My name is Don Farland and I approved this disjointed, rambling, poorly crafted message.
// April 19th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Guitar
Welcome to part two of my comparison of two very different stratocasters. As I mentioned in part 1, I was able to borrow a Fender American Standard Stratocaster from a friend of mine for the and thought it would be fun to do a comparison between this high-end Fender guitar and it’s twin from the other side of the tracks; my Squier.
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// April 18th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Guitar
There is a hierarchy, or ladder, in the world of stratocaster guitars and my Squier may not be at the very bottom of that ladder, but it surely wont get hurt if it falls off. Somewhere near the top of that hierarchy is the Fender American Standard and while there are plenty of better strats than the AmStd, it’s high enough up that ladder to get a nose bleed.
This past weekend, I was able to get my hands on a friend’s Fender American Standard for the whole weekend to play with and I figured this would be a good opportunity to highlight the differences between the these two strats.
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// November 9th, 2008 // No Comments » // Guitar
The old, stock plastic nut has been removed and the small piece of rosewood super-glued back in place. There wasn’t a lot of residual glue left in the channel, but I took some 400 grit sand paper and LIGHTLY sanded the base and sides of the channel. Once that is complete, I’m ready to install the new nut. Again, I went with the Graph Tech Black TUSQ XL variety.
OK, I’m officially concerned that I might have purchased the wrong nut. I went with a pre-cut size for a 6-string strat. Graph Tech has a pre-cut nut with a flat bottom and that is probably the one I need. Regardless, I’ll proceed and just see how it goes. The new nut is a hair shorter in height than the stock nut, but the grooves are not as deep. It might work.
Just because you buy a pre-cut nut doesn’t mean its going to be a drop-in replacement. In my particular case the nut is a little thicker and wider than the stock nut. The trick to sanding the down the nut is to put some 400 or 600 grit sand paper down on a flat surface and simply slide it back and forth on the paper. Make sure you put equal pressure on the ends and center.
I should have bought the flat bottom nut. I ended up having to sand down the notch in the center of the base, but I eventually got it to sit flush. It looks a little on the low side to me, but I wont know for sure until I string it up and see/hear for myself. With all the sanding, fitting, sanding, and fitting that little chunk of rosewood came off again. I’ll glue it back when I’m all done.
Before I can string it up, I need to take care of a couple of other fixes first. A number of my pickguard screws had stripped heads and I picked up some replacement screws from GuitarCenter.com. Unfortunately, some of the screw holes are a little stripped too. A little duct tape around the screw may not be pretty, but it will do until I can fill them with some putty.
Another modfication on the agenda was replacing the awful, vintage string trees with the replacement part for the American Standard edition from Fender. The installation was relatively simple, but it did require drilling two small guide holes. Each tree has a small pin about 1/8″ from the screw hole designed to keep it from rotating.
Here she is all strung up and looking pretty sweet. The strings are a little on the low side, but I’m not picking up on any fret buzzing. It is hard to tell if the new nut adds to the resonance or sustain with the added change of new strings, but I can feel and hear a big difference while bending. With the old nut you could actually hear the “D” string catch while bending. I’m still not sure if I should be ordering the taller nut, but I’m going to play with this one (unglued) for a week and see how it goes. I’ll post an update then.
// November 7th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Guitar
Sometimes the best way to learn how to do something is to learn from watching someone demonstrate how NOT to do it. So without further ado, allow me to serve as a bright, shining beacon of warning on how to remove the stock nut from a Fender/Squier Stratocaster. Now on to part 1.
If you manage to get through the steps above without too much trouble, then consider yourself lucky and go on. Initially, I was encouraged by the indication that the nut on my strat actually had some play (vertically) on the high ‘e’ side of the neck. I decided to start from the side with the screwdriver for my initial punch, but immediately realized the error of my ways. First and foremost, the nut is slightly larger on that side and a little easier to hit on. Secondly, that little bit of vertical play gave the nut an alternate escape route. Instead of going straight through the channel, it went up and the nut cracked in half. Apparently, the low ‘E’ side of the neck was heavily glued and wasn’t going anywhere without a fight. Now, I had a new problem. I could either punch from inside the channel or from the outside and just send the remaining portion of the nut into the middle of the channel. Opting to try and push the remaining portion out, I put the screwdriver against the nut and started tapping lightly.
Patience is a virtue and the lack of patience will result in a damaged fretboard. Each tap got a little bit harder than the last one until the rest of the nut finally came free with a small piece of fretboard still firmly attached to the nut. In retrospect, I should have went back to the exacto, maybe brought in a heat gun, or just kept tapping “lightly” for a longer period of time. Fortunately, the piece that came off was on the headstock side of the nut and should reattach with some super glue without any long term, ill-effects. If you take your time and are very careful, the nut should come out with significantly less drama and damage then mine did. Just pray the factory didn’t use a whole bottle of super glue on your nut.
The next post will show you how to install a Graph Tech
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