Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi. Brief story on my Electric Guitar "Strat" body. I had it, sold it, missed it, then had the opportunity to buy it back..and so I did. Unfortunately, some yahoo had "Tele'd" the neck pocket. I'm not sure he new exactly what he was doing either, in fact, I'd wager that the small pocket cutaway/route he did to adapt the Stratocaster pocket for a Telecaster neck is less than precise.
Now, short of finding a good tech or luthier, of which I am presently unable to locate being as that I am living in a rural area, I'd like to ask a couple of questions about this.

1) How critical is this spacing of the Strat neck into the pocket for proper intonation? Its still tight side to side, I'm concerned about the forward/back spacing being a very small bit off.


2) Given that not much wood was removed, thank goodness, it appears that I have pretty much corrected it by wedging a small shim in the pocket. The neck is straight . Now what do I do..just see if it will intonate? Can I do this using a standard cheap guitar tuner in 'G?'What are my options is it does not intonate? Try a Tele neck?



Thanks.

Why would the "forward/back" position be different? Did he change the neck mounting screw holes too?

Just because he removed wood for the straighter neck heel of the Tele doesn't mean he changed the original mounting
holes for the Strat neck.

Intonation questions are easy- bolt the neck back on and measure from fretboard side of nut to bridge saddle of first string.
It should be 25 1/2" with a little adjustment left for forward movement (towards nut).

Strat and Tele necks are the same length from the nut to the end of the heel. You'll be able to intonate the guitar just fine with the Strat neck if the Tele neck worked.

Steve