Fender Am Deluxe Ash service

Fender Am Deluxe Ash Strat service

This is the Fender American Deluxe Ash Strat MNAB model. It's made in the USA and it's got the following specifications:
- Solid Ash 1-piece body,
- Soft 'C' shaped maple neck, maple fretboard, 22x medium jumbo frets, 42.8mm nut width, 648mm scale,
- 3x new noiseless N3 Stratocaster single-coil pickups, 5-way switch, 1x volume (with S-1 switch) and 2x tone controls,
- Fender deluxe 2-point synchronized tremolo,
- 3-ply mint green pickguard,
- Fender deluxe locking tuners,
- includes molded SKB case,
cable and strap locks.
- Colour: Aged Cherry burst
- Price: ~1600 Euros

This guitar came in for inspection and service. There were a few minor issues we had to address. The bridge CTS tone control was worn out and had to be replaced. The action was very high, the neck relief was not set right and the intonation was all over the place. Luckily, most of these issues are related and a full service and inspection will sort them out.

 At first, I took the old strings, the pickguard and the backplate off. The guitar got cleaned up and the electronics were checked for shorts, loose solder joints, loose output jack and scratchy pots. Once I cleaned all electronics with some contact cleaner, it was time to replace to old bridge tone pot with a brand new one. The old CTS no-load tone pot was out but I placed a new one on the pickguard and wired it up. With the tone pot working flawlessly, I bolted the S-S-S pickguard on the body.

The setup:
The guitar came in with high action, neck relief and intonation issues. Tuning up the guitar was not easy at all as the 2-point non-locking tremolo system was at a floating position. The owner did not use the tremolo much so we decided to set the trem baseplate laying flat on the body. We added an extra spring to increase the tension of the non-floating tremolo and set it flat on the body. The three stock springs were a bit too soft even for the tension of a 0,009" string set. The guitar was set up for low action and perfect intonation with no dead or buzzing notes. We used a fresh set of 0,009" Ernie Ball strings for that purpose.

Here are a few pictures of the guitar:

-Thanos