blakejcan
Well-known member
I picked up a great 77 tele custom not too long ago. Sounds great. Plays solid except for one thing.
The high E keeps falling off the bottom of the fretboard. Not like it falls off and snaps back. But totally falls off and gets stuck on the side of the fretboard.
I'd usually think it's the nut wasn't cut quite right but the string looks like it's in a reasonable alignment at the nut. I think the problem is at the bridge and saddles.
It's a 6 saddle barrel style bridge. All of the saddles are butting up against one another and angled entirely over to the high E side. I think this makes the high E saddle go too far out of wack and is causing the string to fall off. When I look at the bridge, the mounting screws for the bridge seem to be causing this. They are the normal Fender style screws that have a domed head to them. The low E saddle adjustment screws sit right on top of that protruding screw head and are pushing all of the saddles into an angled position.
This normal? New one to me.
Here is what I think I can do but very open to opinions here.
The high E keeps falling off the bottom of the fretboard. Not like it falls off and snaps back. But totally falls off and gets stuck on the side of the fretboard.
I'd usually think it's the nut wasn't cut quite right but the string looks like it's in a reasonable alignment at the nut. I think the problem is at the bridge and saddles.
It's a 6 saddle barrel style bridge. All of the saddles are butting up against one another and angled entirely over to the high E side. I think this makes the high E saddle go too far out of wack and is causing the string to fall off. When I look at the bridge, the mounting screws for the bridge seem to be causing this. They are the normal Fender style screws that have a domed head to them. The low E saddle adjustment screws sit right on top of that protruding screw head and are pushing all of the saddles into an angled position.
This normal? New one to me.
Here is what I think I can do but very open to opinions here.
- Tweak the saddle adjustment screws so they are not parallel but are more staggered so they ride the protruding screw and are level instead
- Play with the intonation to see if I can move the low E saddle so that it's just not touching the protruding screw
- Take off or loosen the strings and try to just push the saddles where I want to go and slowly re-string
- Put in screws that don't protrude. But I don't really wanna do that.
