Freeman Keller
Doctor of Teleocity
There are a couple of threads running right now where questions have been asked about leveling frets, making nuts and other setup related topics. I’ve commented a bit and I’ve received a few private messages asking about aspects that we’ve been discussion. I thought maybe it was time to start a thread dedicated to finishing up your guitar and making it playable.
I managed to take enough photos of the chambered tele clone when I built it so it makes sense to kind of follow how I got it ready to play, but I’ll probably pull in a few pictures of other guitars so don’t worried of all of a sudden there is blue guitar when the last one was red.
And while we will be talking about a basic Fender style guitar, I use the same steps and procedure on almost any guitar I’m working on – electric or acoustic, and it really doesn’t matter if it’s a brand new guitar like the tele-clone or one that comes across my workbench for whatever reason. I’ll talk a bit how I approach a used guitar that just needs to be set up.
Some disclaimers. There are as many ways of doing this as there are people who do it. This works for me, it may be completely wrong for you. I’m an engineer – I measure everything. Some of you have micrometer eyes and can sight down a neck and know exactly what it needs – I can’t. Some of you have so much experience playing guitars that your fingers will tell you exactly what it need. Mine might tell me that it needs something, but otherwise they are just fat sausages.
The other thing I want to stress is that there is no perfect setup for every player and every guitar. StewMac has a very interesting page on their site where they list the setups for a lot of different guitar god’s guitars. Half of those I couldn’t play if I had to but it works just fine for SRV or BB or whoever. The target values I’m going to suggest here are a good basic medium/low electric action or low fingerstyle acoustic action. Many players, including lots of new players, will like this action – but again, you may prefer something else.
Lastly, a few conventions. I do all my measuring in the English system, and for measurements less than one inch I use decimal inches. It saves me lots of thinking and converting and errors trying to remember if 3/32 is less than ¼ or 5/64th. I use measuring tools calibrated in decimal inches (feeler gauges, calipers, my string action gauge) – if I take something in fractional inches I’ll usually convert and round it off.
I make my “action” measurement at the 12th fret of every instrument I work on. That keeps things completely consistent and the math is easy. You’ll see others using the 17th or 18th fret but tell me, if you want to change the action at the 17th fret from 3/32 to 5/64 inches how much to I lower (or raise the saddle)?
I also know that some adjustments affect others, while some do not. I do things in a consistent fashion that takes this into consideration.
I’m not going to say anything about vibratos or tremolos. They complicate doing the setup, each one is different, and there are good instructional videos available on each variety.
Last, and far from least, years ago I put together a little spreadsheet to help me keep track of each guitar that I work on. If it is a used guitar I measure EVERYTHING before I start and fill out a column in the spreadsheet. I have a column called Target – that is the value that I am shooting for when I consider the guitar done. I also have a column that I called Reference – that’s where the target numbers came from. If someone says “please set up my guitar to Fender factory specs” that becomes the Target and Reference. If someone says “make my guitar like Stevie Ray’s” again, that’s what goes in those columns.
So I don’t have to go looking all over the shop or my computer to find out what various manufactures and technicians use for their specs, there is a tab in the spreadsheet where I’ve recorded that stuff as I have found it. Again, its just a handy way to keep all of this in one place.
The spreadsheet and instructions are available to anyone who would like it. PM me your e-mail address – I can’t post it here.
I’m going to do this in several stages spread out over a couple of days. If there is no interest I can just stop, if it seems worthwhile I’ll muddle forward. I break setup work down into the following steps, that’s the way I’ll post things
(1) Evaluation. Structural condition of the guitar – hydration, loose or broken things, geometry and neck angle, starting measurements
(2) Frets
(2A) Making a nut
(3) Neck relief
(4) First fret action
(5) Twelfth fret action
(6) Intonation
(7) Pickups and miscellaneous
Because this guitar is brand new and doesn’t have a nut I will have to do that before setting the relief, but ordinarily I wouldn't have to do (2A)
I managed to take enough photos of the chambered tele clone when I built it so it makes sense to kind of follow how I got it ready to play, but I’ll probably pull in a few pictures of other guitars so don’t worried of all of a sudden there is blue guitar when the last one was red.
And while we will be talking about a basic Fender style guitar, I use the same steps and procedure on almost any guitar I’m working on – electric or acoustic, and it really doesn’t matter if it’s a brand new guitar like the tele-clone or one that comes across my workbench for whatever reason. I’ll talk a bit how I approach a used guitar that just needs to be set up.
Some disclaimers. There are as many ways of doing this as there are people who do it. This works for me, it may be completely wrong for you. I’m an engineer – I measure everything. Some of you have micrometer eyes and can sight down a neck and know exactly what it needs – I can’t. Some of you have so much experience playing guitars that your fingers will tell you exactly what it need. Mine might tell me that it needs something, but otherwise they are just fat sausages.
The other thing I want to stress is that there is no perfect setup for every player and every guitar. StewMac has a very interesting page on their site where they list the setups for a lot of different guitar god’s guitars. Half of those I couldn’t play if I had to but it works just fine for SRV or BB or whoever. The target values I’m going to suggest here are a good basic medium/low electric action or low fingerstyle acoustic action. Many players, including lots of new players, will like this action – but again, you may prefer something else.
Lastly, a few conventions. I do all my measuring in the English system, and for measurements less than one inch I use decimal inches. It saves me lots of thinking and converting and errors trying to remember if 3/32 is less than ¼ or 5/64th. I use measuring tools calibrated in decimal inches (feeler gauges, calipers, my string action gauge) – if I take something in fractional inches I’ll usually convert and round it off.
I make my “action” measurement at the 12th fret of every instrument I work on. That keeps things completely consistent and the math is easy. You’ll see others using the 17th or 18th fret but tell me, if you want to change the action at the 17th fret from 3/32 to 5/64 inches how much to I lower (or raise the saddle)?
I also know that some adjustments affect others, while some do not. I do things in a consistent fashion that takes this into consideration.
I’m not going to say anything about vibratos or tremolos. They complicate doing the setup, each one is different, and there are good instructional videos available on each variety.
Last, and far from least, years ago I put together a little spreadsheet to help me keep track of each guitar that I work on. If it is a used guitar I measure EVERYTHING before I start and fill out a column in the spreadsheet. I have a column called Target – that is the value that I am shooting for when I consider the guitar done. I also have a column that I called Reference – that’s where the target numbers came from. If someone says “please set up my guitar to Fender factory specs” that becomes the Target and Reference. If someone says “make my guitar like Stevie Ray’s” again, that’s what goes in those columns.
So I don’t have to go looking all over the shop or my computer to find out what various manufactures and technicians use for their specs, there is a tab in the spreadsheet where I’ve recorded that stuff as I have found it. Again, its just a handy way to keep all of this in one place.
The spreadsheet and instructions are available to anyone who would like it. PM me your e-mail address – I can’t post it here.
I’m going to do this in several stages spread out over a couple of days. If there is no interest I can just stop, if it seems worthwhile I’ll muddle forward. I break setup work down into the following steps, that’s the way I’ll post things
(1) Evaluation. Structural condition of the guitar – hydration, loose or broken things, geometry and neck angle, starting measurements
(2) Frets
(2A) Making a nut
(3) Neck relief
(4) First fret action
(5) Twelfth fret action
(6) Intonation
(7) Pickups and miscellaneous
Because this guitar is brand new and doesn’t have a nut I will have to do that before setting the relief, but ordinarily I wouldn't have to do (2A)
Last edited: