I'm always pretty fond of snake oil but....

Deijavoo

It seems quite debatable how much difference removing the finish from your Fender makes under the scratchplate and neck.

I'm having it done to my swirl tele just to see if it does actually work.

Anyone else tried this?

zenzeypher

Yes, does nothing apart from ruin your finish.

Richardj

How much does the plating and grade of steel used for the attachment screws affect the tone? 

Surely the things that actually connect the two pieces together is just as important.

Now where did I leave my unicorn dust........

dogload

I found that swapping the white scratchplate on a Candy Apple Red Squier Precision Bass to a custard yellow one made it much more popular with the ladies...

WezV

I am okay with the idea that things in the join make a difference. When i build a guitar i always try to keep the neck pocket free of paint. But i rarely remove the paint from an existing guitars neck pocket unless there is an issue with the fit.

I can also get on board with the idea of higher grade screws, and do often fit proper bolts and inserts to some styles of bolt on neck

i can see how these mechanical changes to a join can make a difference.

i am struggling to see why anyone would remove paint from under a pickguard

fretfinder

Yeah, under the pickguard, why? I guess it's to have an area on the body where the wood can 'breathe', but I doubt that would turn a sow's ear into a silk purse...

richardhomer

Assuming the screws have greater tensile strength than the wood they hold together, surely they would all be capable of being tightened so much that they would strip the threads in the neck and cause the neck plate to compress the body wood? Both of these are sure-fire signs of over-tightening.

The rear-most section of the neck is also forced into the joint by string tension causing it to 'hinge' around the front pair of screws.

I don't believe removing finish in a properly fitting joint will make any tonal difference either - once properly tightened, there is no movement, whether there is finish in there or not.

WezV

richardhomer said:

I don't believe removing finish in a properly fitting joint will make any tonal difference either - once properly tightened, there is no movement, whether there is finish in there or not.

exactly, proper fitting is the key thing here.  and removing paint from an already assembled guitar can stop it being a proper fit.   But when building from scratch I prefer not to rely on paint to fill the join to a proper fit

 

 

ThePrettyDamned

Unless the scratchplate bit refers to shielding paint?

Apparently, this can have an effect on tone - @icbm has mentioned it before, I can't remember the details but on single coil guitars I was advised to shield the control cavity and nothing else.

ICBM

Yes, excessive shielding can dull the tone because it adds capacitance, so it's possible that people mean they're removing the shielding paint. But if that's so, there's a much easier and less destructive way… just don't connect it to the signal ground. Modern Fenders have a screw terminal in the cavity floor - disconnect the wire from that. Some others do it by having the paint come up over the edges of the rout so it touches the foil on the back of the pickguard - just cover it with masking tape. No need to strip any of the finish in either case, and easy to put back to stock if you find it's all complete bullshit too noisy, or want to sell the guitar.

57Deluxe

I never ever wear slippers when playing my guitar through any loud amp as this does invariable ruin my tone...

monquixote

Sounds like a daft idea to me. 

Just get an oil finished guitar if you are worried about paint locking in the schweet tonez. 

frankus

I heard the oil finishes muffle teh tonez worse than having unwashed hair.

monquixote

Half of the classic rock sounds we covet were played on guitars with a couple of pints of plastic gunk on them.

Richardj

It simply isn't possible that any tunes we like from the 70s/80s etc can be any good because of the finish and construction of the instruments. Obviously.

I can certainly see the common sense in some of the suggestions, at home or recording in isolation, but are you really going to tell the difference when everything is on '11' and there is a loud drummer etc?

Deijavoo

Well I guess I'll report back next week. Watch this space for life changing tone.

SNAKEBITE

A lot of serious thinking has gone into this sort of question.

EricTheWeary

57Deluxe said:

I never ever wear slippers when playing my guitar through any loud amp as this does invariable ruin my tone...

IIRC Santana said his tone came from his legs. Although that must be dissapointing to his tech and the people who made the small fortune's worth of gear he plays every night.

Neil

EricTheWeary said:

57Deluxe said:

I never ever wear slippers when playing my guitar through any loud amp as this does invariable ruin my tone...

IIRC Santana said his tone came from his legs. Although that must be dissapointing to his tech and the people who made the small fortune's worth of gear he plays every night.

He has mahogany legs.

richardhomer

Neil;383040" said:

He has mahogany legs.

And Brazilian rosewood ones in the States....

p90fool

Whenever I want to improve my tone I just lift the blanket off my amp.