Fender USA scale 25 1/4???

[888guitars]

I own a fender strat and I was setting the intonation and after measuring a few times, I have a neck that measures 25 1/4. Heard of one? I quickly ran to our sales floor and measured all of the strat necks and they were all 25 1/2 like I would expect. Is this something I just have not come across?

[soundguruman]

Don't fret about this too much.

[Paleo Pete]

Haven't heard of it and don't have my Squier handy to measure, but everything I find says that standard Strat necks are 25.5 inches. Good article here, explaining some of the aspects of it and why scale length is pretty unforgiving for any particular guitar because intonation will be a problem if scale length changes much.

Link here - The Scale Length of a Strat Neck

***excerpt***


Proper scale length is also important because the differences between different guitar necks cannot be too great, or else a guitar player using one particular guitar will not be able to tune his guitar to the same pitches as another guitar player. The mathematics involved in guitar scaling take this into consideration to make sure that different guitar scale lengths will all enable their players to be able to accurately tune their instruments to standard concert pitch.

Article Source: The Scale Length of a Strat Neck

Also a bit of info on the affects on action and sound, and different string gauges.

25.25 inch might work, but check the intonation closely. Just my own opinion, if the neck changes the position of the bridge on the body has to change too or the distance from BRIDGE to octave fret is NOT the same as the distance from NUT to octave fret. Those have to be equal for accurate intonation to happen. So check it close.

[888guitars]

Turns out the roller nut was put on just a bit out of spec. I measured the frets in between each other and they are indeed the 25 1/2 scale. Nut is off a bit.

Nate

[Paleo Pete]

Good you found what it is, sucks to have to redo it. Once you get it in the right spot it should be good to go, recheck intonation of course. I've always wondered if the roller nuts were all they were cracked up to be, never used one.

[888guitars]

I have 2. Took off bone nut and they really are pretty good!