I recently had my '09 American Strat Deluxe refinished (cherry red with metal flake, pics to come soon) so I dropped it off with the local tech for rewire and minor nut fix. When I got it back, the action was OK but a little on the high side. It definitely played better before I took it apart for the refin.

The neck relief is fine, the string height at the nut is good so I lowered all the saddles 1 screw turn each. While the guitar now plays a little better, the saddle height screws are starting to poke out of the saddles which feels a bit rough on the side of my picking hand. That indicates to me that something isn't right because it wasn't like that before I took it apart which leads me to the neck tilt.

I've never had a guitar with a neck tilt adjustment screw but with what I understand about guitar set-up and after reading Fender's guitar set-up info, I'm 99% sure the fix needed is adjusting the neck tilt.

By tightening the neck tilt screw, I will raise the neck up (at the heel) which will being that end of the neck closer to the strings. If I raise the neck heel enough, I will be able to raise the saddles up a wee bit which will get all the screws back down into the saddles.

Am I missing anything here? If so, please let me know.

Yeah take it back to the tech and tell him your not happy with his work.

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Eh, I could do that but it would take less time to do the tweaks myself than to get him to do it and that's my goal - to get it playing it just right not to have him correct it. The action wasn't bad, it just wasn't "just right"

ok, well your better off to shim the neck rather than use the microtilt. Simply cut a piece of card 4mm x 20mm lay it flat in the neck pocket parrallel to the neck pickup and as near the neck pickup as you can get it. Put the neck ontop ot it and tighten the neck screws.

The microtilt system isnt stable, shimming is.

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Hi Matt_B_67: shimming is no biggie - if you need to do it then do it.

But I'm 99% certain that if the guitar was set up fine before without shimming it can be got back that way again. Nothing has fundamentally changed after all, has it?

I wonder whether the neck relief has been altered from how you had it before. Whether or not, if you want to return to factory spec (which is always a good place to start) then set first the relief and then the action to the numbers given on this page:

http://www.fender.com/support/stratocaster.php

Follow the sequence in the order they give. Then make your personalised adjustments after that.

Also, be aware that shorter saddle height screws are readily available, so you don't need to have them poking out the top and into your hand if you don't want.

Good luck - C

I agree. Shimming is not the solution because it was fine before I broke it down for painting.

Although I didn't measure the neck relief before and after, it is now excellent (I eyeballed it use the string as a guide) so I'm not worried about that.

After reading through the Strat set-up support page, I have considered just getting it back to spec but I may not need to.

Yes, I'm aware of that but again, this was not a problem so I shouldn't need to replace any of them once I get the neck angle set correctly. It's not off by a large amount.

Its far more likely that your tremposts haven't been set deep enough into the guitar. Thus causing your saddles to show more allen thread than before to acheive the same string action.

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Hmmm....while that's possible (and I will check it when I get home tonight) it's unlikely because the bridge is set flush and parallel with the body. I put 5 springs in the trem and tighten the claw down because I don't use it. Still, thank you for bringing that up and I will double check that.

It's the most probable reason. Having your trem set to no float has nothing to do with whether the trem posts are at the correct height or not. I'm pretty certain its not that the guitar came from the factory with the microtilt adjusted. Fender prefer to shim than rely on the microtilt. Its nothing but a marketing gimmick. I'm pretty sure they view a guitar needing tilt as being below par. Its quite a useless invention that relies as much on getting a balance between the two rear neck bolts being in balance as it does the tilt bolt being raised. Its far to easy for the neck to tilt more to one side than the other across the E string - E string plane.

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Ok, so here's what I checked.

I measured the string height at the 17th fret it was about 6/64th on both E strings which is 2/64ths off from factory spec.

Next, I tried tightening down the bridge posts and they only went about a 1/4 of a turn before they bottomed out. I measured the string height again and it was the same or the different was less than 1/64th.

Finally, I loosed the neck screws and tightened the Micro Tilt 1/4 of turn, raised all the saddles 1/2 turn each and voila, the string height at the 17th fret measured 4/64th on both E strings. Now it's back in spec and plays great.

Problem solved. Thanks for the help everyone.