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Encore strat from Reloved Guitars - set up part 2

2,701 views · Published 28 June 2014 · 17:35 · Indexed 28 September 2026

Channel: Sam Deeks · 2014 · Comedy

The star of this video is an Encore Stratocaster-style electric guitar - Reloved004 - in red with white pick guard, pickup covers and control knobs. It has a maple neck with a wide rosewood fingerboard and a 5-way switch to select between the three single-coil pickups. The tremolo unit on this guitar works very well with no tuning issues thanks to very powerful springs in the rear of the unit. The body is made of a very light Chinese hardwood which gives the guitar a slightly 'neck-heavy' feel (a bit like a Gibson SG).

This guitar is now in good condition with a perfectly set-up nut giving it spot-on intonation and tuning stability. The wide, playable Encore neck is perfect for big hands or learners needing space to get their fingers around chords. We got it with a worn-out strap button screw hole where the previous owner had kept using ever-bigger screws. We drilled a new hole for the right-size strap button screw and filled the original.

In this video, we do the following work:

• Checking the structure
• Checking the electronics
• Polishing the lacquer
• Fitting new strings (Ernie Ball Super Slinky 9s)
• Levelling the frets
• Re-crowning and polishing the frets
• Checking the nut & and filing the string slots to correct depth
• Setting the neck relief correctly
• Setting the playing action
• Intonating each string

The result is a well-loved guitar that feels and sounds amazing and has blown away any prejudice I had about the 'Encore' brand. This is a guitar with character that I really want to keep - despite this, it IS up for sale on eBay

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In case you're interested, 'Reloved Guitars' is a 'dad and stepson' operation, working from Tavistock in Devon, UK. We buy up good quality, badly-set up electric guitars that have been abandoned by frustrated owners and sold on eBay. We give each one a complete overhaul and set-up so that it plays better than a guitar costing 5 times as much.

Each Reloved guitar comes with a link to its own individual set of HD workshop videos to give you confidence in the work that was done and to teach you how to set up a guitar yourself and know what to look for when buying second hand.

I believe it's a MYTH that only expensive guitars are good guitars. I set out to prove that a well set-up basic guitar will out-perform more expensive, brand name guitars. Reloved004, the bog-standard Encore that everyone's supposed to hate proves this point perfectly :-)

Encore strat from Reloved Guitars - set up part 2

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