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Are those keys the MusicLily's you mentioned before?

About the frets: 2 lows in a row can feel like 2 opposing highs so the way to see what you missed is to re-rock and then re-rock with a longer side and see if they tilt inward towards the suspects.

About the nuts: shave off a teeny sliver (or break off any flash that may be present) and hold a match to it. Plastic will melt and chemical-stink, bone will attempt to burn and smell like burnt hair or a wet dog close to the campfire. Don't breathe either fume in deeply.

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Everyone subscribe.He is a good person.Looking out for his grandaughter.Bless him with a like and a subscribe.

Dude, you had the actual piece RIGHT THERE which could have easily been glued back pretty much undetectably, even after you broke it in two, and just deliberately destroyed it right on camera.

That's coming together man! Keep trucking. Nice neck for 60$ Jeepers!

That's a big looking shim, where are you thinking of installing it?

You need to fix both frets for sure. I prefer the maple to rosewood as it's harder and never needs hydration. Just a wipedown with naphta.

If that glossy on was one of the 2 I recommend, I'm sorry, I didn't see that either.

Intonation really does matter. She'll learn to play more in tune if the intonation is right. She may become a professional musician one day. You never know. I think ear training should happen sooner rather than later.

I bought a unicorn. 2023 am pro 2 telecaster. I have since messed with the neck relief, action, intonation, and string changes. That's it. The nut action is perfect from the factory. The frets are perfectly dressed with rolled fingerboard edges from the factory. The neck angle is perfect with no shims/no micro tilt. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this guitar. Not a thing. First ever unicorn guitar for me.

There are many different types of replacement nuts that will work. I Les paul style nut. You could also put a fender LSR roller nut which would take up the extra space. Just a matter of filing the rosewood. I have done this many times. It is easy.

I bought my Starcaster-Strat used for $100USD to do an extreme upgrade.mod to my design and taqste. ended up spending a totalor around $500 total in parts and materiaks including some tools paint an all that.. the resulting guitar is beautiful cool looking guitar that rivals any custom shop buuild for 1/10th of the price. . althoug I have many hrs of labor in learning and using those skills in building this over the top build. I also have a budget Strat that needs a litle work. results depend o9n my goals and starting point. this to build my guitar collection one at a time as and how . new parts from Amazon usually work just fine. very few big brand name parts make it into my builds but for certain special parts. for the price of a Squier I can build a different if not better (to me) guitar. for my collection only. I have no desire to sell any of my guitsrs onc they grace my collection. At 65 I have only just begun to litterally build my collection by hand as and how I want them. "Stellarcaster" is complet and riovals custom shop Fare. next will be a classic Esquire (single pick up Tele) ... after that who knows. SG, les Paul or an original body shape I designed from some inspiriation. .. maybe "Star Wars themed. body shaped like the Millennium Falcon with all the details maybe with Les Paul parts for the body shape adaptation. and angles of the bridge and neck fits fairly well to the shape. ... I come up with some uniqie designs.. how about a guitar shaped and painted like a stooping Dragon . or nay bird of prey. ... my brain never rests that i know of with ADHD i can never tell. so much rattling around in my head. .. I curently have mental designs for too many things already clamoring for attention. . inverted pedal trike with added 7.5 hp motor and a few more tricks in it. tiny single seat jet-boat. some already on paper some only a vision in my mind clammoring to see the light of day. sorry to much tryimh to get out ... LOL and yes it's hard to get to sleep at times when my brain is too reved up. some of my best ideas and designs come at those times. half awake but still lucid enough to be in control... don't know what that's called but it works somehow. how i took stereo consoles from curb sid to bedroom system with next to no money and a little work. ending with thousands of dollars in stereo equipment salvaged from-"Broke"- consoles huge peices of furniture I could seperate into components pick and choose what I wanted to keep build a small cab for each from the big cab it came in stack it all in the corner rack style. tyhis at only age 12. as well the same with bicycles I built to ride. done it most of my life. and now retired widowed and just plain bored I picked a hobby of guitars. and the avdenture continues.

Which of three cheap guitars would you purchase again. There, I asked my question. I have rocked on, appreciate you.

I've recently had a couple of comments deleted on other channels. I recommended a certain brand of pickups, and where you could sometimes get them on sale. I did this on 2bikemike's channel, and the comment got deleted. Now I couldn't care less if anyone buys these pickups, and I have no affiliation with the seller, but apparently either 2bikemike or youTube didn't like them getting free advertising, so it got deleted. I guess I can share my opinions as long as my opinion doesn't help anyone sell anything. I don't know.

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Looks like it would be nice if the truss rod wasn’t roached. Shame.

We are working on a 🎸guitar right? Oh is that what you're working on? I thought that was a 🎻 violin ?

After all of the problems you have been running into. And now a stripped truss rod nut? I would just install a new nut on the original neck and call it a day! After all it wouldn't hurt to try while you are finding another new neck. Just keep trying Ted you will get it fixed and rock on!👍🎸

They have similar replacement necks on ebay for under $50, I ordered one the end of 2023, I installed it on a Squier body last week, it needed the usual fret work but other than that it turned out great!

First! Good stuff. Community and hearty discourse is a hard sell these days. Seems so many people are hurt by disparate opinion or facts that don’t agree with preconceived notions or beliefs. In order to learn and grow, we should be willing to learn from each other. I’m an old school hippie in that I love and respect everyone. In this Internet environment, it’s hard to tell who will or won’t lash out when an opposing view or set of facts is presented. That’s why I rarely present such things in a public forum. I prefer not to engage.

And so the Cheap guitar saga continues. I wish you the best. Sincerely, American made Strat owner

Wow, how many things can go wrong.

Bummer man! That's not a factory defect. Somebody stripped that out and maybe it was done at the factory. Are there holes in the heel? Does it look like it was installed prior to you receiving it? Other than that, that looks like a super nice neck man! If it fits the body well, I'd grab another for sure. In the mean time slap that nut on the original neck. Personally, I'd get a black Nut on there and that way everything would blend in more since the fretboard is black-ish...

Thanks for showing this! (I just broke the same part on my guitar neck!)

Ok. That engineered wood is very porous so don't worry about all that grainy stuff, it's just a fact that you can't change. Now for an LP nut, that prep area must be a 99.9% minimum 90° angle to match the nut. Best way to get the nut adjusted right is with strings on the guitar. With the bridge saddles remaining where they were when you had it playing, then go to the nut. Put it in place with strings on it, up to full tuning. Now you can see and measure the distance from top of the first fret to bottom of each string. Ideal is 0.018 for the wound strings and 0.016 for the others. They should all be much higher initially so you get an idea of how much to sand off the bottom of the nut to start with. It's not as easy as it sounds to sand at the bottom of a LP nut the first time you try to keep it even on both sides and absolutely flat and 90° with the front of the nut. Slow and steady wins the race checking constantly. When I have a lot of meat to take off I usually start with a 180 sandpaper and then move to the 220 to make it a little bit smoother on the bottom but not completely smooth so that it has grain where the CA glue will meet the grain of the wood and a bond. After you get enough off where the height is about 0.021 height over the first fret call me then you can start adjusting the slots with nut files. I do this on the guitar with tension on all the other five strings only working on one at a time. You cut the slot a little bit and then you put the string back in up to pitch and measure with a feeler gauge hopefully you have a set of those. If you do it like that for each one of the strings you will match the radius of that first fret. Remember that as your filing the nut slots for the hide over the first fret continue to watch your saddle height for the action you want over the 15th fret. Balance between those two as you work. If you do it like this you will end up with perfect height over the first fret and able to get the action you desire to play with. By the way make sure your truss rod is set the way you want it before you start any cutting and sanding on that nut. I wish you a very good luck and the shoutouts you keep giving me. Cutting a nut like this is not a fast process it is tedious and slow

Hey thanks again for the shout out. You give me way too much credit! I remember commenting with questions or just an encouraging word on some CZcamsrs vids as I was learning and I'd never get a reply. I promised myself I'd never do that! If someone takes the time to leave a comment, then I reply in some form or another... Not all comments come through so I've learned so maybe that's why I'd never get replies🤔 Anyway, that Gibson nut will work fine. If you file each slot so that you are at the correct height at the first fret, you will by default have a radiused nut as far as the strings are concerned 😉 Rock on!

I see you as a thoughtful investigator/experimenter :)

First! OK, so I explained on the last video why that piece of wood is necessary, so I won't rehash that info. Regardless of what you do, remember that if you match the radius of the nut to the radius of the bridge, you also need to consider the radius of the neck and frets. If not, you will have problems with intonation. Just a quick reminder. Rock on with your bad self!

FWIW I'd recommend that you carefully re-glue the broken pieces to re-establish the nut slot and install a new nut.

The reason that the Fender style guitars have that piece of wood is break angle. The very reason people hate on Gibson is the severe break angle of the headstock, similar for PRS, acoustics, etc. though not as pronounced (17° on most Gibson guitars, 14° on Epiphone, and 10° on PRS). A Fender style headstock has nearly 0°! Yes, that's right, there's no break angle to speak of, so the shape of the headstock being slightly thicker and scooped gives it that minimal break angle. That is why you have a piece of wood behind the nut on Fender style guitars and not acoustics, Gibson, PRS, etc. That block is necessary or the nut is going to push forward. Glue won't hold against that slide and eventually, the nut will give way and slowly tilt. Notice that the nuts of a Gibson, PRS, acoustic, etc. have a downward slope on the headstock side. This is to give the string a guide toward the tuning pegs. A properly cut nut for these guitars (not always from the factory, thus tuning issues) will also have a slot that horizontal angles slightly toward the tuner so the exit angle is not so hard, especially for the D and G strings on Gibson guitars. Fender nuts have a slight curve to them, but the slots are much straighter horizontally and vertically. That's also why you need string trees on some strings, because there's not enough break angle, so the trees supply this where an angle of the headstock would. That's also why some people use staggered tuners, though it's usually a good idea to have a string tree for the B and high E string. Then they leave the tree and go straight to the staggered tuner hole. Sorry for being so loquacious, but I wanted to give all of the information as to why that silly piece of wood needs to be there. Fender's prototype Telecaster had a 3 on a side tuning style, later changed to 'the foot' as it was affectionally called by early adopters because of it's shaped that had 6 on a side. The reason for this early T headstock was that they could carve 2 necks from one piece of wood. The Stratocaster was more expensive because of its more ornate, wider headstock that could only get one from a neck blank at the time. <edited to add> Also, it was more curved and belly cut for the (may I be kind?) more appetite friendly guitarists of the day. If you think that Leo Fender didn't think he could save a couple of pennies on those first guitars, you'd be sadly mistaken. He was a famous penny pincher and any amount of wood and labor saved would have been done. If you look at the prototype of the first T style, you can see how it was derived directly from the lap steel style guitars popular in Hawaiian music of the day.

J-man and I had the same idea of recommending going with a Les Paul nut. Not only are they wider, but they're taller and will compensate for the fact that you're taking the wood down flat there. Also, you ended up with a slot that was already too deep for a standard fender style bone nut. A LP nut will have hight you can lower to the required first fret action needed. You will need some nut files for fine adjustment.

I was actually going to suggest a wider nut yesterday at the start of the last video, but as you went on about the cracks in the fretboard and the string grooves noticable in the frets, adding a new nut won't fix those issues... A new nut, glued in there will definitely get you playing if the rest of the neck holds up😃

I’ve had that happen on a cheap guitar. I glued it back on. It worked. I think it is however indicative of crap fingerboard wood. I think you can fix it, but that said your replacement neck is likely a better neck. Upgrade!

I would try to ca glue those pieces back together and then glue it back in place! Looks like you would have to remove a lot of wood to make that spot level again! Good luck with whatever you decide!

I have more guitars than I deserve. Most (but not all) are "budget" . I love playing all of them. That's all I care about. That's what they're for.

I like to tinker too

I bought a Hondo EVH knockoff in the 80s. It was awful, but it was great. If you know what I mean.

This is a great video Ted! It’s not a total loss, and is yet another learning opportunity for you and your audience. Thanks for putting this together for us, and definitely let us see what develops.

Yes make the fret board flat where it broke of . Then cut a small piece of wood just a little bit bigger than the piece that got broken of and glue and clamp it to the fretboard. When the glue is done drying shape the new piece to the original shape! Easy peasy and that whole repair will only probably cost you pennies and your time! Getter done! 👍🎸

Other style guitars have that "fatter" nut (LP, acoustic), without the wood behind them. My concern would be, does a larger nut affect scale length/tuning/ intonation, and if so, would the height have to be different. I don't know the answers to these questions 😂 Waiting for 2BM to chime in 😊

Can you salvage those wood pieces? That might be fun to try!!! Thanks for posting your videos!

Hey Ted, I know that feeling. I just replaced the innards of a cheap strat, had everything working great, then decided to do one more tweak...fubar. I'm taking a break until I get some jeweler's glasses so I can see what the heck I'm doing perfectly. Your bright side could be: a new neck could allow you to design your own headstock, paint, even add your new logo to a waterslide decal on the back. Make it super personalized for your grandson! The gift of sharing these videos with him one day will also be awesome! Cheers, Ted, you have a great night! Can't wait to see the next one 😊

You could repair that neck! Just make a piece of fret board that you broke and glue it in place shape to the original shape then install your new nut. It really not that hard to repair your neck. Does this make sense? Rock on!👍🎸

Would a hair dryer have softened the glue at the nut? I'd bet those aren't "cracks" in the fretboard, just voids in the wood. Like most bodies, it prob had wood filler on it that got washed off by the fretboard oil. Those green scrub pads and an old toothbrush always worked good enough for me. I've never used a razor blade on a fretboard.

Right up until the point you broke that little piece of wood I was going to recommend that you put some carpenters glue in there and clamp it down with another piece of wood or material that would hold it in place overnight and that would put it back together. But when I saw it snapping your hand it became double trouble and then you proceeded to break up the rest of it. It could have been saved. I think it's engineered wood as they call it. When there's a really tough nut problem especially on those fender style guitars that have that little bit of fretboard material north of it you got to be extra careful. When it becomes persistently problematic you use a pair of pliers Anna fret Shield to wiggle it out. Or, use the proper flush cutting player that's made specifically for removing frets. It will also work on nuts and not put undue stress on that tiny bit of wood

Loved the story of the 80s. What a time. Miss those days

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TED you did a excellent job on the guitar setup and your video content is impressive! 👍🎸