Custom Neck-Through Tele Rehab: Part Three

Quick Links:    Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

Well, let's see here. I've already refinished this Tele in Tru-Oil and installed the electronics. Now it's time to string it up and do a proper setup for maximum playability. Easier said than done, huh?

The maple fretboard's already as straight as an arrow, so I reckon there won't be much truss rod tweaking needed. So on goes the Ernie Ball Regular Slinkys, I tune up, and then realize the first issue: excessively-high action at the nut. Boy, are you going to have problems fretting barre chords such as F or Bb major!

In case you're wondering just how I determine nut action, it's pretty simple. With the guitar tuned to pitch, press any string at the 3rd fret and eyeball the distance between the bottom of that string and the top of the first fret. There should only be a tiny gap, a hair's width; one might say. I know there are more scientific ways to measure the gap using feeler gauges and what not; but eyeballing it works just fine for me. If there's just a tiny sliver of light shining through; you'll be good to go.

Anyway, out come the fret and torch nozzle files; and away we go. Now I've lowered the nut action to where I like it, the strings are sitting way too deep in their slots. And then there's the fact that this bone nut is really gnarly and needs a face lift. A nut reprofile job should kill these two birds with one stone, methinks.

I start by filing the top of the nut down to where about half the diameter of the wound strings are visible, and then do a cleanup and polish with successively finer grits of 3M Flexible Polishing Papers. I really like these polishing papers as they're flexible, durable; and offer a degree of control you won't get with regular sandpaper.

So now the nut's been taken care of. The fretboard's still relatively flat with the strings tuned up; and there's only the tiniest bit of relief in the 7th to 9th fret area. Nice, but fretting any string at the 21st and 22nd frets produces the same note. This means that the 22nd fret is way too high -- when you fret a note at the 21st fret, it's actually fretting at the 22nd!

The solution is to do a really minor fret dress on just the 22nd fret to lower it. I do just that; problem solved. Of course there's lots of fine sanding and polishing to do after lowering the fret height; but that's life. I've finally got the action and intonation just right, so I'm calling it a day on this job. Here's a YouTube video of yours truly trying out this Tele straight into my Fender Champion 40, no effects; no nuthin.