Partscaster intonation help.

D

devilfish

New member
I have a strat I piecved together myself using the following parts:
Squier strat body
MIM strat bridge
MIM strat neck
Sperzel locking tuners
Seymour Duncan humbuckers.

I cut the nut myself and 4 years ago I deemed it set up well enough for me to play..

However, picked it up the other day and the G string's intonation is pretty far out. Plays well either low down the neck for open chords OR re-tune it and its perfect higher up the neck around 7th fet+

What problems could cause this? Could the neck be out of line/this causing it to intonate badly? Could the frets be that bad from new? It's had very little play and the neck was new, its a MIM strat bridge so it has a pretty big adjustment range..

What could people reccomend to try/look at?

What problems could the nut be presenting? would it be the slot is too shallow or too deep?

Cheers!
 
Re: Partscaster intonation help.

Wood shrinks and expands according to its moisture content. This may have happened to your guitar.

Top nuts wear down. The tell-tale signs of a low nut would be fret buzz rather than intonation issues.

Bridge saddles are under load from the tension of the tuned strings. This can pull them out of position. They do not stay set in place forever. On vintage-style stamped steel saddles, the height adjustment grub screws can easily shift. Check and, if necessary, reset the intonation.

The other thing to check is the neck joint. This could have shifted. (Even if the screws are done up tightly.) Inspect either side of the neck pocket edges for cracking in the finish. (Typically, these cracks will start at the corner of the neck pocket and run away towards the back of the guitar.)

One final possibility. If your Squier body is one of the thinner Affinity versions, the sustain block of the MIM vibrato bridge could be fouling against the spring cavity cover plate. This, in turn, could be putting the bridge out of position, thereby messing up the intonation of all six strings.
 
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Re: Partscaster intonation help.

Funkfingers said:
Wood shrinks and expands according to its moisture content. This may have happened to your guitar.

Top nuts wear down. The tell-tale signs of a low nut would be fret buzz rather than intonation issues.

Bridge saddles are under load from the tension of the tuned strings. This can pull them out of position. They do not stay set in place forever. On vintage-style stamped steel saddles, the height adjustment grub screws can easily shift. Check and, if necessary, reset the intonation.

The other thing to check is the neck joint. This could have shifted. (Even if the screws are done up tightly.) Inspect either side of the neck pocket edges for cracking in the finish. (Typically, these cracks will start at the corner of the neck pocket and run away towards the back of the guitar.)

One final possibility. If your Squier body is one of the thinner Affinity versions, the sustain block of the MIM vibrato bridge could be fouling against the spring cavity cover plate. This, in turn, could be putting the bridge out of position, thereby messing up the intonation of all six strings.
Click to expand...

Hey, The block of the bridge was proud of the body, I ground it down flat so it fit inside the cavity. So it cant be that.

I'm leaning more towards being the neck joint or the nut..

Once my new radius block comes through I think I'll dress the frets, give it a good set up and see how it is. If it's still the same I'#ll have eliminated the frets and that particular set of strings as the issue.

So that only really leaves the neck joint, nut and bridge saddles...

What "troubleshooting" can I try for the neck joint? I was pretty inexperienced when I put together this guitar so I can't say I was particularly particular with that part!

Any ideas how the nut could be causing this? as it's only really on the G string I think it could well be that nut slot/saddle etc.. but I'm not sure what I'm looking for with the nut slot?

Thanks
 
Re: Partscaster intonation help.

The only ways that a nut can affect intonation are by a shift in the break off point where the string is free to vibrate. Either the slot is damaged, leaving the string fractionally "long" or the whole nut could be tilting in its slot, leaving the string "short".
 
Re: Partscaster intonation help.

Apologies if this has already been covered, but I didn't see it in the OP.

Have you tried adjusting the G string bridge saddle?
 
Re: Partscaster intonation help.

sosomething said:
Apologies if this has already been covered, but I didn't see it in the OP.

Have you tried adjusting the G string bridge saddle?
Click to expand...

+1. Always start at the most obvious area, this case being the place where you adjust the intonation.
 
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