Starcaster w. internal injury: Patient sent to doctor!

In March, I saw a Squier Classic Vibe Starcaster (see photo) advertised locally very cheap. It was cosmetically perfect, 1 year old, although very badly set up. So I bought it for $200 (equivalent), which was a bit of a risk. It costs $500 new, here. I set it up and got it playing OK but I have never been able to get the action as low as I would like because of too much fret buzz.

I checked the frets because there’s significant fret buzz, knowing I would likely have to level the frets. Sure enough, lots of frets were too high and so I recently decided to take off the neck to do complete fret levelling, crowning and polishing. That’s when things started to look very worrying (see photo). It was exceptionally difficult to unscrew the neck. I thought I may break the screws or the whole guitar. What I found in the neck pocket was not pretty and I really don’t know what the former owner did. One side of the neck pocket has been scraped and the wood has been hacked a bit. Because of this, it’s not possible to sit the neck straight in the neck pocket. The pocket slopes slightly to one side.

Anyway, after that the guitar lay in our apartment in 2 pieces while I levelled the frets and my wife frequently referred to it as « The Patient ». I did the frets and then I could not put « The Patient » back together. I couldn’t get the neck aligned back in the neck pocket and when I finally did, I couldn’t screw it back together and I feared I would badly damage it as it was so hard to screw. I thought it might be the end of this guitar as it seems a major problem and one that I couldn’t fix.

So, I took it to a local guitar shop and they sent it to a luthier who I didn’t know but lives near me. I was expecting bad news as labour prices are really high here, so you wouldn’t have to do much work before the repair cost is more than the value of the guitar. Great news is that he called me yesterday to chat to me about the guitar and ask more questions. He had already inspected the guitar and sounded really knowledgable. He said that he considered it a fairly easy fix and said he can do the neck, get it aligned so it fits nicely and also repair a faulty pickup switch in a hour of work. He also wanted to know what strings and setup I wanted, which was nice. His prices are extremely reasonable, so I’m happy.

Just waiting now for « The Patient » to come back from the doctor.

It was nice to make contact with a local luthier and really nice that he called me to chat about the guitar.

So now I’m just waiting for it to come back from the guitar doctor!!

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It is good news when you meet a genuine person who knows there job and does not pull your back teeth out so job done Cheers Hec

A good luthier is always a good person to know! And the fact that he is (fairly) close by is a bonus!

Glad you found a luthier that you like and that is close to you. I needed work on my acoustic, and looked around and found one at a local shop as well. He did good work. I was nervous at first, because you never know, but it worked out.

CB

Update on my Starcaster:

Well following my original post, yesterday I got my Starcaster back from the luthier.

The good news is that he re-drilled the holes for the neck and now the neck is nicely in position. He also fixed a faulty pickup selector switch (seems to be a common problem with these guitars).

When I took the neck off, it was so I could to do a complete fret level, re-crowning and polishing. I did that before taking it to the luthier. Now the guitar is back together, I got the action down quite low (which was never possible before) and now with no fret buzz at all. Intonation is also spot on. Before, there was significant fret buzz, even with quite high action.

So all in all, I’m really happy. It was well worth doing the fret levelling myself even though it’s quite a bit of work. I’m relieved there is no major problem with the neck. The luthier says everything is fine. Now it’s so easy to play. In the past I never played this guitar because although the tones you can get from this guitar is fantastic, it just didn’t feel good. Now it’s completely different and so I think I’ll be playing it a lot more than before.

I have now realised what a difference fret levelling can make. I think I’ll do the frets of my Squier classic vibe tele in the next couple of months.