How To SetUp a Fender Stratocaster with a Floating Tremolo -String Action, Neck Relief & Intonation

well here's what's on the workbench today it's a nice 2013 fender stratocaster here for a string change and a setup let's have a closer look because i almost have the exact same guitar it's a little older so the client wants a string change in the setup he also wants to float the bridge right now the springs are right tight so there's really no movement there it's very stiff too so we'll fix that we'll check the string height action which actually looks pretty good right now not too bad maybe a touch high the neck relief and maybe we'll do a little better job of stringing right than what we see here right well let's get to it let's start off by checking the electronics making sure everything works the owner said everything was fine so i'm hoping that's the case [Music] no scratchy pots that's good let's do the old tap test first position second third fourth and a fifth everything seems good there [Music] all right so now we'll just check and see how this guitar is set up as it came in so neck relief start with twelve thousandths at the seventh fret just scraping so that's that's pretty nice let's see where the 10 gets us yeah i mean the neck could be maybe a little bit tighter but we'll wait to change the strings and see if we do that adjustment or not and we'll check the string height so string height on a fender at the 17th fret now we're looking for about 4 64. that's a nice low action can go up to five but four is better i'll use my string gauge here so at the 17th fret so the five is just touching so i'm thinking that we're set up just under five sixty-four so that's four the four is sliding under no problem so i think we probably lower the action a little bit and just quickly i'll look at the pickups but we'll adjust that afterwards so we'll just verify that the truss rod moves around the owner said he's never touched it since he's owned it so this is a 1 8. allen key so if anything we wanted to tighten it a little bit so let me see if it turns oh yeah that's moving really nicely so not worried about that while we're up here let's look at the net height so the action at the first fret we'll start with 22 thousandths yeah and that's uh tight under there let's go to 18 thousandths yeah just scraping nice that's a good setup happy with that do the old finger test too right yeah that's good so these are standard fender tuners they're not locking but you can see that they're stepped down right so the sixth and the fifth string posts are taller than the fourth third second and first which is nice which helps with the brake angle if we have a look at that it's really nice and even across all the strings so that's good but i'm not too happy with the stringing job though like that's loose under there that one's okay this one definitely is a problem that one's not bad yeah these are okay but the fourth and the six we probably would have some tuning issues on that on those strings so anyways we'll string these up properly so this guitar is not set up to float the spring tension inside is really tight so it's sucked down the bridge so you can't go backwards you can only go forwards right so you can go flat but you can't go sharp so before we start the setup i'm going to use a little piece of wood here so here's an old one i've had for a long time this one's like a tongue depressor popsicle stick they're about a sixteenth of an inch thick either one doesn't matter so i'm gonna take that i'm gonna put it right under the bridge here and make sure it's trapped by the spring so yeah that's not going anywhere so that's going to give us the floating height that we're going to need when we do our setup afterwards so here's a little closer shot of that right so spring tension is really strong take our spacer put it underneath and then let the bridge rest on it it's stuck under there so that's going to keep the bridge about a sixteenth of an inch right off the body which is going to give us that nice floating height so we should be able to sharpen the strings as well as flatten them once we're done with the setup so i'm just going to remove the tremolo arm they're much nicer when they push in and out right okay the owner actually had a package of these extra springs these springs go in the hole so when you tighten the arm in it creates a little bit of back pressure against it and will hold the arm in place a lot of people lose those springs so it's a good idea to buy some extra keep them in your bag so i want to open this cover up and see what the spring configuration is inside there [Music] normally i like to see no more than three springs all right so we've got four that's probably why it's really stiff i think what i'm going to do is you're going to move this spring to the middle take this one out and i like to see them in line like that some people like to angle them i don't know i think just the physics of it makes more sense that they're in a perpendicular line to the block so that the pressure is even as you pull on it all right just going to use a brush here to get rid of a lot of this that's all dust really needs [Music] this intonation there looks pretty good i'll give the fretboard a little clean with some simple green or any other mild detergent soap and water this is a finished fretboard with the gloss finish so no oil anything like that just going to clean it up get whatever grime was on there that's pretty clean and just make sure you dry it properly right don't leave it on there all right so i'm going to use some fret erasers to clean up the frets here's a new pack which i can open one of these days so there's a bit of fret wear so these first two frets maybe you know maybe in a year or so might need to change those anyways let's start people ask me how many times do i go over the fret with the fret erasers and i'm trying to keep it consistent i usually do like 12 like one two three four five six 8 9 10 11 12. now first you know you're you're always hitting another fret twice right so then i go back and do the first fret you know another 10 12 times it does a good job of cleaning the frets and giving them a nice nice light polish right makes them a lot better actually we got rid of a lot of those front marks too and it looks much better so today we're going to use the dario's 10 to 46s client supply these tens were on there so we're going to continue with 10. i've been using nines a lot these days on electric guitars seems to be a little easier to play for a lot of people i think i've shown this before but when you look on the back of the d'addario packages a plastic package all the strings are color coded the ball ends so if you keep that out if you're not sure you don't do it too often you can reference the color to make sure especially when you get down to the first and second string sometimes it's a little you're not quite sure which one is which you know so i like to use my universal bench vise when i can for restringing especially anything that's string through body just finds another set of hands [Applause] so all right so let's string this up i like to try and move the tuner post holes so they're facing the nut easier to find there we go so on this sixth string i actually go two tuners past give it a little kink i'm not going to cut it off yet i'll cut off a little bit just so it's not flopping around all over the place there's more than enough extra here so i'm gonna go ahead a big piece of fluff and go ahead and start wrapping this around once you get right there you lift the string up bend it a little bit [Applause] here's a screwdriver make sure this drains are snug and then just finish it up by hand and usually you don't need more than two or three wraps on the sixth string a few you need about five wraps on the especially the first and second strings third string you know about the same all right let's continue so you'll find with these staggered posts that there's not a lot of height on the post itself so you don't really need or you can't really get a ton of wraps there anyways so basically a couple of tuning posts you know about a inch inch and a half of string is about all you need now you might be able to get away with a little more on the plane strings here so once you're near the end i just usually do it by hand so i don't break the string trim off a little bit of that and you know check it in there and have a good close look make sure the wraps are all on top of each other now that looks good okay okay so once you've strung up the guitar you tune it up so i've tuned it to pitch here now we're going to stretch the strings so you know stretch the strings grab each string right around the 12th fret give them a good yank do that like three four times that's the way you can also hold down the twelfth and pull like at the sixth that's really the wound strings that need more stretching than the plain ones but it does get a good half tone out of them so see how flat they went so now we're going to tune it up again so now we're tuned up again so if you remember i put this stick under here right the spacer it's still there there's just enough tension to hold it so what i'm going to do is let this sit for a while maybe overnight and i'm going to do the setup in this position and then we're going to release the spring tension in the back just enough to release the popsicle stick all right all right so let's check the neck relief so the capo on the first start with 12 thousandths push down around the 19th fret here i like that it's just touching the 12. just put the 10 under there for a second yeah it's nice good all right so now i'll turn that a little bit this way and we'll check the string height so fender we check at the 5th 17th fret so we'll start at 5 64. so it's definitely lower that's touching what i'm going to do is set this up at 460 force and that's you know the fender standard and we'll make sure there's no buzzes fret noise that kind of thing all right so when i use my gauge that one's good just here a little bit drop that down a touch [Music] and make sure that your saddles are nice and even it's good so we'll tune it up and then i'll check it with the gauge so once i've used my string gauges my brass ones and you can use a measuring tool like this that has 60 force you can use thousands of an inch you can also use millimeters you get these from stumac you can get them on amazon all over the place so anyways i like to check in 64. so at the 17th fret i want to see 460 force so really the g string needs to come down just a touch not much that's good so i'll just check the intonation it was pretty good when it came in so we're tuned to e [Music] it's right on that's good i don't need to tune the g string up a bit the g string's a little sharp d he's good hey he's good he is good so it's really the g that's sharp so that means we need to lengthen the string right to flatten it so we're going to pull the saddle back turn it up [Music] [Music] good intonation is nice so nothing should really have changed up at the nut here yeah so an 18 000 feeler gauge slides under there nice so that's set up really well it's good so while it's laying down i can check for buzzing [Music] it was me [Music] so up and down the fretboard these are they look like medium jumbo frets pretty big so [Music] [Laughter] i can also do that in the playing position of course [Music] i usually find that if you don't have buzz when it's checked laying down on the bench you're not going to have buzz in the open position [Music] so this is fine the last check i do for any buzzing is just open strings right give them a good strum not crazy hard right but hard enough that the string will resonate and if there's any issue it's usually at the first fret right [Music] that's good okay so if you remember we put the spacer stick underneath the bridge tighten the springs down on the claw so that's held in place we've done all our adjustments so now what we have to do is loosen off the claw until this becomes loose and then the bridge will be floating so i'm just going to flip it over a bit screwdriver up so here all you do is i like to do like you know one full turn or about a half turn i should say keep it even here the claw right and then i'm going to check and see did it come out nope so again about a half turn no more than that at a time it's coming out but i think i'll uh just a quarter turn now not even like an eighth of a turn there we go still in [Music] tune i'll bring you in close and show you so now we have enough string tension to keep the bridge off the body by about a sixteenth of an inch and the springs in their back cavity the trim block they're counter balancing all of that so that's why everything's still in tune and now we can sharpen or flatten the note with the trim bar all right so the last adjustment to be made is the pickup height so using my gauge again so on the base side i like to see 1 8 of an inch underneath the top of the pull piece and the string so you press down on the last fret and you see that's a little too close right that's the lower same here so all of those have to lower and then on the treble side we're looking at three thirty seconds again they're all too high so let's lower those a little more pretty good yeah a little turn there that's nice troublesome good all right i'll do all three pickups so so that's what i was saying about that these springs right so when you have the spring in there the trim arm will stay it won't move some people like it loose so you can leave it i'll return it around more turn and then it will stay close by so now we can flatten the note and sharpen the note both options and stays in tune simple as that we're all done well let's finish up by cleaning up these we'll strings this setup done thanks for watching i enjoy making the videos i love reading your comments keep leaving those comments remember to like and subscribe bye for now

Channel: Manotick StringWorks

Views: 129,156

Keywords: fender, american, stratocaster, tele, telecaster, strat, float, flaoting, bridge, tremolo, floating, setup, howto, diy, how, to, set, up, strings, guitar, electric, acoustic, luthier, manotick, ontario, canada, ottawa, stringworks, werks, works, string, tools, hand tools, power tools, DIY

Id: sQ4XyFJVAI0

Length: 31min 54sec (1914 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 02 2022