String Height Action...Again...

Shim is an easier, reversible solution... Nothing wrong with a well-placed shim.

And what's a '59 AVRI Telecaster?

 

I'm interested. As for Moosie's questions, afaik there are 52, 58, 62 and 64 AVRI teles, and 56, 57, 59, 62 and 65 AVRI strats. Never heard of a 59 AVRI Tele? I'm guessing you mean a 58? One pic and we're all set

 

1/2 to 1 degree is a decent starting point for shimming the neck. Some people use business cards, I've used aluminum cut from a soda can, and I've got a Tele that has a 1 degree wooden shim that I got from Stewmac. I don't know why grinding down the saddles wouldn't work, but it seems like a lot of extra effort, and a loss of mass, to me.

jb

 

My .02. Go get a feeler gauge (the ones that have some brass blades are easy to cut) and cut the length to fit across the bottom of the pocket notching the corners to clear the screws. Start with a .007 to .010 thick blade and go from there. Once you see how easy it is and how well it works you'll save the grinding for another job.

 

Ok a lot of strat saddles have shorter screws for the E strings. You can get replacement screws for the saddles that are all along - fender sells them in a pack of 12.

Or you can cut up a business card or thin plastic rewards card and use that as a shim by the bottom of the neck pocket. That will angle the neck at the bottom end and bring the strings down at the end of the fretboard. Then just setup relief and the saddles.

I think both of those are good options

 

Maybe someone can clarify as I also got the "shim it" recommendations last week.

In this case it sounds like the neck angle is fine, is the recommendation to shim to use a flat shim that just raises the neck relative to the bridge but does not change the angle? That would allow the saddles to be raised and have the same relationship to the neck.

Obviously this is different depending on the model of bridge. In my case I was having trouble lowering the bridge pickup far enough. But I had a ton of adjustment left on the saddles, I could have lowered the saddles quite a bit more.

I ended up rethinking my pickup heights and solving the problem without having to do anything crazy.. I got a good balanced position with the pickups higher that seems to work.

 

We're giving you our best collective advice. Not just telling you what you want to hear. You're welcome

First, look at the Jazzmaster, where the otherwise great design badly suffers from not enough break angle. You don't wanna know the standard solution. You don't wanna know that Fender now tapers the neck pocket on the AV models. A little more break angle is better than a little (or a lot) less, IMO.

Also, think about the pressure two strings apply to two screw feet, vs spread out across the whole saddle sitting on the body. I'd rather have the saddles up on their feet a bit. (But NOT spindly! )

Second, there's a difference, IMO, between "propped up on spindly screws" and reasonable range of travel on those feet. Consider if you ever change string gauges, and/or if you ever desire different (higher) action for whatever reason. I'd target a max saddle height where the screws fill no less than half the saddle thickness. Perhaps a bit more. Personally, I don't mind the saddles peeping over the saddles by 1/16". Factor all this in, and determine the min and max saddle heights across all strings. Measure where you are now, and do the trig to calculate the shim thickness. If you're in AZ, you might not need to touch the truss rod much, but here in Connecticut, the humidity changes require tweaking the setup a couple times per year, minimum. While the saddle heights don't change much, it's nice that it's possible, that they're not maxed out, in either direction.

Finally, I don't mean to derail your whole setup approach here. I think it's important to develop your setup skills to the point where you can reliably achieve very low action. Speaking from personal experience, been there, done that, and I discovered that I enjoy the guitar more with the action raised 1/64. Not coincidentally, raising by that small amount, many "issues" simply go away.

 

You can do it in several ways , far easiest is shimming the neck
You could : Remove material from bottom of saddle screws
Remove material from bottom of saddles
Mount the bridge lower into the body
Use smaller diameter saddles
Rout the neck pocket at an angle
OR , you could fabricate a humble shim from a creditcard , wood veneer , a piece of a hacksaw blade , folded aluminum foil , or whatever......AND be done in
about eight minutes......your choice

 

@Aztex, I'm curious. How much relief does the neck have?

 

The break angle issue is not about Telecasters. Just Jazzmasters (maybe Jags, Stangs...?). Completely different bridge design. Historically there's no break angle, causing tone to suffer, plus rattling, and strings popping out of saddles, etc. The standard fix that everyone - and I mean everyone - employs is a neck pocket shim. My AV65 JM doesn't have the issue, because the pocket was cut with a taper (built-in shim). I'm not sure where / when else Fender might have done this. But again, nothing to do with Teles, except to illustrate the importance of break angle (which you're trying to do away with more or less).

 

6/64? I thought you said 4/64 in the initial post. Big difference.

 

Tele saddles are just crudely shapped pieces of round stock. Slightly modifying the ends of only two of them to help give more clearance and to better accommodate the neck radius seems like a no brainer to me if the other option is a shim. If your mic stand was too high, would you modify it by lowering the stand or would you stand on a book the whole night? I guess I see a shim as an absolute last resort.