Smoothing up and polishing the vintage bridge saddles on a Strat is the most overlooked maintenance tip ever. I started to have a weird buzz on the high E string no matter where I fretted it and I was starting to lose hope until I found this video. When I restrung I noticed there was a burr on the high E string saddle so I smoothed it out as shown at 1:17 and boom, problem solved! Recently, I started having the same problem with the B sting so I can confirm that this really does happen and I can't be the only one... However, I have never seen this issue addressed on any RU-vid video or forum on the internet. This is CLEARLY a must on any guitar with these type of vintage bent steel saddles. Great video, very useful tips!
I lubricate it with oil about twice a year to make sure it never corrodes and keep an eye on it. If I have to I buff it in a similar he does it in the video.
My Strat came from your very shop and it is THEE most awesome and balanced instrument I've ever held and when people hold it they are amazed at how this incredible guitar feels..I've had it 17 yrs and it's as beautiful as the day you guys sent it to me ! Thank you so much...and thanks for your great tips on upkeep !
John is the man! I love how detail oriented he is and his precision !!! I used to work as a CNC operator (the only one in the plant) for a company that makes parts for Fender and I am much Like John with my work ethic, if everyone Put this much care into their work my what an amazing amount of product could be designed! unfortunately its easier said than done and its why Fender Has its amazing custom shop! Love you guys wish I could afford the real deal , but my Squier HSS Affinity does me justice :) its not just a run of the mill guitar anymore after 3 weeks of evenings and weekends tonight She is about to be played for the first time my fingers are already tingly!
John wound up the B and E strings on those vintage tuners like the wizard that he is......for the normal guy like myself , to seat those 2 strings in the center of the tuner and keep it from slipping off while winding it......is a monumental task...!...the 2 thinnest strings are always a challenge on those vintage tuners...
For the two thinnest strings, try putting a tooth pick down in the peg hole after you poke the string in. Then you can tighten the strings without them slipping out of the tuning pegs. When they are tight, just pull the tooth pick out.
You can see he pre-wraps a few times around each peg by hand before winding & with the hand that's not doing the winding KEEPS tension to the peg until it's safe to let go. It's easier than it looks & actually saves time because you need fewer turns of the tuning peg if you first secure the string with a few manual wraps. On non-slotted tuning pegs you can get started by going through the slot hole with the string end then wrapping the string once over & once under the string end, pulling it secure and holding it tight with the right hand & then tuning up the slack with the left as before.
jonas brave I'm not referring to fender standard tuners, but the "vintage"tuners are more of a challenge, it is a different animal....you have to seat the strings in the center of the peg straight in a downward position, then wrap it around the peg, while holding the string in position but because the B and E strings are so thin, it usually slips out even if using your finger to hold it in place when you begin to wrap it....it usually takes me a couple of tries before getting it....this only occurs with the two thinnest strings...it's pretty common.....I guess when you do it for a living, it becomes second nature as in John Cruz case....
John Cruz is a builder /player. I think i spoke to him on the phone thru a sound guy while i was playing at the HOB in Vegas.... I grew up in Fullerton ca. worked at fender in the 70's then helped Leo open musicman the the switch to g&l.... I was friends with john English worked with him & his dad Jay... on tone & setups... Leo said to me many times. More than 2 winds on the machine head will make it stick and go out of tune... Only graphite the nut if you have to.... Clean your guitar every time you change your strings... I still have a strat from John English one of the shop builds we fell in love with... We argued many times on this relic idea.... He was right it will make a lot of money... I Miss John.
If it won't go out of tune if you do the proper stretching and if the windings are one turn below the other. They even increase the tension on the nut without the stringtrees, that's why some guitar techs do more windings. They also want the last turn of the string before it goes down the neck to be below the hole on the tuning peg. The edge of that hole can break strings. The last part of it gets moved during bendings and tuning...if the string breaks on the tuners, that's the main cause.
Agree-how you wind the strings makes all the difference if you're concerned about tuning stability and good downward pressure on the nut. You want the windings to progress evenly down the tuning post. You see Cruz doing this by holding the string down against the headstock with his index finger while the other hand winds the string. If done slowly and carefully, this makes it easy to ensure that the last wind leaves the tuning post as low (close to the surface of the headstock) as possible.
Another tip for setting up the string tree to help keep the high E and B strings come back into tune is to raise up the string tree by turning out the screw so the strings have less break over the nut. That one thing has helped my Strats immensely.
Agree, I like an extra wrap or two on the pegs. One can even reuse the same strings if you ever swap a part elsewhere. I swapped a pickguard, the strings were totally unwound from the pegs intentionally. They went right back on as the strings still had plenty of life left in them. The Strat I bought the seller had cut the strings too short an couldn't figure out why the 9 wouldn't go back on it as he was trying to sell a 5 string in the parking lot out of the trunk of his car. Those saddles& bridge plate need to cleaned up more thoroughly to look new again, just take them off and clean them with WD40, dry them off and put them back on. If you're taking the trouble to polish the saddle notches, just do the rest of it. Then again maybe this guitar is meant to have patina relic elsewhere. I figure the string change is the ideal time to oil Rosewood or whatever Fender uses these days that isn't maple and get any other crud off the fretboard & fret. I do that once a year for that annual string change point, regardless of how many times during a year I changed strings out. I find Q-tips don't retain excessive amounts of solvent or lubricant and the cotton tip threads is easy on spreading it, doesn't take much and the Q-tipis ideal. Anyway, everyone has their own method and cleaners. I've had zero issues with the things others say to never use. the Q-tip is sparingly miserly and controls excessive lubricants so the cleaners others say no to use never mess up the guitar.
What surprises me is that a guy who knows so much still has the height adjustment screws poking up so they's dig into the side of the palm. Many of us have figured ways to get around that and make for a much better playing experience.
The other friction point is behind the saddle, at the oval hole going into the top of the bridge block. You can slide a small piece of electrical insulation on the string so that it does not grab this sharp area or break or go out of tune. Another Rene tip.
I went with GraphTech nut, trees, and bridge saddles, plus Fender locking tuners on what was originally a Squier Bullet Strat. My guitar doesn’t go out of tune except with a change in temperature, even with all the bending and using the tremolo-so pretty much the same effect where everything is smooth and slippery, no friction and no slack. Before all that though, it was a nightmare; it was difficult to even get it in tune, any bending immediately de-tuned the guitar, and using the tremolo was absolutely impossible.
Balancing the trem spring tension helps a bunch too. Usually more tension on the bass side springs than the treble side springs, until you get a musical sounding dive with the strings all in tune with each other, during and after trem use.
I wish nothing but the best for John and his next move after the dust settles. I do not know anyone who hasnt put their foot in there mouth or swung and missed with an off color comment or post that in hind sight could be offensive as hell. Welcome to the new world order.
Flitz is the best safest polish you can use on the wood as well as fretboard. Used it for years. They are NAMM usually.. Or Flitz International Waterford ,WI
IMO the drill buffer should have aimed in the opposite direction. You can see particulate matter blasting into the bridge pup cover. If there's any metal content in that, you have shavings on the polepieces.
+Guitar Whores If there is any oxidation/corrosion of the metal, it would not make any difference if the wheel is Rubber or not, it would spray the pups with particulate matter with a possibly metallic component.
I'd also want it going away from the pickups. One good tip I learned from a luthier is to simply cover the pickups with a dry cloth while buffing the bridge saddles (if you don't want to remove the bridge assembly).
Actually, I was wondering why he didn’t just put a piece of good ‘ol 3M masking tape over the pups while you perform this operation... just a thought... idk? Lol.
Did you ever consider that maybe just maybe any kind of tiny microscopic particles in this situation just aren’t going to actually cause a problem? I think you guys are just overreacting. It’s not a big deal. This guy is the top master builder fender has. lol but hey if you’ve read the forums guys go insane about little,things like that swearing it will totally destroy your pickup and ruin your guitar etc. again overreaction
i recently sold a John Cruz fiesta red relic strat with a birds eye neck..Lovely guitar..I had it for years, but could never quite gel with it....With some of the money i made fro the sale (i doubled my investment), i purchased an old vintage reissue..although it doesn't have the 'mojo' of the relic, it is so much nicer to play, and sounds far superior..i loved it immediately...I have several custom shop guitars and i love them all, but JC just had something missing for me...
I notice he makes no mention of the break angle of the strings over the nut. I wonder if there is an ideal angle for tone and for tremolo usage? The low E ends up having the sharpest angle when you wind down the post, as John does here. Eddie Van Halen used to wind the low E up the post, believing a shallower angle helped prevent the string from getting hung-up in the nut when using the trem.
Would like to know what other people think of their American Fender Stratocaster Eleit!! Or if you just happened to test one out! I love it's playability an easy up and down neck! I would not trade mine, but was thinking of, making the S-2 SWITCH , near the second tone switch When pushed, work and not lose control of my volume! But besides that I think it's real veritil. Adding That Gibson like sound with and fender, the best of both! I play mine through a Marshall JVM 410 h.
Good info/technique. Thank you. Kinda surprised you didn't mention cleaning the neck and oiling the wood. When cleaning guitar necks, what product do you use? I've always been told lemon seed oil.
It's the old wax vs. oil thing. I think it depends on the fingerboard wood type, the age and wear of it, the inlay density and the preference of the player. Nothing wrong with lemon seed oil applied in moderation.
I’m bloody sick of the ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ button. 60 dislikes for no reason at all. The Fender CS produce great guitars and has some of the best guitar builders working there. If you don’t like guitars then move on and watch something you do like. The ‘dislike’ gives moronic assholes power to hate and Google should remove it.
Dude, calm the fuck down. I clicked the dislike button and I loved the video. Many people, including me, will do that to keep my recommended from being bombarded with hundreds of these type of videos. I don't want to see hundreds more videos like this. The RU-vid Bots use the like/dislike button to figure out what to send to you. Maybe you want to have that many in your recommended. Some of us do not. Got it? And it doesn't give power to anything, except maybe to slow down the stream of a particular subjects.
I use graphteck ferroglides or string savers and graphite all in the nut and string tree, nut and string tree are Tusk,no Mettle to mettle contact,i never break strings or go out of tune.
Hi John - How can I get a Fender Custom Shop shirt like your wearing? I'm a 5XL tall. I have a 1989 Strat that you built and I love it - Thanks for all that you do!
I have an American Dlx with the LSR roller nut. I don't use the trem so I decked it using 5 springs and tightening the claw screws but it still won't stay in tune. Strings immediately go flat on bends (well stretched strings). I think the strings are binding in the roller nut but that's the problem that roller nuts are supposed to eliminate and I don't know what to do about it. Any ideas?
Hotrails height?...Strat...I'm getting some electrical feedback...especially the bridge still fine tuning it...just straight to Marshall mini home amp nothing fancy...One thing I did notice that the 1+2 combo position on the 5 way does sound real good the middle pup is very "low height"and it sounds good not "great" ...and the neck well for the moment$$ I just put the stock bridge pup that it came with...lol...sounds pretty good actually....and yes from my post u can tell I'm a newbie...but I've learned enuff to know my babe Strat could sound better...should I keep on "fiddling it...or go fiddle my wife or/and my "Gibby" Gregg Bennet clone...it does have a great two 'buckers "duncan design" and I love em...great sound bridge...the neck sounds like underwater...So now going 4the pearly gates...not the humbuckers but my wife's "pearly gates" ...cheers love...;0p love 2hear back from u
I would not use petroleum jelly or oil based anything, I would use silicone grease or graphite aircraft lube. I think Guitar Lube is silicone based so that it won't break down plastic parts like some nuts.
Get a Super Vee Blade Runner, I purchased an American special and would not stay in tune. So bad, I would not play it. I got the super vee, blade runner tremolo problem solved and the sustain is amazing!
What i miss here is tightening the machine heads. They often loosen over time and it costs sustain and is a much bigger factor if it's on a guitar with a vibrato-system. When you take of the stringtension by moving the block, the tuners shouldn't move around one bit. Just slightly tighten them without going mental.
I have one of the rosewood front and back neck strats, and has the same saddles, but i cannot get it to set up right, the saddles are sitting at and angles and if i bend a string i have to move the strings back to the middle of the saddle, its a complete pain in the ass , i wish i knew how to fix it without having to pay 120 bucks for a set up for what is basically a brand new strat
This general advice to 'use a pencil' to lubricate the nut bothers me a little. Pencil lead is a mixture of graphite and clay with the harder pencil leads made from more clay and less graphite. Clay is composed of fine particulates and is basically abrasive. I don't really want to be stuffing abrasive materials into my nut slots, apart from anything else they are likely to increase friction, not reduce it. The sort of general pencils most people have lying around have quite high clay to graphite ratio. If you must use graphite from a pencil to lubricate your guitar it makes sense to use the softest pencil available. These are specialist items you usually only find in art supply shops. 9xxB is the softest pencil which is 9 grades below a 'standard' HB.
This cracks me up.. bringing the relic'd bridge up to 'new' polished condition. Charging $6K for about $400 (if that) of materials. I do love the Cruz Strats though.
Were the strings already pre-cut or did he just not cut and utilize the full (uncut) string. Anyone? I've always used the "2 tuning post" rule of thumb then cut, but can never get more than 1-1/12 wrap.
The top of my saddles have turned black and I can’t get it off. The guitar is only 2 years old. What actually causes this ‘blackening’? Is it corrosion from sweat or?...
hai thanks for video , i want to ask about pickup and pots wiring, is the voltage of caps like an 160v&200v&400v&600v take effect or not for sound or its important influence or notthing???
though if you do want to touch it up, if its a lacquer finish you just use lacquer of a matching color. If its a poly finish nailpolish. Technically nailpolish is lacquer, but its more suited for brushing in as it drys slower.
So do you pre-cut your strings to a specific length before winding? I see that you're just putting the strings in the tuners and winding tight right away. I have excess to cut off AFTER winding (though I have the hole going through the tuner pegs instead of that hole in the top of the pegs like on this video).
The Trick with the rubber wheel is cool, but I would never lube parts of my guitar that I later put my hands on while playing. That's just weird. I really don't want to have creamy hands and Fingers from playing my guitar. But guess what: It works without lube too. As long as you smooth out the surfaces gently
Use a teflon grease and apply it by dipping a sringe or a fine needle in it. You can pull the needle through the nutslots and only a small film will be applied instead of a big chunk. graphite from a pencil is a bad idea cause it gets shoved together by the string, that dirt flies around and cause it's magnetic it might get into your pickups and can screw them up.
+onpsxmember Graphite is not magnetic, otherwise your pencil would be attracted (or repelled) by your pickups. Many guitar brands make their guitars with graphite nuts. I "write" with my pencil inside the nut slots just before I put new strings (make a smudge that covers the entire slot cavity) and then the tuning is smooth and no catch ups when bending strings.
Why are the pickup pole pieces on the high E and B completely bottomed out. I understand that having staggered pole pieces is vintage correct... But down as far as possible?
