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HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate! 
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Simethicone
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Post HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate!
My low strings are a good 8-10 cents off at the 12th fret, and that's about as good as I can get them. The high strings are fine. What's worse, I just did the Silverburst Tele as well, and the Tele's fine with the same gauge strings. I'm wondering if perhaps I have too much relief on the Strat's neck and that's what's causing it? The aforementioned Tele has a bit lower action comparatively- though still high by most standards- and a bit less relief on the neck.

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Mon Feb 27, 2012 7:46 pm
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Post Re: HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate!
I pay people to intonate my guitars, so I'm completely useless here.


Mon Feb 27, 2012 8:15 pm
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Winston Wolf
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Post Re: HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate!
Is it a new gauge for that guitar? Or is it just a new set of strings that are the same gauge as what was on the guitar before?

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Mon Feb 27, 2012 8:55 pm
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Post Re: HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate!
It's seemed very common for my guitars to not have enough room to fully intonate their strings.

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Mon Feb 27, 2012 9:43 pm
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Winston Wolf
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Post Re: HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate!
What gauge strings do you use?

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Mon Feb 27, 2012 10:13 pm
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Simethicone
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Post Re: HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate!
chris_d wrote:
Is it a new gauge for that guitar? Or is it just a new set of strings that are the same gauge as what was on the guitar before?


It should be the same. It may be slightly lighter on the high strings if I had 11-52s on there vs. 10-52s. It's the low E, A, and D that aren't able to go all the way. Like I said, though, the action's really high and there's a fair bit of relief in the neck, which leads me to wonder if they aren't being pulled sharp a bit when fretted. It seems higher than usual to me as well; it's been living at the Snaxodrome for the past few months.

I knew the Strat wasn't totally dead-nuts on, but I don't remember it being that off either. My best guess is to bring it down a bit to roughly where the aforementioned Tele is, maybe a bit higher, as the Tele still has room to work with and is perfectly on, at least with a tuner that's accurate down to the cent- accurate enough for me to use without being annoyed by 1/10 cent fluctuations. I'm not too keen on tampering with the truss rod if I don't have to, but it seems my only option.

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Tue Feb 28, 2012 2:00 am
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Winston Wolf
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Post Re: HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate!
Ah, so this isn't a guitar that was intonated 100% but now can't be intonated. It may be more out now, but it may always have been a bit out, yes?

The most common thing i run into with intonations is nuts cut too tall. As you like your action high, this seems a possibility. However, this would generally affect the intonation most at the low frets.

The other thing that i run into fairly often, is that many of my guitars have "best seasons" for intonations. For instance, my SG is all about summertime, and actually kind of can't be intonated well enough most of the rest of the time. But it is pretty near right on in june/july. My Agile Harm likes fall the most.

Anyhow, there is a certain degree of physics/math fact to a guitar setup/intonation. If the nut slots are so high, and if the bridge saddles are so high, and the scale length is such and such, then the string length nut-to-saddle will need to be: X. That sort of thing.

So if i have a saddle back as far as it will go and i need a little more, i will try raising the saddle if possible. If the screw is about to come out because i am at the other extreme, i will try to lower the saddle. Intonation is sort of a tricky/art sort of thing. Compromises between: string height, comfortability, fret out, and screw lengths.

I generally do not fuck with a neck to get the intonation closer. In my opinion, the truss rod should basically be used just to get the relief right, and that is about it. But if, as you say the neck seems to have more than it used to, some truss rodding might be in order. I just set my relief by eye for what i like, i am sure some internetter has put up a better tech guide for doing it. The main thing is to only do it with tiny turns of the wrench. Like 1/8th of a turn at a time.

Strats are funky beasts also. Personally, i have found them to set up and sound best(or most "stratty") when the strings are just almost barely borderline fretting out on the high frets. I actually don't like the action set that way though, which is one of the bigger reasons that i don't really dig on strats.

But, if you fret the first and last frets and the neck has enough bow in it that there is a small space of air at the twelfth fret, i wouldn't touch the truss rod. I would sooner take the neck off and shim it with a tiny piece of very thin plastic(i like to use old NYC Metro Cards, folded in half if one layer isn't quite enough :red: ) cut into about a 1cm strip the width of the neck. And then placed at the base of the neck pocket for less neck angle/lower action/longer strings, or at the outside edge for more angle/higher action/shorter strings.

My brain is mushlike right now from boxing with electronics all day, so i don't know if any of that makes sense or is remotely useful. I will have to re-read it tomorrow. :red:

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Tue Feb 28, 2012 3:05 am
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Simethicone
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Post Re: HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate!
Well, it was very, very on many moons ago- or close enough as I could tell at any rate, but that was with different strings in a different tuning. And a very fine professional setup.

Re: the nut, if it was too tall at one point, it certainly isn't now after what, thirteen-fourteen years of abuse, mostly with larger strings. There's probably a good 1/8" or thereabouts at the twelfth fret with the first and last frets fretted, probably about 3/16" with nothing fretted. That's pretty high. The Tele, by contrast, will hold a credit card in place.

As it stands right now, I have no idea where my allen wrench is- probably at The Snaxodrome among the other things I forgot to bring home (like wire cutters) so the Strat goes back in its case for now.

Realistically, I know I'm "supposed to be" doing this with proper tools and measuring apparatus, but a set of screwdrivers for working on computers, a respectably close tuner, and eyeballing stuff will have to do.

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Tue Feb 28, 2012 3:27 am
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Winston Wolf
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Post Re: HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate!
Yarr, 3/16" does sound excessive. I think mine usually wind up about the width of a dime to the width of a quarter or so. Which would be maybe about 1/16" max?

The other thing to check, is whether the relief on the high E is significantly different than the low E. It should be a little different, because the string is so much smaller, but if there is a ridiculous difference between the two, it could be indicating a neck twist problem, which will result in some properly fucked up intonation issues.

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Tue Feb 28, 2012 3:41 am
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Simethicone
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Post Re: HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate!
That was easy enough to check- there's a bit of a difference- seeing as the low E is more than five times as thick- but not an egregious one.

I'm leaning toward "action's too goddamn high" as the culprit- it's high enough that by fretting those notes I'm stretching the strings enough to bend them out of tune a bit. It's not horrid-awful, especially given the heavy-handedness of my vibrato, but still, with something sitting right next to it that for all practical purposes intonates perfectly, the contrast is obvious.

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Tue Feb 28, 2012 3:59 am
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Post Re: HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate!
Im going to have to concur with the action being too damn high!


Your settings are a bit extreme which leaves little leeway for the back and forth game of compromise you have to play when setting up a strat. Make incremental drops on the action and see if you have any more luck. Hopefully you do because my next guess would be possible weather induced neck warping.

But before you worry about neck relief try to see if a closer to normal drop in action gives you a bit of breathing room.

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Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:57 am
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Simethicone
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Post Re: HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate!
That would involve even smaller allen wrenches. I should probably hit up the guitar store near my house. :facepalm:

On a vaguely related note, how would I go about raising the action on my acoustic? I'm getting a bit of fret buzz, and I don't want to resort to really heavy strings (I currently have 11s with a wound G on there). It's not the greatest acoustic on the planet, but it does sound very nice- it was the best sounding thing at GC that wasn't in the stupidexpensive acoustic room when I bought it- its gaudy purple-and-abalone-ness is just a bonus.

The neck on that is pretty straight- it looks like I can get at the truss rod through the soundhole?- and the first-and-last frets test reveals it to be bottoming out against the 12th fret. I have no clue whatsoever if I can do anything with the bridge. (I really should put brass pins in there...)

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Tue Feb 28, 2012 6:49 pm
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Post Re: HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate!
Snaxocaster wrote:
That would involve even smaller allen wrenches. I should probably hit up the guitar store near my house. :facepalm:

On a vaguely related note, how would I go about raising the action on my acoustic? I'm getting a bit of fret buzz, and I don't want to resort to really heavy strings (I currently have 11s with a wound G on there). It's not the greatest acoustic on the planet, but it does sound very nice- it was the best sounding thing at GC that wasn't in the stupidexpensive acoustic room when I bought it- its gaudy purple-and-abalone-ness is just a bonus.

The neck on that is pretty straight- it looks like I can get at the truss rod through the soundhole?- and the first-and-last frets test reveals it to be bottoming out against the 12th fret. I have no clue whatsoever if I can do anything with the bridge. (I really should put brass pins in there...)



I have had to put a shim under the bridge of an acoustic in order to raise the action, along with a new nut and a bit of fiddling with the neck.

But that sort of thing is a bit extreme, and something I wouldn't really suggest trying at home.

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Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:40 pm
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Winston Wolf
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Post Re: HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate!
Shim under the saddle would be the best. Someone recommended this guy for shims http://www.guitarsaddles.com/SaddleShim.asp

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Wed Feb 29, 2012 9:03 am
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Post Re: HALP! Me Strat, Cap'n- she will nae intonate!
Or you could just stack bits of paper until the buzz goes away. That's what my dad always did.

He also put matchbook covers under the neck to lower the action when he had buzz problems with buzz but the action was too high. Sometimes it's best to raise the neck, versus lowering the action. Kind of like instead of making lemonade, make life take the lemons back.


Wed Feb 29, 2012 9:35 am
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