1985 Strat
sennin
Posts: 2,146
So I did it again and bought another guitar. 
1985 MIJ sunburst SSS strat. 8.5/10 condition.
I hope $325 wasn't going overboard.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y281/goodtruant/Strat.jpg
1985 MIJ sunburst SSS strat. 8.5/10 condition.
I hope $325 wasn't going overboard.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y281/goodtruant/Strat.jpg
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7/9/06 LA 1
7/10/06 LA 2
10/21/06 Bridge 1
Nice piece and nice price, too!
Man,, you're on your way to stardom,,, I can tell!
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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How much should I expect to pay for a 50,000 mile tune up?
Depends on what kind of miles it has!
Neck bowed? Strings too far from the frets?
Buzzing frets?
Sound issues?
You have the greatest guitar to do it yourself with.
I know you can do it! What's the issues? We might be able to do it right here!
If the frets are really worn, then you may have to go to a tech, but whatddya got?
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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It's in pretty great shape otherwise.
Maybe I'll take some pics tonight.
To get a full cleaning and set up varies, but probably $150 - $250 for cleaning, fret dressing and set up, or even more around here anymore.
You usually get the guitar back, ranging from 2 weeks to 15 months.
If you're not technical it might be worth it, but you work on bikes,,,,, I KNOW you can do some of this.
Maybe in Seattle there still are the grunge throwbacks who "never sold out to the man, man" and charge you $50 bucks, but that's highly unlikely.
Go get a set of strings
A can of lighter fluid for cigarette lighters. (Like Rossignol or however the hell you spell that)
A thing of 0000 (4/00 steel wool) at the hardware store. It has to be 4/0 fine)
An old toothbrush
A handfull of q tips
Some little screwdrivers probably phillips that are probably all over in your bike shop! They should fit the screws on the jack plate, and the pickup adjustment screws. Maybe even the pickguard screws if you dare!
And allen wrenches to fit the truss rod nut, (or whatever tool is needed.)
ad the allen wrenches to fit the bridge saddle adjusters.
Some sort of two foot straightedge to lay on the fretboard, like a rafter square if you have one, or metal rule. It should be straight and fit between the strings. If you don't have one, don't worry yet. We're ballparking here.
haha,, I have to go, but I'll tell you what you forgot later.
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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A can of that compressed air
Some soft old cloth too for cleaning parts. A PJ concert shirt will do just fine.
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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Ok, maybe I shouldn't say, "humming". But we can fix that too!
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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Can I light my strat on fire now?????? I'm sure this lighter fluid will do the trick!
Anyway, I am following along for this strat clean up too because I need to do it to mine, I hope that's okay
JEFF HARDY AND JEFF AMENT USED TO LOOK THE SAME
"Pearl Jam always eases my mind and fires me up at the same time.”-Jeff Hardy
Not a prob!
...and DOH! I ordered a new trem bar and strings, they got delivered today, but they are sitting in the office of my apartment building....which is closed!
I'll start this on Saturday....since tomorrow is party night!
I'll write something up tonight for you all!
I was just looking at the pic of your guitar. It doesn't dsplay too well on my monitor, but that looks like an old Schaller design bridge you got there. If you can take a better pic, I can make sure. I haven't seen one of them for a while! There were a few types on some of those mid 80's MIJ strats and I like them.
Cleaning a maple and a rosewood fretboard are a little different. when you polish frets, you have to protect the maple finish with something, like low stick masking tape or fret protectors or,,,,,,,Post Its!! So if you have any around,, or else snag the postits off the boss's desk!
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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Make sure you film it too!
Sunday, my neighbor is going to film me throwing my "HP 4 in 1/ none of it works printer" out my 3rd story window. That thing has made me crazy from the start, so out to the concrete patio!
Although you may want to wait until you have MY help to fix up that Strat.
THEN you'll want to light that sucker up!
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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Good luck with the printer toss!
Well, I’m not going to far away today. I seem to have gotten the flu. So I’ll be home and keep checking in. Any questions at any step of the way, just ask!
Whoever, Sennin, xtremehardy or anybody else.:)
I did forget to put tuner cleaner on the list of things to get. You would use this if your controls are scratchy sounding when you turn them, and if the knobs are stiff when they turn.
You can get a can at Radio Shack, but we’re just going to go through and clean the guitar and assess the situation and restring it today.
I wrote up a bit last night with a few glasses of wine.
I guess find your self a well lighted space, and a flat surface to work on like a desk ot table.
This is the official and exact order that I do it, differently in each time!
I’ve numbered the steps in the order that I remembered them, thus the decimal points! :cool:
.5) Check the controls out
1) Check fret buzz and string height
1.5) Dive the whammy bar and check for any string binding at the nut.
2) Check neck straightness and adjust especially if the truss rod adjustment is at body end of neck. I think yours would be at the headstock.
2.1)Check nut height
3) Take off strings
3.76) cover the pickups
3.79) How are the tuners? Do they move freely?
4) Clean fret board, polish frets
5) Check bridge and saddle for dirt ,and clean
6) Take off pickguard and clean with air, lube pots
7) fix that jack
7.5)Polish nut slots
8) string it to tune
9) Check neck and adjust truss rod.
10) Adjust saddle height
11) Intonate
12) Adjust pup height
13) Try to figure out where the missing screws are
14) Find out where the leftover screws SHOULD be!
.5) I think the first thing to do is plug it in and play it. Twiddle the tone and volume knobs and flick the switches. If there is any static, or if the knobs feel stiff,,, maybe we’ll take the pickguard off and spray the tuner pots. (Potentiometers is the official name so that people sound smart -like)
Wiggle the jack and cord a bit, too. Yours is already loose anyway, so we need to fix that.
1) With the amp set clean play some open chords and ring each note and listen for fret buzzing.
Then play up around the 12th fret and see how it feels. Strings too high? Too low? Any fret buzzes? (Fret buzzing is when you fret at the 12th fret, for instance, and the string vibrates on a higher fret somewhere because of neck straightness, worn frets, etc.)
Then sit and start with the low E string and play every note all the way up the string, and do that with all the strings. Play clean, and take note of where any buzzes are. Maybe there will be none, maybe a lot, but that’s how you’ll find out.
One thing about fret buzz is that if you play hard, you’ll have some and if it doesn’t show through the amp, no problem, but we’ll also check when the new strings are on.
1.5) Ok, take the whammy bar and dive it a few times and look at the strings at the nut. Do they squeak and stick? Sometimes the nut slot gets carved out by the string and the string sticks. Corroded strings and just junk in the slot can do that too.
2) Next, check the neck for straightness or curvededess. Do this in the playing position. If you lay the guitar down on its back on a table, then you don’t get a good reading. The neck moves with gravity, or pressure, so hang it from your neck with the strap.
Get a strong light of some sort and hold the guitar sideways. Backlight it and sight down the neck from the headstock. This’ll give you a quick idea if it’s straight.
If you have a straightedge, put it on the frets so that one end is on the first fret, not the nut,,,, and the other end is down at,,,haha,,,, the other end! at least past where the neck joins the body.
If you don’t have a straightedge, put a capo on the first fret and hold down the g string at the 17th fret or so. This actually works great.
Now, see how much space there is between the straightedge, or the fretted string and top of the 9th fret. If it’s straight. Good for now. If the neck is bowed outward so there’s a gap, measure it. One way is with the feeler gauge at about .004”, or two pieces of writing paper kind of slidewith a little resistance. If the neck is bowed out kind of far, then you tighten the truss rod nut. If the neck is backbowed, then you loosen the nut a bit to relieve the tension. Usually, though, you have to tighten it.
The scary part! Da daaaa This really isn’t that hard and every guitarist should know how to do this!
I’ll assume that you need to tighten the truss rod, which straightens the neck and takes the concave bow out. If it’s straight, then you can skip this.
To adjust the truss rod. Take the wrench that fits the truss rod nut and stick it on the nut or screw. Strat, probably an allen wrench.
Give it a little left (Counterclockwise looking at the nut from the headstock) turn to loosen and free it up it first. It’s just like a screw, lefty loosey, righty tighty.
Just enough to know that it DOES turn for future reference. If it’s stuck tight,,, don’t force it! The nut can rust and freeze, and you can break the rod.
You won’t though, it’ll turn.
So back off on the nut slowly to loosen it but remember how far you went. Maybe one half turn. Then turn it back to where it started from and tighten it slightly until the neck straightens. It may only be 1/8 turn to 1/4. Take this part slow. Do like 1/8 turn then wait a minute or two and check for any changes. When the neck is straight, now we check the nut height.
This isn’t the permanent adjustment, I just want to make sure the neck DOES straighten and you want it straight to check the nut height.
2.1) How high IS your nut!?
Nut height is measured at the first fret for now. Stick a .02 feeler gauge between the top of the first fret and the high e string. That’s a standard set up and if it’s close, good for now. A LOT of guitars have the nut height too high and the slots need to be filed to lower the string.
If it’s too high, when you fret the string, especially near the nut, the string plays too sharp and it’s also hard to hold down. If it’s too low, then the open strings buzz when you play them.
Ok, if it’s reasonable, good. If it’s way off, take it to a tech if you’re a beginner. If it’s way too high, and you want to try it yourself,,,,, I’ll help you, but we’ll get it cleaned up today and some new strings and see what you have!
3) Take off the strings. haha, I think you can handle that! Although, do it kind of slowly. THe neck is under maybe 160 - 200 lbs of pull from the strings and if you just clip them all at once the neck will move backwards and ,,,, I guess it’s a heebey geebey thing. Just detune each string and take them off individually.
3.76) Cover the pickups with some paper or something, and tape it so when you polish the frets, little metal shavings don’t stick to the magnets and decorate them forever!
3.79) If the tuner keys are tight, you can lube them, but if they're reasonable, we can leave that for another time. One thing you can do is twirl them for a bit with your fingers or a string winder to loosen them up.
4) Ok, you clean maple necks and rosewood necks differently. I’ll start with maple.
Maple necks are finished, so you don’t want to use steel wool on them yet..
Haha,,,but get the lighter fluid out!!!! :cool:
Get some small pieces of soft rag and dampen it with the fluid and start rubbing. There is usually a buildup along the edges of the frets on the fingerboard, so you want to rub sideways and use a q-tip dampened in fluid to loosen that stuff up, and parallel to the neck with the cloth. You’re essentially cleaning the finish now and getting the grime off. Especially the oil that builds up on the wood near the frets.
To polish the frets, put some tape on the fingerboard along the frets, to protect the finish, and take a small piece of the 0000 steel wool and wad it up, pinching it between your fingers and rub the frets lengthwise, across the fretboard. This should put a shine on them and rub out minor scratches and flaws. There might be some worn ones that are rough. You can sand those spots with fine, like 600 grade sandpaper or a really fine file,
I don’t know your skill level, but probably leave that for the next set of strings.
Let me know what they look like when you’re at it!
For a Rosewook neck, same thing, but you can use a credit card or a toothpick to plow the crud off at the wood/ fret joints after you soften it with the lighter fluid. Then you can take pieces of the steel wool and polish the frets, then as a final step, you can use the steel wool to polish the whole fretboard by rubbing it lengthwise down the board. This will smooth out scratches in the board, too.
THIS is when you’re happy that you covered up the pickups, because they’ll be COVERED with metal shavings if you don’t.
5) Take a q-tip and dip it in a little cup of lighter fluid and light it with a match.
Ok, that should keep you happy for a while!
Now that the fire’s out, clean up the bridge and saddles and all the screws and whatever you can get to on that thing.
You can even take a rag and dampen it with fluid and clean the pickguard and all the parts that are grungy looking.
6) Now,,,,, take off the pickguard if you dare! Don’t lose the screws! You CAN buy them, though. The whole thing should come off with the pickups and controls attached. There will be a set of wires connecting it to the output jack, so you’re essentially just flipping it over and staring at it and looking at the wonder that is a Stratocaster! There’s usually a lot of dust and original sawdust, and just general buildup. You can carefully get some of it with a shopvac with a small brush attachment, or blow it all over the kitchen with some air from the air can.
Just look at that baby! You are looking at a guitar that was just about perfect from the start in the 50’s! I love opening up guitars like that.
Check the solder joints on the back of the pots and at the input jack. Input jacks are notorious for loosening up and the wire connections can break and crackle. If the connection’s fine, then leave it alone. If it's loose, and you have a soldering gun, you can put the wire back on pretty easily.
You can tighten the input jack now, by taking a socket wrench to the nut on the outside of the plate that you see, and holding the inside part. Tighten that sucker up!
If the cord jack is loose when it fits into the guitar, you can slightly bend the curved metal contact inward to hold it tighter.
While this is opened up, is the cavity shielded? Probably not. If it's bare of painted wood in the cavity, then you want to shield the cavity, but not today. Shielding the wood cavity and back of the pickguard with copper foil, or painting the cavity with shielding paint helps quiet the guitar. Single coils, especially, and the wires and controls are like antennae and pick up all kinds of noise. Shielding that cavity is a GREAT thing to do on any guitar.
Ok, I gotta go for a minute. haha,,, sorry that I left you with the thing all opened up like that!
I’ll be back!
If you have time, post a pic of your bridge and maybe a macro of the frets, especially the 1rst 5, where they usually wear first. And the headstock.
You can even post the inside if you want to. haha,,, live guitar clinic.
I hope I have enough wine!
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Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y281/goodtruant/StratTuning.jpg
1) Check fret buzz and string height (no buzz, I like the action)
1.5) Dive the whammy bar and check for any string binding at the nut. (no binding)
2) Check neck straightness and adjust especially if the truss rod adjustment is at body end of neck. I think yours would be at the headstock. (pretty straight, I need to make an adjustment.....might need a shorted stright edge, maybe I'll just cut this one....)
2.1)Check nut height (where should I be with this?)
Sounds like you have a good guitar! So far!
The nut: If there's no string buzz when you play the strings open, good!
If the nut height is too high, when you play notes at the first fret, you'll have to press hard, and the string will sound out of tune. (sharp)
So in reality, if it feels nice when you play a barred F chord, and sounds in tune ,,,then,,, haha,,, move on!!
The reason I had you check the neck straightness now, is to check the nut. You the neck right to see if the nut is the right height.
If you want to measure, the bottom of the high E string should be .02" higher than the the top of the first fret.
Now that I know the neck is straight and frets are good, I'M feeling good!
If you don't feel like measuring, no hay problema,,, next step!
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y281/goodtruant/Project%20Strat/Stratbridge.jpg
Just noticed something.....3 of the little rollers, aren't rolling freely....
What should I do to free them up?
It's probably corrosion from sweat that did it. Maybe some beer, too.
That's common, and they may be hard to find.
Ok,,, the universal fix for everything in the world of squeaks and stickiness!
WD-40! I wouldn't spray it all over, but if you can work it into the joints where the rollers are, then take some needle nosed pliers and see if you can work them to get them moving. Wrap some cloth or plastic around the rollers so they don't get scratched by the pliers. Actually if you have any bike lube oil, that should work, too. Maybe spray some into a cup and use q-tips to get it in the joints. Try to mask around the wood and other parts so you don't overspray too much..
If they absolutely aren't going to move, then polish those things where the strings ride over them with some steel wool and the guitar will still work. They just make smoother action when you're using the whammy. Then we'll deal with them later.
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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You want to get those things working freely while you're at it. Lube them up and see if they turn. They tend to freeze right where they enter the back of each saddle.
Those screws tent to strip easily, too, so use the right screwdriver and turn back and forth a bit to see if they free up after wd-40 it.
That's from sweat again! That guitar has played in some steamy atmosphere nightclubs! :cool:
If the screws don't turn,,,, we'll worry about that later. The bridge saddles look like they're adjusted in the general realm of where they're right.
I just did a close up on the pic. You also want to free up those allen nuts in front of the bridge. They adjust the height of the rollers and the strings. Cross your fingers that THEY work!
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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I think that's a Schaller designed locking bridge type II.
Hard to find parts for, and they cost, so that should give incentive to get those parts moving!
Those empty holes just above the phillips head screws were the locking screws for the strings. You don't need them, and I never liked those screws because they scraped my hands all the time. Do you have a locking nut on that thing? (It would be a metal nut with allen screws) Probably not if the previous owner didn't have the screws in the bridge.
That was definitely an 80's thing for those big teased hair guitar god stage posing whammy bar divers!
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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Pick gaurd is off, and everything looks pretty good inside.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y281/goodtruant/Project%20Strat/PickGuard.jpg
No locking screws....
and no locking nut.....
The switch usually gets static from dust or corrosion. If you blow it in any gaps and where the contacts are, that may help.
If you have any type of petrol oil, like chain lube or just 3in1 oil mix it with some lighter fluid and that's like a "the home version" WD-40 for those emergencies when you don't have WD-40 for those emergencies.
I would imagine mineral oil would do, too, or even a nice olive oil. :cool: No vinagrette, though! To acidic!
It really would be good to get those rollers rolling while it's open like that.
If not, try to polish the path that the string would take along them as best you can so the string sits in a smooth channel. Less likely to break the string that way.
Man,,, that looks good, Sennin. Also if there are any markings on the back of the pickups, write them down, just for the hell of it. Sometimes there's a sticker or a number or letter to tell you what type they are.
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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