set-up brain trust: need some advice

[chunkomatic]

i refurbed a tele copy I bought off of craigslist a few weeks back and i CANNOT for the life of me get the low E to intonate properly! :bonk

in the picture below you can see how far forward i have the low E saddle which is required to get the 12th fret notes in sync as per a strobe tuner. problem is that the E and A are only in tune with one another for the first three frets, from 4th fret forward they slowly go more and more out of sync as you move up the neck rendering the guitar useless. i'm about to go pete townsend on this sonofabitch.

what's my problem? twisted neck? neck needs to be shimmed? the bridge is original and it hasn't shifted at all, i.e., the low E doesn't hang off of the neck at any time. btw, i tried another tele bridge on the git and still had the same problem.

any ideas? thanks in advance!

http://www.waynewmedia.com/images/craigslist/pt_02.jpg

http://www.waynewmedia.com/images/craigslist/pt_01.jpg

[rhp52]

how's your pickup height? If they are set too high in relation to the strings they could be pulling on those strings

[Trebor Renkluaf]

Poorly placed/carved nut.
Poorly placed frets.
Pickups too close to the strings causing Stratitis - or in this case Teleitis.

[chunkomatic]

Poorly placed/carved nut.
Poorly placed frets.
Pickups too close to the strings causing Stratitis - or in this case Teleitis.

ok. the pickups are a good 1/8" away from the strings. as to the nut, it *appears* to be in the right spot, but who knows. poorly placed frets? wow that'd be a real pisser. all other strings intonate perfectly and play nicely with one another. looks like i got me a wall hanger!

i'll hit up a luthier for an eval.

[Tone_Terrific]

If the other strings intonate OK it's not likely the fret positions.
Try a new string.
Use a good tuner and a capo on the first fret and see if it will intonate that way, eliminating the nut.
Check tuning at every fret to find any discrepancies.

[reeced]

Have you tried a new or different E string ? I've had sets where one or more strings wouldn't intonate properly.

[Baxtercat]

Here's a snap of a crude fix [for a crude guitar]....a little pc. of rosewood.
It might work in your case?
Seems like it would make too big of a difference, but now the big E string on this kit LP is in tune for both E-chords and G-chords. [What else would I need that string for? :-D]
http://i914.photobucket.com/albums/ac345/Baxtercat65/TW009.jpg

[K-Line]

Crank the saddle back some more first. The Low E should be the furthest away from the nut, generally speaking. Try that first. Looks like you are an octave off, too close to the nut with the saddle. Pull a touch further back than the G string (huh, huh) saddle as a starting point.

[chunkomatic]

Crank the saddle back some more first. The Low E should be the furthest away from the nut, generally speaking. Try that first. Looks like you are an octave off, too close to the nut with the saddle. Pull a touch further back than the G string (huh, huh) saddle as a starting point.

i've cranked the saddle through it's entire range of motion. when i get it back to the "normal" position, the string is too long and sharp when i sound the fretted 12th fret note.

i'm no luthier by any stretch of the imagination, but i set up and maintain seven other guitars and a bass which means adjusting action, intonation and seasonal truss rod tweaks and have never had an issue like this. i've tried three different sets of brand new strings on the git too, 10s, 11s and 10-52s. this is way beyond me now.

thanks for the input, everyone!

[Grimace]

Throw a capo on the first fret and try to intonate F to F and see what happens?

[Tone_Terrific]

i've cranked the saddle through it's entire range of motion. when i get it back to the "normal" position, the string is too long and sharp when i sound the fretted 12th fret note.


Sharp.
You didn't happen to replace a 3 saddle bridge with that 6 saddle one did you?

[sahhas]

some thoughts:
-make sure your tuner is calibrated properly.
-i would get out some accurate measuring tool-check to see that on both E's that you get the 25.5" measurement from nut to bridget assembly, then check to see what the measurement is from nut to 12th, 12th to bridge.
i do this endlessly when i'm building a guitar and setting the bridge. the great thing is that the fender bridge setup gives you some flexablitiy, usually around a 1/2" of give, but i've set them too close a # of times, and had to pull whole thing back 1/4" of inch-a pain. but as the other stated, you might have a nut placement problem.
-one other tip-i read an article in tape op a few yrs ago, jack endino (producer, guitarist in skin yard)-said that when you tune an electric you should use the neck pu, something about the bridge pu use when checking tuning can put things off a bit...
good luck, cool guitar btw.....