Five months later, the Tele is finally dialed in

Many times I felt like my relationship with my new Telecaster was cursed, if I believed in that sort of thing, which I don't, but you get the idea. I bought it back in February of this year and I rarely played it, which was a shame considering the amount of pain and problems I went through to get it.

The problem was the setup. It was definitely set up for a different type of player. I wouldn't doubt that it was used for slide, because the action was way high and the strings were thick, at least for me. They may have been just 10s, but they felt thicker to me. Anyway, I had to fix the setup. I left it that way for too long.

This is where the curse comes in.

First cursed event - adjusting the action: The first thing I wanted to do was adjust the action. I wanted to keep on the heavier strings because I felt it might help me out - kind of like when a batter is on deck and puts weights on his bat for practice swings - plus if I'd ever want to detune, heavier strings help balance out the lower tension. One weekend I planned on fixing the action, so I took the Tele out of its case and found the allen keys that came with the guitar. Only one problem: none of them fit!

No problem, I thought to myself. I had a few sets of allen keys and I brought them out. One of them had to fit, right?

Wrong.

I tried the metric set, none fit. I tried the standard set, none fit. I got out the allen keys from my Strat and tried them, none fit. So I put the Tele away and abandoned my plans. Over the course of the next week I searched the Web to find out what size allen key fit the bridge on my particular kind of Telecaster, which doesn't have a standard Tele bridge.

It turned out to be what I think is the smallest standard allen key that you can buy - 0.05". I figured I'd have to buy one, but I wanted to make one last-ditch attempt to see if I had anything that would fit. Lo and behold, hidden at the bottom of my tool box was an old folding allen key set that either belonged to my father or my grandfather that somehow ended up with me. This old set of allen keys included the elusive 0.05" key I needed to adjust the action. That weekend I set the action and it felt much better.

Second cursed event - changing strings: It played better but I still didn't like the heavy strings. I tried detuning to D, but I realized quickly that I didn't like it - in fact, I don't like detuning in general - so the next step would be to change the strings. I had a spare pack of Dean Markley lights, which I've been using since high school and have been my favorite strings for over 25 years, so I decided to use them on the Tele.

I got out my wire cutters and my spinny thing and took off the old strings. I started restringing, starting from the low E. Everything was going just fine until something happened that has never happened to me while restringing. I put on the high E string and started winding. I didn't over-wind, but to my dismay, the string snapped. Snapped! Broken without playing a note. And I had no spares (I was using my spare set). To make matters worse, when I put the Tele on the stand, the B string popped. I never had bad luck with Dean Markleys before, but this may make me try a different brand next time.

So more time passed until I could get to Guitar Center in Fort Collins to get new strings (to my knowledge, there aren't any music stores in town that sell guitar strings), but once I did I got them on with no problems, although now, with lighter strings, the truss rod needed adjusting for more neck relief, which leads me to the...

Third cursed event - adjusting the truss rod: Once the new strings were on, the neck showed a slight but noticeable backward bend, so I needed to adjust the truss rod. So I got out my allen key sets and found, again, that none of them fit! The only standard allen key sets I have are the kind that come in a pocketknife-like folding thingy, and although I found a size that fit, the case got in the way and I couldn't turn the bolt. I tried both sets and neither worked.

This was my fault, though, because I completely forgot that the guitar came with allen keys! Because of this bonehead move another week passed until I could use said allen keys to adjust the neck. Luckily, one of them did fit the truss rod bolt and I was able to give the neck some relief.

But the end result was more than worth it. I played the guitar all weekend and I had some killer multi-hour practice sessions both days (with my busy schedule that's rare). It played so well, in fact, that it is now my top guitar. It really blew away all my other guitars, as it should have in the first place. It brought out the shortcomings in my other guitars, mostly the fact that my Strat and my LP Special have inferior pickups. That can be fixed, though.

Until then, the Tele is number one, the go-to guitar. It's about freakin' time.