Jay a fretdress on a newish fender is highly unlikely. Of the many fender guitars ive owned and tried out the fretwork has been nothing short of perfect. Well as perfect as can be. From squire through to customshop and all points inbetween fenders fretwork is invariably of a high standard in my experience. A bit of a polish may be in order if your a very heavy handed player. The planetwaves kit looks ok and inexpensive for that.

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No no and no

Hi Big Jay: this is meant in no way as a comment on what you may or may not have already done - cos we're not there to see for ourselves, after all. So just an observation in the abstract...:

I've noticed that many people that have on-going setup issues are those that tweak away a bit at this, a bit at that - but perhaps not in a logical progression.

If you have that book I believe we've discussed before, Dan Erlewine's Guitar Player Repair Guide, you'll see that he describes two slightly different procedures for setting up Strats, but both of them follow a very similar logical progression, step by step. No point making one adjustment before you make the previous one in the sequence.

For instance, we often read here of kids messing around for ages with their saddles, when it turns out they've not yet looked at their neck pitch, bow and action. So they're just running round in circles.

(Actually it can be babyishly satisfying because you just point out the step they've missed and they immediately suppose you're a magician for diagnosing their problem from ten thousand miles away... )

Personally, since I first read about it I've favored the setup Dan discusses shown him by a Fender setup employee, involving blocking the trem at the start and then unblocking it at the end. Don't have the book with me so I can't quote the page number - but it's obvious when you read the chapter.

Anyhow. Start at the beginning of the procedure, work through carefully to the end (half hour at the outside) and everything should be sorted. If not, THEN we know there's an actual problem.

...Anyhow. Just a ramble in favor of the methodical approach. May not apply to your situation at all...

Cheers - C

Yes, it really is. And I think you in particular will get plenty of mileage out of it.

We'll have you building jumbo cutaway electro acoustics in no time! (Actually, that's just about the only thing that isn't in that book, but still...)

Cheers - C

Jay Dan actually details the "Fender 10 Step" Set up in a couple books. I use it. it is ridiculously good. There are things in it you don't get from the Fender instruction manual.

1 thing I always check is, does the radius at the bridge match the radius of the neck. This may be part of your problem. Especially with your guitar being a parts-caster. You'll want to measure the neck radius, and then adjust your bridge saddles to the same curve.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

BigJaY - you may want to check out Dan Erlwine's other book How To Make Your Elec Guitar Play Great - possibly before the Repair Guide, as the Repair Guide is really advanced stuff , since you are not already into the really advanced side of guitar setups / repair etc. How To Make Your Elec Guitar Play Great may be a better place to start

i have both books as of now and would much rather start with How To Make Your Elec Guitar Play Great (he released How To Make Your Elec Guitar Play Great years after the initial Repair Guide, just for that reason - to help get the more casual player's up to speed) , most of the topics that you if not all will want to cover will be in http://www.guitarsbyleo.com/gldp/messag ... /GFQA.php3, the repair guide covers super detailed issues - stuff that most even semi-experienced in repair wouldn't actually try on their own

The Stratocaster Handbook by Paul Balmer is a great book as well, it covers the basic setup info and is also a really cool source of info on Strat's, search for it, it can be bought now for $16 at Amaz*n . I'd get How To Make Your Elec Guitar Play Great first, then Balmer's book and finally as Ceri suggested Erlwine's Repair Guide if you have gotten thru the other two and want to go further.

just my opinion, you can't go wrong with any of them, also the Stratocaster Chronicles by Tom Wheeler is a really neat book covering detailed info on the complete history of the Stratocaster .

also - check out this rare pretty recent (considering) interview George Fullerton here: http://www.guitarsbyleo.com/gldp/messages/SAVE/GFQA.php3