The Drum Cavern

Music shop

Address: 66 North Rd, Brighton BN1 1YD Phone:01273 665414

Ackerman Music Ltd

2 reviews · Music shop

123-124 Queens Rd

Closes at 18:00

Mudpie Music Ltd

17 Trafalgar Street
Brighton
East Sussex

Repair sheet – 1976 (CBS) Fender Telecaster, SN 76 58941, made in the USA Fullerton plant.

Current value range – £ 1,184 to £2,295 (higher value is for – in very good condition, with hard case.)

Weight = 3.8 kg or 8.38 lbs.

Body – 2 piece Alder, fitted with ‘straplock’ strap buttons. Finished in a thick coating of natural transparent poly.

Flush mounted string ferrules.

No ‘action’ shim in the neck pocket. Neck pocket is oversized (typical of CBS?) such that the neck is a very loose, poor fit and the neck only contacts the walls of the pocket at two points. The corner radii of the neck heel were sharper than the radii of the pocket. The neck did not butt up against the end wall of the pocket, but rested on the two points of contact where the two corners of the neck heel touched the shallower radius of the corners of the neck pocket. As a result the neck was very unstable and tended to lean towards the low E, bringing that string close to the edge of the neck. As evidenced by the four neck bolts being cranked down at some point so hard, in an effort to stop the neck moving around, that it has bent the neck plate.

There are no markings in the body cavities, the floor of the neck pocket may have been sanded down (and any marks therefore removed) since it is bare wood and remarkably free of lacquer over spray.

Black 3 ply vinyl guard. Pickguard has been replaced at least once – pickguard screw holes are in some places quite chewed up or there are two holes side by side.

Neck – 21 fret ‘Skunk stripe’ one piece maple, 7.25” radius, medium C profile, black dots, truss rod adjustment at the heel. Large flat frets (probably been milled a couple of times – lacquer is worn / abraded away on both edges of the ‘fretboard’). It may even have been re-fretted because the frets look to be a large gauge for a Fender of that period. Two wear marks through the lacquer at the 2^nd fret and a ding above the 11^th fret. Quite deep dent in the back of the neck level with the 6^th fret.

Neck plate – stamped with a large Fender F logo, black plastic cushion.

Tuners – Kluson style Grover DeLuxe split shaft, oval solid buttons, nickel plated.

Trees – 2 bent metal trees.

Bridge – Fender steel sheet, nickel plated with 3, double grooved, nickel-plated, brass barrel saddles. Intonation screws – M3 by 30mm nickel plated steel – cross heads were very worn so replaced with Pozidrive pan head stainless steel screws.

Bridge pickup – Seymour Duncan STL-1 (Vintage ’54 Tele?) , measures at 7.03 Kohm, 3.07 H at 120Hz, 3.069H @ 1kHz without the bridge plate, 3.092 H at 120Hz, 3.013H @ 1kHz with the bridge plate. 3/16” diam. Alnico 5 magnets, D & G poles raised, copper plated steel elevator plate, black string binding.

Neck pickup – Seymour Duncan (Vintage Tele STR-1) Labelled STR1-P?, measures at 7.68Kohm 2.04 H at 120Hz, 1.977H @ 1kHz, 3/16” diam. Alnico 5 magnets.

Guitar as received – Needed a thorough cleaning. Neck and bridge filthy. Missing the two barrel knobs and switch tip. Split shafts on the two pots  damaged – one only had half of the shaft left. All cross head screws rusty. Neck leaning hard towards the low E. Electronics in a very poor state, shoddy soldering etc. Tone cap 43.35 nF, vol fitted with a 102 ceramic treble boost cap.

Work done – Guitar completely disassembled, all parts individually cleaned and polished, guitar re-assembled.

Both pots, knobs and switch tip replaced. 3 way switch replaced with a 4 way for additional both pickups in series position. Replaced pots with CTS solid shaft pots, vol 235.2K, tone 214.3K. Missing knobs replaced with grub-screw secured dome top chrome knobs with a position indicator.

Rusted pickguard and control plate screws replaced with new chrome plated screws (old screws cleaned up and returned with the guitar in a plastic bag, along with all the other old parts).

Guitar copper screened throughout and fully rewired.

All pick-guard and control plate screws replaced with new chrome screws. Heads worn on intonation screws so screws replaced with stainless steel M3 by 30mm.

Truss rod nut removed, burs on the cross head filed smooth, nut lubricated and re-fitted. Tuners removed, cleaned and lubricated.

Replaced worn and loose Japanese jack socket with a Switchcraft long bush jack (a long bush was required to provide enough thread length between retaining clip and Tele jack cup).

Neck re-fitted in pocket to increase stability.  Re-strung with Ernie Ball 10 to 46 Regular Slinky nickel wound strings. Truss rod adjusted, string height and intonation set, pickup height set (strings fretted at last fret – 2.0mm on top, 2.4mm bottom).

Intonation for (EB 10-40 strings) set to –

EADGBE

Error in cents -5 +4 0 0 0 0

Parts –

2 x 250K 10% log curve CTS 1/4” solid shaft pots £ 11.20

2 x Domed grub screw knobs, chrome plated

1 x 4 way switch, switch tip – £ 15.97 (inc cost of knobs)

10 x Chrome cross head (pozidrive) pickguard screws – £ 2.99

3 x Stainless steel intonation screws, pan head, pozidrive – £ 4.50

2 x sets of Ernie Ball 10 to 46  (one for setting up and one spare) – £13.48

Copper screening tape – £4

Teflon insulated silver stranded wire – £5

Total parts – £58.14

Labour – £ 90.00

GAK Brighton

Repair sheet – Fender 2008, 2009 Stratocaster, SN MZ0136972, made in Esenada, Mexico.

Current value range – £ 250 – £300 (around £ 450 new)

Weight =  3.6 kg, 7.93 lbs.

Guitar delivered in a thin soft Fender gig bag (bit dusty so vacuumed off the dust).

Body – Alder body (possibly one piece), fitted with standard strap buttons. Finished in Lake Placid Blue paint. In good condition apart from two 1cm dents / chips at the edge of the forearm contour.

Neck – 1 piece, 21 fret maple, walnut ‘skunk’ stripe, 9.5” radius, C neck finished in thin matte polyester. Black plastic fret markers. Black side markers. One bent metal string tree. Fender square cast sealed tuners. Single action truss rod, adjustment at the headstock, fillet of black plastic around adjustment hole, 3/16 hex key. 4 bolt chromed neck plate (no markings). Neck a bit grubby (note – still some signs of lacquer overspray on the bridge side of the frets). Front of the headstock bears the Fender logo in black with a gold outline, STRATOCASTER and the ‘Original contour body’ in script. The serial number and ‘Made in Mexico’ appears on the back of the headstock. The heel of the neck has a barcode sticker MO1890595.

Hardware – 3 ply black – white – black 11 hole pickguard secured with chrome plated cross head screws. Retro fitted with 3  Lace sensor hot gold single coil pickups 6K in the neck, 6K in the middle, 13K in the bridge, with white covers. 5 way pickup switch. Traditional six screw tremolo, zinc block with folded steel saddles, fitted with 3 springs. Three ply white – black – white cover plate with oblong string access slot. Tone controls are a bit abrupt (250K 10% law), 0.022uF plastic film tone cap. Standard no tone control of the bridge pickup.

Guitar delivered strung with – 0.009, 0.011, 0.016, 0.024, 0.032, 0.042 odd mix of ball end strings

Problems – In for cleaning and a set up. Jack socket loose in the jack plate. Fairly heavy fret wear for the top 3 plain strings down to the 10^th fret. Tremolo arm loose in the block.

Tremolo bridge set high – 4.5 mm at the back of the bridge plate (Fender spec. is 3.2mm). Saddle heights and attitudes all over the place (for example the bottom E saddle was tilted sideways at almost 45 deg.) Top E tuner nut was loose.

Work done – Neck removed, cleaned and polished, neck replaced, truss rod adjusted. Body, pickguard and bridge plate cleaned. A new set of D’Addario  EXL 120 0.009 to 0.042 strings fitted. Trem and intonation set. Various nuts tightened. Tightened the three screws holding the bridge plate to the inertia block. Wrapped plumbers teflon tape around the screw thread of the ‘tremolo’ arm to stabilise it when screwed into the inertia block. All six trem screws were level with the top of the bridge plate with the plate flat against the body which limits the plates upward movement. Re-adjusted the screws to a 0.5mm gap. Tidied up the wiring.

Lace Hot Gold sensors – recommended height settings

String distance from pickup, high “E” depressed at the 21st Fret:

NECK: 1.5mm

MID: 2.0mm

BRIDGE: 1.0mm

Low “E” depressed at the 21st Fret:

NECK: 2.5mm

MID: 3.5mm

BRIDGE: 2.0mm