Cleaning up a Strat after being in long-term (humid) storage

This very cool American Standard Stratocaster came in for a clean and a restring—normally a very straightforward job. However, it had been in storage for several years in a fairly humid environment and a lot of the metalwork, including the electrics, had become somewhat corroded.

It actually looks OK from that distance. Here are a few close-ups.

In addition to the dirt and grime, you can see that many of the screws have rusted quite badly. A quick test also revealed that the pots were scratchy, the switch was not working correctly and the output jack was making a lot of crackling noises.

A look down the neck shows corrosion on the frets, so these will need a bit of a clean and polish too.

Oh and... is that… blood?

The only way to deal with this is to dismantle it, but before I do that I’m going to take some measurements since it was actually playing pretty nice and I don’t want to change that if I can help it.

Measuring the saddle positions:

  

And the pickup heights:

First we remove the strings.

 
Let's deal with the tremolo next. First we remove the rear tremolo cover.

See the mould? Not the first time I've seen that on a guitar here in Taiwan.

We can lift out the tremolo springs by hand since the strings have already been removed (note the rust on the end of the spring).

And then we carefully lift up the guitar, leaving the tremolo unit sitting on the bench since there is no longer anything holding it in place.

Finally (as far as the tremolo goes), we remove the studs—these were just screwed all the way in so no need to take measurements in this case).

Now it’s time to remove the scratchplate/pickguard. 

Some of those screws were awfully rusty. We’ll deal with that later.

Now the neck. Four screws and off it comes:

Both the neck stamp and the body stamp confirm what the serial number suggests—that the guitar was made in 1989.

Check out the corrosion on those frets.

The jack socket plate needs removing too.

You can see above how tarnished the jack is., I’m going to try to clean this with contact cleaner, but experience tells me that it’s not going to be enough and that I’m going to end up replacing it anyway (and guess what, I did).

Let’s have a look under the scratchplate.

It looks OK till you have a closer look at the switch. As you can see, it’s also suffered from corrosion. No wonder it was cutting out.

Both the pots and the switch get some attention with the contact cleaner.

After applying that, I make sure to twist all three pots back and forth several times and move the switch between positions repeatedly in order to let the clearer do its work before it dries out too much.

Back to the body finish for a moment, I tried naptha first, but some of this grime is just too stubborn (most of it actually), so I switched to Pledge. Pledge did a great job. Just remember that this stuff leaves a wax residue, so never spray it directly onto strings, for example.

As for the scratchplate, let’s get those knobs and switch tip off first. I was able to pull these off by hand, though there are tricks for if these just won’t budge (such as wrapping a shoelace around the bottom of them and pulling up).

I don’t want to remove the switch if I can help it, so I take off one screw at a time to clean them.

While the screw's off, I take the opportunity to clean that area of the scratchplate.

These (and all of the other screws) are held in a vice and cleaned with a wire brush one by one.

The scratchplate itself is cleaned with Pledge. Most of it cleaned up pretty easily except a stubborn red mark (wait, was that blood too?), but that too came off eventually.

The scratchplate is screwed back on at this point.

The knobs and switch tip are cleaned in soapy water with a toothbrush.

And there they are back in place looking lovely, I’m sure you’ll agree. (I guess at some stage in this guitar’s life someone replaced the lower TONE knob.)

The jack plate is replaced after having been cleaned with Autosol metal polish.

Now we need to deal with the tremolo.

I don’t want to change the heights of the saddles, so I set them aside in order.

The screws and springs go in a dish of oil.

Meanwhile it’s a lot easier to tackle the tremolo base plate now that it's dismantled.

Before:

After:

The saddles themselves are simply brushed with a soft brush. I don’t want to change the saddle heights if I can help it and the saddles are in pretty good condition anyway.

The screws and springs are given a quick scrub with a toothbrush.

And the tremolo unit is put back together with the saddles put in their original positions as measured at the beginning.

Before putting the tremolo studs back on the guitar, some petroleum jelly is placed on the threads and also on the little collar where the tremolo unit will lean against. This will act as a lubricant and help stop any undesirable creaking noises, etc when using the tremolo.

The studs and the tremolo are placed back into the guitar and it is carefully flipped over (remember there’s nothing holding the tremolo unit in place at this stage).

Before putting the tremolo springs back on, they get a quick clean and are then also given some petroleum jelly at both ends for the same reasons as outlined above.

Next, we clean up the neck.

After an initial clean with Pledge, each fret is cleaned with 0000 steel wool, using a fretboard protector to, well, protect the fretboard.

  

Polishing compound is then used on both the frets and the fretboard.

 The nut slots are cleaned out with a dental floss thing. I’m really not sure what they’re called.

The neck is placed back on the guitar (the neck plate was cleaned with Autosol and the screw heads were cleaned with a steel brush), and the guitar is strung up.

A tremolo arm is added since the old one was lost.

And we’re done.

Fender Stratocaster pickup height adjustment and specifications

Today we’re going to have a very quick look at pickup setup for a Fender Stratocaster-style guitar. Adjusting the pickups on a Strat couldn’t be much easier and the only thing that really requires much consideration is what height to set them at. You’ll need two tools for this: a Phillips screwdriver and a ruler (ideally one that measures right to the end).

Before measuring any pickup heights, press down on the low E string at the highest fret.

 

With your finger still pressing down on the string, measure the distance from the bottom of the E string to the top of the pole piece (pickup magnet) directly under that string.

Fender recommends the following distances from the thick E string to the pole pieces for all three pickups, depending on the type of pickup you have:

• Texas Specials: 8/64" (3.2 mm)
• Vintage style: 6/64" (2.4 mm)
• Noiseless™ Series: 8/64" (3.2 mm)
• Standard Single-Coil: 5/64" (2 mm)
• Humbuckers: 4/64" (1.6 mm)

If you need to adjust any of the pickup heights, then to raise the pickup (thus reducing the distance from the pickup to the string), turn the screwdriver clockwise. Similarly, to lower the pickup, turn it anti-clockwise (counterclockwise).

Now repeat for the thin E string, remembering to press down on it at the highest fret before measuring. 

 
Note that pickup height specifications for this string (again, for all three pickups) are different from the thick E string, as follows:

• Texas Specials: 6/64" (2.4 mm)
• Vintage style: 5/64" (2 mm)
• Noiseless™ Series: 6/64" (2.4 mm)
• Standard Single-Coil: 4/64" (1.6 mm)
• Humbuckers: 4/64" (1.6 mm) 

 

And we're done. Remember that these specifications are merely guidelines, and you should
feel free to adjust slightly to your own tastes. However, note that adjusting the pickups so that they are too close to the strings can be problematic, as the magnetic fields produced by the pickup start to pull on the strings.

Filling fret end holes after a refret

This post is a bit of a follow-up to the post about installing frets in an acoustic guitar (here: http://diystrat.blogspot.com/2013/06/refretting-acoustic-guitar.html). You see, in this post, we’ll be covering filling the little holes left at either end of the fret slots after you install new frets. This isn’t an entirely necessary job and a lot of people would probably be happy to stop after installing the new frets. Playability won’t be affected at all, but it certainly makes things look a bit tidier if you do this after a refret.

Firstly, let me show you what I’m talking about. These frets have just been installed. As you can see, there’s a little gap in the wood at each end of the fret slot now.

 

When we sanded the fretboard down while doing the refret, we made sure to save the rosewood dust. This (and some super glue) is what we’ll use to refill the holes.

After removing the strings, we mask off the neck so that the glue doesn’t go anywhere it shouldn’t. I’ve used painter’s tape here, but I’d recommend using electricians tape usually, as it’s a lot less likely to be affected by super glue (more on that later). You will see that we have masked one side only. This was a time thing, the details of which I won’t go into, but normally you’d want to mask both sides at the same time, just for the sake of efficiency.

With the holes angled up the way, we pick up some of the rosewood dust and pack it into the hole.

After brushing off any excess powder (ideally you can put this excess powder back into your store of rosewood powder), we saturate the remaining powder with super glue. Be careful not to add so much that it starts running down your guitar neck. At the same time, make sure it’s enough to saturate the rosewood dust and not just sit on top.

 

Now, it’s not the end of the world if you let the super glue dry completely, but I’d highly recommend that you (carefully) remove the masking tape while the super glue is still tacky. Otherwise, you might find yourself having to deal with stuck-down tape in places (as alluded to earlier, electrician’s tape is a bit more forgiving here).

Once the glue has completely dried, it’s time to file off any excess. Make sure you file away from the fret ends when doing this, otherwise you might inadvertently lift a fret.

On this particular guitar I’ve decided to remove any and all lacquer from the rosewood along the sides of the fretboard (which would match the exposed rosewood on the face of the fretboard), although you could always re-lacquer it if you were so inclined.

I’m adding a little bit of lemon oil here to give the rosewood a bit of a shine, but will leave it there.

And here’s the end result: