure out how to measure for where I will place this on the guitar body. My scale length is 22.5" (this is a lap steel), so I understand I want 22.5" from front edge of nut to front edge of saddle. The bone saddle is elevated and set back from the front edge of the bridge, so it seems I would do best to measure to the front edge of the bridge piece. However, the stewmac diagram doesn't give the dimension from front edge of bridge to front edge of bone saddle so I would know where to place the front edge of bridge. Am I missing something? And in case anyone is wondering, yes, I did sand the underside of the bridge flat so it fits nicely on my guitar top.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'm making progress. I verified the amp and cord, went back and resoldered 2 of the connections, and the 'distortion' problem appears to be gone. I also just lined the electronics cavity with conductive tape I got from Stew mac, and also attached the bridge to ground, which I verified did appear to reduce hum. (I'm using a kent armstrong single coil and 250k control pots and a .05mf capacitor). Now my only issue is when I plug in the cord, the sound will cut in and out if I wiggle the cord. I think the issue is a stray ground wire shorting the signal somewhere. So I have to go over everything this week and try to track that down. I think my biggest mistake through this was in connecting the shielded cables. I should have stripped the shielded portion further back so I had more room to work with when soldering the ground vs the hot signal; one of the issues I was having was that the shield was shorting against the hot signal since they were too close together. Next time I'll know better and give myself more room to work with.

I went over this more this afternoon, and I don't think the issue is pickup being too close to strings. If I take the pickup out and hold it above the strings so I can move it closer or further away, I notice that regardless of how close it is, whenever there is sound, there is this kind of harmonic distortion sound in the background. I've tried wiggling wires around and pushing on the soldered connection but no dice. Any further ideas?

Thanks for all the tips and suggestions. I took another look at it tonight, and realized that the capacitor leg connected to the tone pot tab was also brushing against the back of the pot-- just as had been suggested above. I repaired this, and the tone control now appears to be working. However, one thing I'm noticing is that there is a distortion type sound in the background whenever I play, maybe at about 10-20% of the note volume. It disappears when not playing, and doesn't appear affected by whether I'm touching the strings or not. Any suggestions on cause of that?

I'm on my maiden voyage trying to wire up a single coil pickup to 1 vol, 1 tone. I'm following this schematic: So far, I've learned that soldering irons are hot and you shouldn't touch the tip with bare hands, and also that you shouldn't have to hold the iron tip to the pot for 30+ seconds to get the solder to melt (oops, old iron with corroded tip which I've replaced with a new iron). I'm pretty sure I killed the pots first time around since when I had it wired up the tone pot didn't do anything and I was getting strange background noises. Also, I had really made a mess of things with lumps of solder. I decided to start over with new pots and some newfound soldering 101 knowledge. This time, it seemed things went better. However, when I plug 'er in, I found that the tone control still didn't seem to do anything, and further, when I turn the tone knob all the way down the guitar volume goes to 0. Any suggestions on what could be my problem?

Thanks for all the advice. I'm going to shoot for 50mm from the e string on the bridge. The guitar has a 25" scale length. This is my first project, so I don't have a lot to compare to, so I guess you gotta start somehwere. Out of curiousity I measured my Tele, which appears to have about 38mm, so based on what I'm reading, all other things being equal, I should expect easier bending with the same gauge strings.

Hi, I'm just about finished with my first project, which is refinishing and swapping out hardware on a cheapie I picked up. I have a Gotoh stop tailpiece which I'm planning to install. Is there an optimal distance which this should be from the bridge? I've been googling this topic, but most of the results seem to be discussions of the break angle of strings caused by height difference between bridge and tailpiece. I need to first figure out where I'm supposed to place the thing. Joe

OK, an update: I wet sanded down and got the finish reasonably flat. The weekend was dry and sunny, so perfect weather for putting on a few last coats of clear. Now it's a long, painful 30 day wait while I try to keep my hands off it.

Hi all, good thread, I'm also working on my first lap steel. I've been wrestling with type of bridge and nut to use. I was already thinking about going with a bone nut, and then I saw this bridge in the stewmac catalog (http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_tailpieces/Archtop_guitar_bridges/Archtop_Bridge_with_Bone_Saddle.html?tab=Details#details), it's an archtop bridge with a bone saddle. Anyone tried using one of these for lap steel? Is it overkill or too much trouble? I like that it's height adjustable, and since it's bone I figure I'd be able to level out the strings to undo the radius they have on it. The bridge is a little too wide for my design due to those wood feet, but I was thinking I would just saw off some of the end on both sides to make it fit.