John’s and Wade’s setup advice

[S. Cane]

In memory of my late good friend John ‘Biddlin’ Hobbs and also considering that ‘old ranger’ Wade’s methods are very practical and simple, I thought I’d fix them in a thread. Which I think could be pinned.

Here it goes:

Here goes. It's simple and straight forward. I guarantee it works.
Assuming no twisted neck or proud frets and a properly cut nut, with the guitar tuned to playing pitch, begin by setting the saddle height for frets 17-21(2) so that the strings play buzz free at the lowest possible height. (Lower the saddle until it buzzes, raise until clear.) When all strings are clean go to the lower frets and neck relief. Play the strings from fret 1 to fret 16, increasing relief (loosening trussrod) to relieve buzz or decreasing relief(tightening trussrod) to lower the string height, so tighten, by fractional turns, until it buzzes and back off until it doesn't. Once you have acceptable relief, i.e. no buzz and easy action, set your intonation and you're done.
I know that this is the opposite order of Fender's setup directions. It is based on performance and not measurements, hence, I don't take any. It works because the neck is immobile between frets 17 and 22. The trussrod only affects lower frets. By setting the upper end first, you know any buzzes are coming from too little relief. This method works for most guitars, with trussrods.

Uncle Wade's Super Secret Fender tremolo set up.... It's so easy it's STUPID!

Go and find you an old leather belt. You know, a standard thickness and one that you don't mind taking a 3" hunk out of to make it just long enough to fit under the bridge. Dump your wammy bar down and slip that piece of leather just under the back of the bridge so it holds the bridge off the body. The leather won't scratch or damage the instrument either, OK.... Tune to pitch with each string. Then adjust your springs within the body cavity with the instrument vertical (like in a playing position) and do the adjustment real easy. As you near the right bit of tension the small piece of leather will gently fall from the instrument. When it does this, you're all set with a floating bridge. The 3" hunk of leather weighs very little and it will have just enough heft to it to fall away on it's own when the setting is right. Is that easy or what???

Another reason to keep that strip of leather around is when you go to change strings, before you do, slip the leather under the back of the bridge again and then you can remove all the strings. Clean the board. And string up with very little effort to get back into tune and not be winding tons of excess string on the pegs in the process. Makes for super fast string changes with a "floater"....

When in luthier school they taught us to use a block wedge in the body cavity to hold the spring block in place, but that was always inconsistent and a pain in the ass to use. I thought of this leather trick one day when I cut up an old belt for a razor strop and the cut off end was sitting there and the ideal popped into me head. Guess I just hated wasting stuff too!

This trick works wonders when you change string gauges too. Cuts the set up time down to almost nothing!

And to think that I used to charge $45 to do this (strings included in a basic setup) at the shop using my belt tip trick.

[DanTheBluesMan]

I'd do the belt trick but my pants would fall down.

Next time I buy a new belt, I'll keep the old one.

whenever the heck that will be

[Cogs]

I'll have to try JDUB's method, but I have used a variation of Old Ranger's procedure for years. Instead of a strip of leather, I use a credit card. Screw the claw in pretty good until the base of the trem pinches the card between the it & the body. Tune the guitar to pitch, & slowly draw out the trem claw screws about a 1/4 turn each until the card slides out. That's about the only thing a credit card is good for
lol

[S. Cane]

Indeed the variations are valid!

[Don]

I use the belt method but use an extra heavy guitar pick between the bridge and the body instead of the belt. That's about as much as I want my bridge to float.

[S. Cane]

Many thanks to the staff for making the thread a sticky!