Thank you Joe - that means a lot to me. It won't be too many years realistically before I'll be in the same position, and I really do keep it in mind so that I stay in the present moment and live it as fully as I can.

"Hands up everyone who likes MEEE?!?" (Neil, Vyvian and MIke all put both hands down under the table....) :D

Thanks Jim :) I never say ‘Press subscribe and like’…. maybe I should start!

Thanks Andrew :)

Delayed thank you! Appreciate your long-time support!

I DO understand (you bet I do!) - and sympathise.

Sorry for the late reply Jonathan, been really busy! Interesting about the frets... I wonder if these instruments are 'Plek'd' then? If so, it would appear quite a voracious process. Do you remember in the promo whether it had the Plek treatment or not?

One of the biggest mistakes is when the neck pocket holes are so small that the screws bit into the neck pocket wood... occasionally this happens to end up with a 'forced' gap between neck heel and pocket that tightening won't make go away...

@@SamDeeksRelovedGuitars , like we saw there. Yeah, I've drilled out a few now.

It's a method set out by Galeazzo Frudua (an Italian luthier / player). It's just about knowing what angle to set the bridge plate at to give a consistent range of pitch up when you pull the trem arm up/back so the bridge plate touches down flat on the guitar top. The steps are: 0. Make sure your strings are FULLY stretched out first 1. Screw your trem claw screws fully in so that your tremolo bridge is effective 'hard-tailed' by the stretched out springs 2. Set your preferred playing action (neck relief, 1st and last fret actions) 3. Before starting to set your tremolo, lower your preferred playing action you just set by 0.5mm (as measured at the last fret) or one half turn of each of the saddles' grub screws counter-clockwise (Note the playing action may sound terrible after that, with buzz etc, but setting the trem to floating will lift it up again by that same 0.5mm returning it to where it was originally) 4. Next, tune strings to pitch 5. Insert x amount of Post-It notes under the back of the bridge plate until the G string note drops down from G and becomes an E. This step is showing you the physical position that your bridge plate has to be in to give a standard range of pitch-up (which is conventionally 0.5 tones on the high E, 1 tone on the B and 1.5 tones on the G) 6. When G has become an E, tune all strings back to normal pitch (with the Post-Its still in place) 7. When all strings are at pitch, remove the Post-It notes. The high spring tension will pull the bridge back down to the guitar top causing all your strings to go sharp. Next you're going to tune your strings back down to normal pitch... using just the tremolo claw screws you tightened up at the beginning. 8. Go round the back and slowly undo the trem claw screws until your 3rd string comes back down to G (from whatever note it got to when you removed the Post-Its) 9. When the 3rd string is 'tuned' back to G the remaining strings will be at, or close to, their normal pitch too. Make any fine tuning adjustments. 10. Pull up on your trem arm to test your range of pitch up across the 1st 3 strings (0.5 tones on the high E, 1 tone on the B and 1.5 tones on the G) or very close.

Not a silly question… the ‘sticky up’ screws was a secondary thing; the main thing was that Jonathan wanted a lower action but didn’t want the E saddles flat on the deck. With the guitar’s default neck/pocket geometry, his preferred action left those saddles flat out. So the shim was about having the preferred action without those E saddles lying flat on the floor… and as it happens, shimming to avoid that also pulls in the saddles to a more comfortable position. You’re right; had it been a comfort issue only (and had the guitar been at the desired action to begin with and the saddle not been decked) then a set of short grub screws would have been s as good idea.

You could be right… I didn’t expect it to be ‘poly’d in’ like that!

Dave the wave :) Ah the shed days. Maurice is still with us, I just don’t risk bringing him to the workshop in case he runs off! The string question stumps me, to be honest. The gauge change is so small (relatively-speaking) that I can’t see how it alone would create a noticeable difference tonally… when you DO encounter a situation like that I think it’s worth £7 to try a new set of strings to test whether it in fact IS particular to that set of strings or whether there really IS a tonal difference in such a small gauge change.

@SamDeeksRelovedGuitars thanks Sam glad to hear your beautiful cat is still running around . You inspired me to do some investigating and 2 quarter turns of the truss rod and were back in business still a little twangy but better. Quick question have you ever thought about selling kits of your fret leveling "banana " I'd buy one for sure ! , again you've taught me so much about taking care of my guitars I very much appreciate everything you do

Hi - it just so happens that my '5 steps to guitar set up heaven' shows how to make and use this tool (that I call 'the banana'). More information about the eBook here: facebook.com/relovedguitars/posts/pfbid0dU5qfMArBQwpu3Ek2YXwJ6M3nS9xTzBAFXDrRJaUguevJJyPxWXqJPh47Yh1jNhYl If you're interested in the eBook please consider buying direct from me rather than via iBooks or Amazon as they take a very large percentage of the cover price!

@@SamDeeksRelovedGuitars , thanks, I don't buy book's but I appreciate it. Actually your concept I easy enough for me to understand what exactly you're getting at. I really thought that these were an actual product but it's an invention. Cool. Open source too. Wait, gotta buy the book. I understand setups, I just don't like th do them. What this makes me think of is the under string file tool from stew mac. It does one path at a time. I never saw it that way til now. Makes perfect sense now. If one string path is ok, why change it. I usually do not do do full level bit spot level. I can't make the tool but thanks anyway.

Money, money, money... time / money, profit margins. In business every $ saved in 'cost-cutting' is a $ of profit. By comparison, of every extra $ of new business done, 3/4 of it goes in acquisition costs, material costs, labour and overheads etc. That's the brutal reality why 'cost-cutting' is the natural focus of management.

I finally got an American Standard Stratocaster (2013) in mint condition recently after years and dozens and dozens of budget guitars. *Complete with lacquered frets, a fairly poorly cut nut, and tuners although staggered that a barely as good as the average Cort, Samick, LTD, Yamaha. At least my saddle grub screws aren't poking me as they are maxed out and the action is still incredibly low for my taste, but it does play like butter if not a little bit buzzy when you really lay into it. *Decent tolerances and higher mass hardware/ higher quality metals are the only main drawcards I can see,...but I am also thankful that my hoard of well made Korean, Indonesian, and Chinese guitars are holding their own.

Customer didn't like it and wanted it replaced (it was also pinging and holding on to the strings). Improvement since then, so worth doing :)

The nut never really let the (top E) note ring out like I wanted it. Some sitar-ing. Sam advised that there was not a lot of room to cut the slot further and I was happy to have it replaced.

@@jonathandavies4886 You put it better than I did :)

Not at all. Try it sometime - and so long as you’ve sorted your nut out you’ll enjoy rock solid tuning stability…If you want it, that is.

Yes, really. It's not a powered drill for starters, it's a cordless screwdriver. It has torque settings. As it happens, most guitars' neck screws require the torque set to 4 to undo; it also happens to be the highest setting I do them back up with. After thousands of set ups I know the feel of that tool. Based on your comment, would I be right to assume that you'd only do it by hand? How tight would you do it? And presumably you'd judge it by feel? How much force would that 'feel' equate to? And does it matter if you don't know how many newton/metre you're actually using?

Well... sort of. Yes.

That's OK. My KZfaq channel does an excellent job of qualifying prospective customers for me. That's precisely why I created it and post content. In a spirit of unconditional respect, you're not a part of my market; that's absolutely fine.

@@SamDeeksRelovedGuitars if you don't want opinions turn off the comments!! your content is similar other content that manages not to bore me to tears.

@@SamDeeksRelovedGuitars thanks for your understanding