Paul-less said:
I really don't think that your saddle's look very high.
How many tele's have you ever played? I think that's about right....
Approximately none outside local guitar shops, and I never payed a ton of attention to how they were set up.
I emailed Joe Barden Engineering to see what they thought of the bridge, and got the following back after sending pictures of the bridge:
[quote author=Frank at JBE]While I can't tell everything from the picture, it appears you have the saddles set up fairly high. This is needed on some guitars but not necessarily proper for others. Does the neck rise up high where it meets the body? If so, the neck pocket may need some work to reduce the height and in doing so reduce the need to raise the saddles high to avoid buzzing at the frets. [/quote]
And later in a followup email after I sent pictures of the neck joint:
[quote author=Frank at JBE]I believe, contrary to what you were told, where the neck overlays the pickguard is too high from the pics you sent.
As a comparision point. On one of our teles here in the shop, the distance between the top of the pickguard and the E6 string is 9/32". What's yours? I'd bet it is another 1/8" or better. But pictures can be deceiving.
I would have expected that the overhang of the fretboard would have just kissed the top of the pickguard to allow you to easily slide the pickguard under the fretboad. Instead you have what looks like a pretty good sized gap there that would cause your bridge to have to be set higher (as is your problem).[/quote]
His advice (reiterated in both emails) was basically "Let a luthier figure it out." (Specifically: "I prefer to let my luthier work on my guitars rather than do it myself. He is better qualified for that than I and has better skills to take a more global view of the problem from the nut to the bridge" and "Now that you have the opinions of people who do not have the guitar physically in hand, you should take it to someone qualified to assess it in person.")
I dunno... part of the reason I chose to build instead of just buying though was because I wanted to learn setup stuff... so while I won't be re-routing the neck pocket or anything, I'm going to try to figure it out on my own as much as possible.
Once I get home I'll go ahead and measure the pickguard to string distance and see where it's at. I may end up getting it to a luthier either way, but maybe I'll stop by the local place and see what their Tele's look like first.
