Full assembly & setup :: Warmoth Stratocaster HH [7.1 lbs]

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The second of two Warmoth Strat's in for assembly.  This one also has a roasted maple neck (though with an ebony fingerboard) but was routed for no pickguard and humbuckers (Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro II).  The guitar needed the electronics to be installed and wired up.  A request of the player was to thin down the bridge's plastic humbucker mounting ring to lower it's profile.  The Sperzel locking tuners required the blind pins to be drilled before installation.  Similar to the player's other Warmoth Strat, the saddle set screws were swapped out to account for a higher neck angle.

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Brand spanking new setup :: 2016 Gibson Les Paul Standard [9.3 lbs]

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A gorgeous brand new flame top Les Paul in for a setup.  The original setup was actually pretty decent but a little too low for this player.  I ended up straightening the neck and raising the bridge slightly.  I also filed and polished out the saddle slots to keep the strings from binding.  My only pet peeve with this guitar is the bridge location.  Note that the saddle positions are pushed all the way to the rear of the bridge.  This guitar is properly intonated with 10's and I'd like to see these saddles end up more in the middle of the bridge to allow for more flexibilty in string gauges (ie bigger strings need the saddles to be pushed back further).  Kind of odd considering Gibson has state of the art manufacturing facilities, but maybe I'm missing something in their decision.

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Bridge from Hell :: 1994 Fender Strat Plus Deluxe [7.8 lbs]

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Bridge from Hell :: 1994 Fender Strat Plus Deluxe [7.8 lbs]

Here is an interesting Strat that was in last week for a setup.  It has a set of the Lace Sensor blue, silver and red pickups along with a LSR roller nut, locking tuners and Fender's Deluxe Floyd Rose-style locking bridge.  The fret ends on the maple fingeboard needed to be dressed as they were extremely sharp.  I also removed a couple shims from the roller nut to lower the action over the first fret.

Oh boy, the bridge though.  This design is a pain in the ass to set up.  The string ball ends need to be clipped off and then locked into the saddles - no problems there.  But in order to adjust the intonation, you need to make your adjustments through the rear cavity in the back.  There are two adjustments for each saddle, one to lock it down and one to act as a stop for the intonation.  I found that making these adjustments was much easier with the bridge removed from the body, so I would string it up to check the intonation and then have to remove the bridge to make my adjustments.  Then reinstall and string up to check.  Further complicating things were the too-short intonation stop screws on the low E and A.  They were so short that I had to fabricate shims to keep the saddles from creeping forward under string tension.  These shims had to be precisely fitted as they dictate the intonation for those strings.

I've worked on quite a few Strats and Fender threw me an unexpected curve ball on this one.

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1987 Fender Strat Plus [7.9 lbs] :: vibrato setup

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1987 Fender Strat Plus [7.9 lbs] :: vibrato setup

The floating bridge on this late 80's Strat was set up along with cleaning of the pots.  The surgical tubing that holds the Lace Sensor pickups at the correct height were compressed and needed to be replaced as well.

Upon researching this guitar I found a great resource on the Fender Strat Plus: http://xhefriguitars.com/page2.html#C10

A video posted by Chubbuck Guitars (@kevin_chubbuck) on Jan 14, 2015 at 11:12pm PST