Okay, so I bought a used white 2006-2007 Jimmie Vaughan Strat from a GC not in my area. I had it shipped to my house and it's pretty nice, but right away I noticed issues. After I tuned it, I plugged it in and noticed that the 2nd tone knob was stripped. No biggie; definitely not a show stopper. New knobs are $8.00. The volume control works starting at around "6", below that nothing. Do you think contact spray would fix this? If so, will I need to pull the pickguard? The next thing is that the stings are high in the middle of the guitar. I checked the intonation and it is spot on. If the neck was bowed, would intonation still be good? I noticed that the bridge is pulled up away from the body. I plan on tightening it down anyway. Would that cause the strings to be high? I know some of this is no good without pictures, but I am at work right now. I can post some pictures later if that will help.


Thanks in advance.


Jim

Fender's Strat set up guide is a good place to start: http://www.fender.com/support/stratocas ... _guide.php

Sorry to hear about these issues you are having, but they do creep up when buying used from GC. Unless it's a very high end guitar, they don't bother setting up used ones. I'm sure you can get it sorted out though.

Yes you need to take off the pickguard to spray contact cleaner into the little opening of the pot casing. My experience is that contact cleaner only works to help scratchy pots, not ones that are failing. Try the cleaner and if that doesn't work, you will have to replace the pot.

Yes a guitar with an upbow can still be intonated. And you might have to readjust intonation once you put in the amount of relief you want.

As far as the bridge being high, well define how high. If it is way higher than Fender's suggestion of 1/8" from the back, then yes it is too high and even if the saddles are down all the way the string height could be higher than usual. The saddles are what determines string height. Set the bridge at your preference and use the saddles to fine tune string height.

You are a brave soul to purchase a used guitar from Guitar Center without playing it first. Mighty brave indeed. Sir, I salute you!

_________________
Obligatory gear list: Fender, Rickenbacker, Gibson, Gretsch, Vox, Martin, and more Fender.

This is very true. GC is the K-Mart of musical instruments. The new stuff is only as set up as it comes out of the box. The used stuff...

Now, I have purchased guitars from GC, but not without playing each and everyone of the same variant I am shopping for. I remember playing upwards of 15 different Casinos before deciding on one, which BTW ended up being a great guitar. Know your stuff going in to GC...

On the JV strat -- a decent trem set-up should solve your action problems. Might not even be a bowed neck, just a mis-set saddle or two.

_________________
'78 Fender Stratocaster
Epi USA Texan '64 RI signed by Paul McCartney
'73 Fender Mustang
Gibson LP Deluxe RI '69
Fender Active Jazz Bass
Guild GADm20e Acoustic Guitar
Epi Casino RI
Gretsch Pro Jet w/Bigsby
And My Frankenstein-O-Caster

I have been very fortunate in the sense that the GC stores I have dealt with in person - not just in KC, but Denver as well - have been good stores with helpful staff. Now, admittedly I am not an expert, but the guitars I have bought so far have needed very little to no attention. I had some gift cards that I had accumulated and gambled on buying without seeing (minus pictures) or touching this one. I think that I might have to put a few bucks into it, but it will be worth it (I hope anyway).

Hindsight is 20-20, but I don't think I will do this again.


Any additional thoughts/comments are welcome.



Thanks,
Jim

LOL. i bought my squier strat (the blue strat) for $60 from a guitar center on the other side of the country from me, and it turned out to be a great guitar! lol

Unless you are competent and confident about doing a set up you need to bring it to a reliable tech.The neck could very well have a concave bow which will need a truss rod adjustment(takes time and precision to do right) it's up to you if you prefer your bridge "floating" or "decked" as for the pot you need to pull the pickguard to clean the contact but since you're pulling the pickguard it's just as well to install a new pot.A new CTS pot only will set you back a few bucks.

_________________
'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

This is exactly what I have decided to do. I would probably feel more comfortable trying this on a guitar that I paid less money for. As a matter of fact, I may buy a used guitar that I can experiment on. Anyway, there is a small store with a really good tech and I talked to him yesterday and he told me to bring it in today. I will keep you all posted on what he finds.


Thanks,
Jim

I took my guitar to the shop where the good tech works. He is working for a different shop than when I used his services last. TOTALLY different feel in the shop. I left the guitar with my list of things for him to check and when I called to add something to the list, it took five attempts to get someone to answer the phone. And this was less than an hour after they opened. I called later and asked to talk to the tech and they said they would give him the previous messages and he would call me. At the end of my work day, I called and asked if they had been able to get to it (as that is what I was led to believe). They hadn't started on it; might be another day or two. Told them not to bother, that I would be there later in the week to pick it up. Before all of this, I had talked to the sales guy at the GC where I bought the guitar and his manager. I explained what I had found when the guitar arrived and my disappointment that they would send the guitar in that shape. They want me to take it to a local GC and have them look at it to confirm my complaints. We may be able to get a credit or some sort of adjustment in price or something, I am not sure at this point.

I wish I felt more comfortable doing the work on this. At this point, I don't want to make it worse and then spend more money to have it done correctly. I really like the guitar, but I am so soured on the whole deal that I am ready to just return the thing locally and start over.


Jim

The Fender set-up guide is pretty explicit on how to do set-ups, will walk you right through it (G&L has a good one too). With fill-ins from other on-line info, and a few tools, you will realize it is really not that big a deal! And is something worth knowing, and can be fun, too

I had the strings changed on 1st guitar when I bought it, and that was the last time anyone else has worked on any of them. Now I find I would have a hard time leaving them some place, and in trusting anyone else to do what I can likely do myself.

Thanks, jmg257. I'm sure on that, but it also appears that I need to have the volume pot replaced as well. I may just mess with it and get it working as best I can and do the set up. Then come back to the volume pot issue at another time.



Jim

SO - get a soldering iron, buy a new pot, and have at it!

You own guitars - get used to doing this stuff! Tinkering & modding is fun enough, but keeping them working the way YOU want is a necessity!

Kidding you a bit - if your not comfortable, that's understood & just fine, but otherwise - why the heck not? If they can do it - you can to!

Good point!


Jim

Innotation has nothing to do with a bow in the neck, its just the length of the string in realtion to the saddle to the nut. If the neck is bowed, the innotation could be adjusted accordingly. As for the knobs, sounds like the pots are bad or really gunked up. I'm surprised GC would sell a guitar in that kind of shape. Sure hope you got a good deal on it. As for the bridge, Fender's vintage tremolo is supposed to float. Proper directions for setting up the bridge and truss rod can be found in Fender's Support link above. As for the action being high, it could be because of a bowed neck. To check if the neck is straight just look down the neck and compare the E strings to the neck. The strings will always be straight, but if the neck is bowed, you'll notice it because its not exactly parallel to the strings. Once the bowed neck problem is out of the way, the saddles can be height adjusted using an alan wrench. There are specific measurements for that, but I just did it on the fly by adjust each string until it started to buzz then raised the saddle just a tad until the buzzing stopped at anywhere up and down the fretboard for each string..... Good luck!

_________________
"Epitaph on a blues musician’s tombstone: “I didn’t wake up this morning”" Davy Knowles


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I took my JV Strat to a local GC and they were able to correct the bow in the neck and "decked" the trem bridge. I bought a set of new knobs and I will have to replace the volume pot at some point.

The good news in this is that the guitar, while it may not be perfectly set up, is definitely playable now.

My hat is off to my local GC manager for his help in resolving the main trouble. He agreed that the guitar should not have come out of the store the way it was. Some things can and do happen in shipping, I am sure. But the volume pot being faulty and stripped tone knob were definitely trouble before it left the store. I have learned my lesson and will not buy another guitar before I can see it and check everything out first.



Thanks for listening,
Jim