Set UP

clearshadow · #1 August 5th, 2006

Hello all,
A question for Kirk, I have a 79 strat standerd. It's always been a players guitar. I never hade to do any shop work on it. Plays like a dream. After ordering your slide and slide vidio on cross roads I took it to my local luither (SP) . He said i should think twice about if I wanted to put on the guages you recomend and also set it up. It has a 3 bolt neck . I do agree with him. I paid 550.00 with hard shell case in 79. He said I could get 1500.00 - 1600.00 on ebay easy. I don't want to hurt this baby and I would never sell this baby. He said don't mess with it and to buy a cheap but good if thier is such a thing and set it up and see if i really get into sliding. I kinda agree. Now for my question>> lol. How did you get the raised action and heavy guage without blowing out your strat guitar neck . Thats it TKX

Kirk Lorange · #2 August 5th, 2006

I just put them on, tightened them up and that was that. They're not that heavy except the treble strings, and they're not really exerting that much tension on the neck ... after all, they're the thin ones anyway. I do think Strats were made to handle heavier strings than 10's or 12's. But, I can only really speak for my own Strat ... it's your call whether to try them on yours. I didn't raise the action, by the way, it came up a bit with the heavier strings. Action doesn't have to be very high to play slide, once you acquire the touch needed.

I also screwed the bridge down really tight so there's absolutely no whammy-bar wobble left. I think the fact that the necks on Strats are screwed on makes it safer than glued necks, like Les Pauls, but I'm no luthier, so don't take my word on that either.

Having a guitar dedicated to slide is a good idea anyway, if you can afford it ... you'd probably want to have a guitar with thinner strings if that's what you've become used to over the years. I'm the opposite: I need to get myself a nice electric that I can string up normally. That's something I don't have!

clearshadow · #3 August 5th, 2006

Hello Kirk, Tks for getting back to me and us!! (Not very good English, Sorry) I'm sure others have questions on this subject. Wow I don't Know what year or type strat you have, is it a 3 or 4 bolt neck? Well I'm going to buy a nock off strat (Cort or something) Won't have the sound but i can work on getting the Kirk slide thing down. Again Tkx Kirk
Oh yea PS::::::: I don't have a wammy bar on mine
When was your strat born Kirk?
If anyone has any Questions about setting up your guitar for slide Please post it here. We can all learn together from each other SLIDE-----OUT

Kirk Lorange · #4 August 5th, 2006

Mine's early 60's ... 4 screws.

Have a read through some of the posts here, clearshadow, there are many threads about all kinds of things, including set-ups.

Bearz · #5 January 31st, 2007

Hi I fully understand your concern about heavy guage strings on your guitar. I really believe that getting a good cheap second guitar and setting it up for slide would be the way to go. These days many cheap electrics are actually of reasonable quality (not like the old days when the only cheap guitar you could buy was a piece of driftwood from Woolworths with action high enough to cut cheese) I have just ordered a $99.00 Fender Squier from Musicians Friend. According to reports it works well enough and has a humbucker on the bridge position and a single coil on the neck. Hopefully it will support heavy guage strings. I mean for $99.00 dollars so-what if it snaps in half like a badly made suitcase

Bearz