Public service announcement: how to set up your own guitar/bass and not pay for others to do it...

I think the action is OK, in that it seems easy to play? or have I got the wrong idea about that - I assume if it's too high you have to press down harder and I don't get that impression when I'm playing it

thinking about it I'm not sure it is the intonation, it usually sounds OK playing barre chords anywhere just after I've tuned up. so maybe for some reason this guitar is more susceptible if I don't wind the strings round enough, I usually just wind round twice, but that's always worked OK on my other guitar

someone I asked on a forum suggested I just buy a new bridge and some locking tuning pegs, which is annoying that I'd have to do that, but may cost less than selling this guitar for a fraction of what I bought it for then buying another guitar. so I might have to do that, but will see if sanding the saddles when a string breaks makes any difference first. I'm just doing the fold sandpaper into a V thing atm.

I also rolled a bit of sandpaper into a tube and ran that through the B-string tuning peg a bit, since that's the only one where a string broke at the peg (twice). hasn't broken there since, so maybe that worked? fingers crossed I guess

Sounds good. And locking tuners are bullshit, I have around 20 guitars ranging from cheap to pretty good, none have locking tuners, all are dead stable tuning wise.
Fender style guitars are typically more forgiving than Gibson style for setup and stability, because Leo Fender was an engineer with a very good understanding of mass production.

it is quite lame of me that after 20 years I don't know if I'm putting strings on correctly. I asked my guitarist friend, but he'd never had any issues with strings constantly breaking at the bridge, so he asked me if I'm stringing them correctly, and I was like, is there a wrong way to do it?

It's really about maintaining tension while winding it up - after passing the string through the tailpiece and pulling it snug, I generally lock-off the string at the tuner by passing the free end underneath the winding string, with enough slack to hold the string about 2-3 inches above the fretboard, then hold tension while winding it on, and checking that the wraps accumulate smoothly underneath the previous. Ends up with a neat stack of wraps with the string emerging from the bottom side. The key is to keep it taut while winding so that everything is maintaining the tension set by the tuner.
This video is pretty helpful but I lock it differently, and would use a little extra slack than this person does (e.g. 1.5 to 2 tuner spaces).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7O6gQDroog

Fender style guitars are typically more forgiving than Gibson style for setup and stability, because Leo Fender was an engineer with a very good understanding of mass production

it's amazing how different the philosophies are between the two - gibsons are all carved tops, set necks, rear routes, transparent finishes, angled headstocks and stuff from old timey wooden instrument building and fender comes along and is like, fuck it, bolt the necks, use string trees, and route the top and cover that shit with a giant pickguard and a coat of paint.

anyway one other thing I've heard about tune-o-matic style bridges and string breakage is to try raising the tailpiece a bit so the angle from the saddle to the end of the string is smaller which can decrease the tension

as for notes fretting out on bends, ime this is from the string height being too low at the saddle (and depends on fretboard radius and such). i figured this out when trying to learn the solo from Helter Skelter which has a whole step bend on the 15th fret of the high e - i set the height just high enough that it won't fret out and do the same for the b, g, and d.

fender comes along and is like, fuck it, bolt the necks, use string trees, and route the top and cover that shit with a giant pickguard and a coat of paint

Also if you have a maple fretboard, it is quite literally just the topmost bit of the neck. The simplicity is attractive to me (though I have some guitars with rosewood boards as well).

there are a couple of great Martin Guitar videos for on YouTube on changing strings that have been really helpful

elvis, we took the telecaster to the place in laguna you recommended. just got it back yesterday and, well, let's just say i'm a little tired this morning because i was up late enjoying it last night. thanks again.

Excellent!

also for anyone in the area that wants to check it out: https://www.theguitarshoppe.com

cool place, friendly folks. yeah.

Weirdly or perhaps not because I was doing the right thing, not long since I last posted on this thread, my guitar started working. The strings stopped breaking. I guess I needed to work it in and keep sanding the saddles.

I did figure out a couple of months ago that the action was really high, and lowered, and that helped a huge amount, made it more fun to play, maybe that also helped to stop breaking strings, but the constant breaking stopped before I did that.