Make A Cheap Guitar Sound Good. Setting Up The Squier Debut

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On this episode I do a setup on a recently purchased Fender Squier Debut stratocaster. I oil the fretboard, set the intonation, polish the frets and adjust the nut slot heights.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
04:49 Removing Strings
06:34 Oiling Fretboard and Polishing Frets
11:03 Re-Stringing
You can find the Squier Debut here:
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Feeler gauges:
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SNARK clip on tuner:
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Nut Slot Files:
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String Height Guage:
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String Winder:
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Ernie Ball Regular Slinky Strings:
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[@TeaseGuitars]

Great Vid J- The one thing I would suggest is to use painter tape to cover up those pick ups when using steel wool as to not have the remnants get into those pups.

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

Good to know. Thanks.

[@earlbaker7099]

I see he forgot to tape off the pick-ups. Always need to when using steel wool.

[@bluwng]

I got a loaded pickguard on Amazon with 9K Ohms rating and they are a beast. Tone control for bridge pickup the entire thing was$38 loaded. Pickups do matter I couldn’t put it down after that. Oh it was an Affinity strat.

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

I bought one of those loaded pickguards off Amazon once too. I was very impressed for the money.

[@AkaSnugD]

Very helpful. Getting my first electric this week and I’m sure I will be coming back to this for reference

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

Thank you for tuning in.

[@Zeberai]

Thanks for the video, I just bought a Squier Debut and the tuning was bothering me, glad to know it's pretty easy to fix.

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

No problem. Thanks for watching.

[@drewwesley9506]

Super informative. Thank you!

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

[@pepitolozano]

Thank you buddy!

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

No problem. Thanks.

[@herewegoagain7403]

great work! try a $1 nail buffer/polish instead of steel wool when polishing. works wonders for me, and no nasty mess

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

Got any links to those. I’m not exactly sure what it is.

[@billmumbo2697]

​@@JayceAllanGuitarPinch an emery board from Mrs guitar girlies use them on their nails , guitarist's need to take care on their nails too😂👍

[@birdman316]

great film brother! i gotta go thru mine as well...fun things ahead for it too!

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

Thanks. I appreciate the views!

[@michael-m-de1ck]

Hi Jayce, Good setup, for a cheapo Chinese guitar, it sounded pretty good, I'm sure any learner or even an intermediate would be okay with it's sound and performance, and it must be pretty loud, as I can hear it very well and I'm thousands of miles away, hahahahaha, Good on ya mate

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

It's not bad at all, especially once I intonated it. Lowering the strings made it way more comfortable to play. I appreciate you tuning in.

[@michael-m-de1ck]

@@JayceAllanGuitar Too easy

[@jeremypoolet]

Great vid 👍🏻 my fav (and now only 😭) guitar just turned 20 she could use this.

[@johnwelch557]

Check fretboard level with strings at pitch. You can adjust all day chasing it flat or nearly so without all the strings. Many pounds of pull sir. Thanks

[@guitardedimbisol6087]

Missed out on a very crucial step before polishing frets up should have checked frets with a fret rocker after you checked the neck relief

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

I had done that off camera and during the video where I showed that you could use the fret height gauge to check the frets. I think I mentioned that the frets on this guitar were level. I think that would require it's own video. Fret leveling is a pretty involved process. But you are correct, that should be checked as well. I usually check fret level by fretting notes way down past the 15th fret.

[@vaughan7835]

Shouldn't you remove the pickguard w p'ups while using steel wool on the lower frets? Fine shavings are difficult to remove afterwards!

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

Maybe, or just tape them off if you're concerned about it. Probably not a bad idea.

[@bluwng]

Hope they make them in more colors.

[@rickpapineau2704]

A couple pointers:The radius gauge set you illustrated in the beginning is for setting the radial arch across all 6 strings, you insert the size that matches the radius of your guitar neck, you lower the 4 inner string saddle and set the outer strings to desired height above the fret nearest the bridge, then gradually raise the each string until the string buzzes against the under-string radius gauge. The other issue I noticed is you were filing the nut slot parallel to the fret-board . You should be using one file size above your string gauge and at downward angle toward the tuners. This opens up the nut slots and allows the strings more room to not bind. If you have the Hosco 3 pc electric set, the files allow a "V" to open the downward angle of the string slots. The other issue was you checked the straightness of the neck after cutting off the strings. Then never checked relief after restringing and tuning. There should always be slightly more than "none" to allow the heavier wound strings space to "spin" as they oscillate.

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

That’s getting a bit advanced for me! I’m not sure what you mean about the radius gauge. I’ll have to look into that. Also Strat style necks don’t have a break angle like angled necks, so I didn’t think the nut slot should be angled too. I appreciate the comments. I will look into this for the next setup.

[@rickpapineau2704]

Some of my tele style guitar have a slight break angle as the string exits the nut. BTW, I just noticed your learning Vectric Aspire, planning to buy a Anololex 3030 and using Solidworks @@JayceAllanGuitar

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

I've been using Aspire for guitar building a few years now. I really haven't had the time to devote to it like I'd like. It's a lot of fun. I used to work for a company that made bar equipment and the engineering team used Solid Works. That's a great program.

[@rickpapineau2704]

I looked up the price of Vectric Aspire, $1995 or $70/ month for 36 mos at 14%. I can get a student edition of SW for $99 , but having the ability to create and generate tool paths at the same time is a great option @@JayceAllanGuitar

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

I paid close to that a few years ago, I opted to the one time payment. The 3D capabilities of Aspire a bit lacking, unless you're making signs or wooden toys. Making a guitar neck with it has been challenging. I thought about getting SW just fr the modeling. You can't beat the tool path creation in Aspire though. It does that really well.

[@jpizzleforizzle]

Shouldn't the saddles be level? I would think having them slightly slanted for the radius would cause uneven wear and pressure in the saddle slot. The strings need to have an overall radius, so having the saddles angled is unnecessary, right?

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

I was taught the saddles should follow the radius. But maybe not. Always worked for me.

[@jpizzleforizzle]

@@JayceAllanGuitar if it ain't broke don't fix it!

[@bluwng]

Is the firefly far superior?

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

I would say the FFST is way better than the Squier Debut. The FireFly strat that I got last November is US made Fender good. It really is. Maybe not the pickups, but the rest, the build quality is exceptional. I don't think I needed to do much setup on it.

[@Fendermanpaul]

Pickup heights?

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

Ya know. I didn’t mess with those. I’d have to look to see where they are set.

[@flukyreview9128]

Hmmmmmmm aren’t supposed to press the the third fret to check the proper nut slot adjustment? Doing it your way is not isolating what you are supposed to measure as lowering the saddle height or the neck relief can give you false measurements. Hmmmmmmm

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

Press down the string on the second fret, then check with the feeler gauges? I don't know, but it worked. So there's that.

[@grimora-dg3vq]

Cutting the strings is the way almost everyone ha done it for almost 80+ years.

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

I never know what some people will criticize me for! LOL. I find it the easiest way.

[@rmzzz76]

The bench time makes all the difference. Could the G ever be properly intonated? The thing I hate about Fender marketing these as "beginner guitars" is that, with any instrument ear training is a big part of what's going on from day one and a lot of players are going to get these out of the box, without setup, without intonation and they are going to be training their ears on a poor quality instrument... Is that really "better than nothing". I actually don't think that it is... I feel this way strongly about acoustic guitars too, take a $300 poor quality acoustic, it doesn't deliver much of what a real acoustic guitar does for the player, these are imitations of real instruments being sold at the lowest cost possible in the name of expanding options to new comers, new comers should save their money.

[@JayceAllanGuitar]

I agree with you on acoustics. I started out on a horrible acoustic, but my parents couldn't afford anything else. So I took what I got. As for electrics, my first electric was pretty decent but I adjusted the action on it immediately. This was back before the internet. So I just figured it out. I think if you're totally broke and want a guitar, get something halfway decent and learn to make the proper adjustments. Also, I haven't come across a sub $300 guitar yet that wasn't playable. I think people that play guitar should know basic setup. The lead singer of our band plays rhythm guitar for us also, he's actually a very good guitar player, but knows next to nothing about guitars. I just can't wrap my head around that.

[@jamesthompson6726]

? O..k..