Just got hold of a second hand Fender Classic Series '69 Telecaster Thinline, and I'm having a few issues with the setup.
Firstly the action was way too high, probably 7/64" or about 3mm, and the neck relief was also too much (0.021").
The truss rod adjustment is at the heel of the neck which is a bit of a pain. Anyway I took the neck off and when I went to tighten the screw it was completely loose. I've never experienced this before, so I was a bit concerned. I tried to tighten it some more and it did start to take, although it felt quite tight.
This seems to have worked, although I might need to back it off a little bit. Should I be concerned about the initial looseness? Or should it be okay now that it seems to be tightening up.
Comments
Yeah you're right it's not the easiest way to adjust a truss rod, having to take the neck off each time. Fingers crossed it seems to be working now that it's tightened up properly.
Restrung and setup - this is looking pretty good now. As well as the usual neck relief and intonation issues, I had to sandpaper the slot for the pickup selector switch, because it wasn't clicking in to position properly. There's a couple of tuners that are feeling a bit scratchy, but I'll deal with those at a later date.
When they can put it in a convenient place on many of their instruments, there seems no reason at all to make some with it at the neck heel.
The only reason I can see is vintage correctness which has to be among the most stupid reasons to do anything that there is.