setting up a guitar

Intonation, Compensation, Frustration
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tippie53
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setting up a guitar

Post by tippie53 »

There are many ways to do this but I find the most success comes from paying attention to the details . I like to check things in order , and here is what I do for the best results. This is out of the CF Martin manual
I find this works well .
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John Hall
Blues Creek Guitars Inc
Authorized CF Martin Repair Center
president of Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans
http://www.bluescreekguitars.com
Ben-Had
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Re: setting up a guitar

Post by Ben-Had »

That's pretty much my measurements except I try to hit 5/64 on the bass side as a low and sometimes I go as low as 3/64 on the high side.
Tim Benware
Haggis

Re: setting up a guitar

Post by Haggis »

tippie53 wrote:There are many ways to do this but I find the most success comes from paying attention to the details . I like to check things in order , and here is what I do for the best results. This is out of the CF Martin manual
I find this works well .
About the last step in your posted guide: I think it´s very difficult to measure clearence using a feeler gauge, cause it´s hard to tell if I actually touching the string and forcing it up. I can´t really determine
if my string is touching the top of the fret or not. It´s very close, but on the other hand 0.1-0.25 mm is not much.
Maybe I need glasses? Or perhaps a magnifying glass..
hummingbird
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Re: setting up a guitar

Post by hummingbird »

I have the same problem, can't tell if the feeler gauge is touching or not. I find if I go up to the next size then down a size it helps me get my bearings. You could also use a ruler.
Alain
Ben-Had
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Re: setting up a guitar

Post by Ben-Had »

Haggis wrote:
tippie53 wrote:There are many ways to do this but I find the most success comes from paying attention to the details . I like to check things in order , and here is what I do for the best results. This is out of the CF Martin manual
I find this works well .
About the last step in your posted guide: I think it´s very difficult to measure clearence using a feeler gauge, cause it´s hard to tell if I actually touching the string and forcing it up. I can´t really determine
if my string is touching the top of the fret or not. It´s very close, but on the other hand 0.1-0.25 mm is not much.
Maybe I need glasses? Or perhaps a magnifying glass..
I made a gauge out of aluminum rod and a height gauge, works good very accurate.
Tim Benware
B. Howard
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Re: setting up a guitar

Post by B. Howard »

When I check relief with a feeler gauge I am looking straight down on the fretboard. I am watching for the slightest sideways movement of the string as I slide the gauge in. If the gauge is less than the clearance it will slide under never touching the string, if it is the same or thicker it will bump the string over just so slightly as it slides through.
You never know what you are capable of until you actually try....

Brian Howard
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tippie53
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Re: setting up a guitar

Post by tippie53 »

If you note this is a CF Martin spec. I will say this , if you want accuracy get pin gauges. They either fit or don't You don't need to use your hands at all.
If you are going to do this as a profession , it is about learning to use the tools as they are intended. Many beginners do not get the results from lack of experience. Once you get comfortable with your equipment you will see a more consistent result.
This is a guide to start and we all have out favorite set up but when doing a guitar for mass market you may want to adjust more as it is easier to lower than raise. Once the saddle and nut are shaped you are locked in .
Relief will be based more on your fret plane. I have set up guitars with dead true necks . low action and no buzzing. My average set up is a 2-3 set up. This is a general spec but when I am doing one for a customer I want to see him or her play so I get a feel for what they need. A finger picker won't be happy with a bluegrasser set up.
John Hall
Blues Creek Guitars Inc
Authorized CF Martin Repair Center
president of Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans
http://www.bluescreekguitars.com
tippie53
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Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2006 7:09 pm
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Re: setting up a guitar

Post by tippie53 »

In the light of things Thanks Rick for stating the obvious . I agree with what Rick is posting. I will say that fret plane is key and as he stated I can can't add anything but this.
Many people especially newbies often want to go by the numbers but are not good at getting them. TRAIN YOUR EYES as Rick states, it is worth learning.
I use Rick's tink testing , works every time.
John Hall
Blues Creek Guitars Inc
Authorized CF Martin Repair Center
president of Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans
http://www.bluescreekguitars.com
deadedith

Re: setting up a guitar

Post by deadedith »

This is a long post, which you can profitably just skip over if your method is where you want it to be.
This is the way I do it, and I copied it right off the interweb somewhere.



Remember, to achieve that perfect guitar setup, you will have to make three adjustments: the neck relief (curvature of the neck), the saddle height, and the nut slot depths. If you do these things in the wrong order, then what you have already done will be messed up by the next thing you do, and you'll end up in some bizarre loop that will probably lead you into total frustration. However, if you make your three adjustments in this order:
1. Neck Relief
2. Saddle Height
3. Nut Slot Depths
and you do Step 2 in manner that is slightly different from what many people will tell you (you will take the measurements for the saddle height with a capo on the first fret), then each of the three steps will leave the results of the previous step(s) completely unchanged. Hence, you'll get to your perfect setup in just three steps, with no backtracking necessary.
As I said in the introduction, you won't need any fancy tools for the task at hand. There is one tool, though, that I will mention, and that is the set of automotive feeler gauges that you need to take your measurements. Any standard set with a range of something like .002'' to .035'' will do.
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1. Setting the Neck Relief
To set the neck relief, first place a capo on the first fret. Next, with one finger, press the sixth string (lower E) down onto the fourteenth fret. The lower E string should now touch the first and fourteenth frets. Because of the enormous tension of the string, the string gives you a perfectly straight line between the cusps of the first and fourteenth fret.
The neck relief (forward curvature of the neck) that you're after can now be measured with a feeler gauge as a gap between the string and the cusp of the seventh fret. What most guitar manufacturers and luthiers recommend as a rule of thumb is a .010'' gap between the string and the seventh fret. I have yet to see a guitar and a playing style for which a .010'' neck relief did not work very well. I would recommend that you just go for that value and be done with it.
It is true that in rare cases, you can get away with a little less than .010'' of neck relief, and this will result in slightly better playability overall. However, unless you really want to become an expert at all this, I doubt that it is worth your time exploring different neck reliefs. If you really want to go there, you'll find some advice at the end of this page. For now, there is just one important thing to bear in mind: once you have chosen a neck relief and have completed the entire setup, you do not want to go back and decrease the neck relief. The reason is that decreasing the neck relief will lower the action at the first fret. To get the first fret action back to the correct value, you would have to raise the nut slots, and that is the one thing that's very hard to do.
If the neck relief is different from what you want, you change it by adjusting the truss rod according to your manufacturer's or luthier's instructions.
On many guitars, the nut that adjusts the neck relief is at the top end of the truss rod, inside the headstock. All you have to do is remove the little cover plate and adjust the nut. The picture below shows a Taylor 810 with a combination tool that usually comes with the guitar. Also, one of Taylor's many tech sheets explains everything about adjusting the truss rod on their guitars.

Once you've adjusted the neck relief to your preference, you should perform the measurement at the seventh fret as described above for the first (upper E) string as well. The measurements should come out roughly the same, say, to within a tolerance of 10-20 percent. If there is a dramatic difference, then your guitar's neck is seriously warped, and there is probably not much point in spending any more time on setup.
As I mentioned before, it is often possible to get away with a tad less than .010'' of neck relief, but it's questionable if it is worth the trouble to find out. Unless you're a real stickler for perfection, skip the rest of this page and continue on to the next step.
If you really have to, here's how you go about finding the least possible neck relief:
Set the neck relief to a very low value, like .005''. If you're an uncurable optimist, you may even start with no neck relief at all. Then go to the next step of the setup, where you set the saddle height. As you try to find the minimal saddle height, you will probably find that string buzz occurs in the lower frets (second or third fret) way before it occurs higher up. That means you've got too little neck relief. Increase the neck relief a bit, then work on your saddle height again. Repeat until you don't find that buzz in the lower frets is significantly worse than buzz in the higher frets. By the time that happens, your neck relief will probably be right around .010'', which was the recommended value to begin with.
Now do the third and last step of the setup, where you set the nut slot depths. If you actually ended up with less than .010'' of neck relief after the above iterations, you may still not be good. The low neck relief may cause behind-the-fret buzz. Behind-the-fret buzz occurs when you fret a string at fret x (with your finger or with a capo), and then the "dead part" of the string between the string nut and fret x buzzes on one or more of the frets below fret x. One of the things that neck relief does is to prevent this buzzing by creating a tiny gap between the "dead part" of the string and the frets beneath it.
So if you have less than .010'' of neck relief and notice behind-the-fret buzz, it's back to the truss rod: increase your neck relief a tad, and go through the remaining steps of the setup (saddle height and nut slot depths) again. It is of course also possible to counteract behind-the-fret buzz by leaving the first fret action a bit higher, that is, by having less nut slot depth. But the consequences of a higher first fret action are so unpleasant that I very much doubt you want to go for that option. The bottom line is that the .010'' neck relief is hard to beat.
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2. Setting the Saddle Height
When it comes to adjusting the saddle height, there are two schools concerning the way the measurements should be taken. The twelfth-fret school will tell you to just measure the gaps between the strings and the twelfth fret. The thirteenth-fret school will tell you to put a capo on the first fret and then measure the gaps between the strings and the thirteenth fret. It should be clear that both ways will give you meaningful, reproducible results. The only thing to be kept in mind is that one and the same saddle height will give you slightly lower readings at the thirteenth fret with a capo on the first fret than at the twelfth fret with no capo. Hence, you have to stick with one way of doing it. Moreover, once you've chosen your affiliation, you cannot use the numbers of someone who belongs to the other school.
If all you do is adjust your saddle height, and you don't care much about the other aspects of your setup, then any of the two schools is as good as the other. However, if you want to follow my complete procedure and end up with the right neck relief, saddle height, and nut slot depths, then you very much want to go with the thirteenth fret school. The reason is that the twelfth fret measurement will change when you do your nut slots. The thirteenth fret measurement, on the other hand, is independent of what goes on at the string nut because of the capo on the first fret. That way, none of the steps in my three-step procedure will affect the result of any earlier step, and hence, no backtracking is necessary.
So what are the right measurements then? That depends entirely on your playing style, the strings you use, and, to some extent, the individual guitar. What you want to achieve, of course, is to have your saddle just barely high enough so that you don't get any buzz except in those rare cases where you actually want it for effect. I really shouldn't give you any numbers at all and let you find out for yourself instead. For what it's worth, here's a set of thirteenth fret clearances that many people find just about right:
E A D G B E
.100'' .095'' .090'' .085'' .080'' .075''
Please note that these are values that will guarantee buzz-free playing for almost any guitar and playing style; if your playing style is on the soft side, you may be able to subtract .010'' or more from the values in the table above.
On many guitars, you can get away with less clearance for the high E string. Therefore, you'll often see clearances like this:
E A D G B E
.100'' .095'' .090'' .085'' .080'' .070''
For my playing style, I find that I need a little more clearance on the B string. Therefore, my settings typically look like this:
E A D G B E
.100'' .095'' .090'' .085'' .085'' .075''


Very important: When you measure the gap between a string and the thirteenth fret, make sure that your guitar rests on the back of its body, while the entire neck, including the headstock, does not touch the supporting surface. If the guitar rests not only on the body, but also on the headstock, that will be enough to bend the neck slightly forward and render your measurement irreproducible and hence useless.

Unless you are detemined to make your own saddle from scratch and get the optimal clearance for each string, you can probably get away with just measuring the clearance for the sixth string (lower E) and let the others take care of themselves. Here's what you do: order a bunch of ready made saddles for your particular guitar model from the manufacturer of your guitar or from a lutherie supply store such as Stewart-MacDonald. Start with one that's too high and work your way down by sanding it off at the bottom. What you want to achieve is to lower the saddle uniformly without changing the relative height of the strings. That way, you'll end up with your personal preferred absolute height and with the manufacturer's relative height of the strings.
If you have a precision tool such as Stewart-MacDonald's Sanding Station at your disposal, then it's a cinch to sand off the bottom of the saddle in a uniform manner. If you have to rely on manual sanding, then this is a little tricky. You will almost certainly inadvertently angle the saddle as you sand off material at the bottom. An easy way to check and correct as you go along is as follows: Make sure that you start out with two saddles of the exact same height and shape. As you go along lowering one of them, keep putting it on a level surface right next to the other, unmodified one. Place the lower one on an appropriate blade from your set of feeler gauges to make them the same height. A very precise way of checking for equal height is to take a third saddle and center it horizontally over the two saddles whose height you compare:

By sliding the horizontal saddle from one end of the two vertical saddles to the other, you can now check whether the heights of the two saddles are the same all across, or if you have angled the one you're working on. If that's the case, you can now counteract with your sandpaper until the angling has gone away.
As you take material off the saddle's bottom, you also need to make sure that the saddle does not lean forward or backward. This can be checked by placing the saddle on an even surface and then using a square ruler to check if it rises from the surface at a right angle.

Here's what I do when I need to make a saddle lower: I clamp a piece of sandpaper to a level surface and then run the saddle back and forth on it, turning it frequently to make up for any directional prejudice that my hand may have when exerting downward pressure. To prevent leaning, I place a 1/8 inch saddle blank on the sand paper and press the side of saddle against it, thus keeping it vertical relative to the sand paper.
If you're going to make saddles (or string nuts) from scratch, you want at least a small vise such as Stewart-MacDonald's Nut and Saddle Vise. The Porsche of nut and saddle tools, of course, would be their Sanding Station.

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3.Setting the Nut Slot Depths
The third and final step of setting up your guitar is to cut the slots in the string nut to a depth where you get the optimal first fret clearance for each string. Rather obviously, you want that clearance to be as low as possible, because the higher it is, the more your fingers will hurt when fretting the strings at the first few frets. Moreover, the intonation of your guitar will suffer (that is, your chords will be off even with perfect tuning) when the strings are two high above the first fret.
So if we want the strings to be as low as possible on the nut, then what is the lower bound? One constraint is of course that the open, unfretted strings should never buzz on the first fret. However, there is another thing to be kept in mind: raising the strings at the nut will also prevent the behind-the-fret buzz that I mentioned earlier. Therefore, your ideal first fret clearance is usually a tad more than what you would absolutely need to prevent the open string from buzzing. That is true especially if you prefer less neck relief. My preferred values for the first fret action are .022'' for the sixth string (lower E) and .018 for the first string (upper E), with the rest of them pretty much evenly spaced in between.
When you buy a new guitar, you can almost be guaranteed that the nut slots are not deep enough. I have seen expensive guitars that came with as much as .035'' of first fret clearance, truly a finger killer. To cut the nut slots deeper, get yorself a good set of nut slot files, e.g. from Stewart-MacDonald. For each nut slot, select a file that is as wide or a tad wider than the diameter of the respective string. (Making the slot too narrow will cause the string to bind in the slot, with very unpleasant consequences.) To work on a particular slot, take off the respective string, but make sure that all the other strings are on and tuned up, so that the neck is pretty much in the same position as it is normally when you play. Then cut the nut slot deeper with your file, angling it downward a bit towards the headstock.
Blow the dust out of the slot, put the string back on, and take another measurement.
Needless to say, you want to do all this in many, many tiny iterations so that you don't cut the slots too deep. When I said earlier that performing a guitar setup is not hard, I didn't mean replacing the string nut. That can be done, but it poses challenges and should not be attempted unless you know exactly what you're doing. Some people say that you can also fill in a nut slot that's too deep with a mixture of glue and filing dust, but quite frankly, that combination of messiness and subtleness is too much for me to even want to attempt. Just be careful and don't cut the nut slots too deep. In particular, make absolutely sure that you have performed and double-checked the first two steps of the setup, neck relief and saddle height. If you do the nut slots first and then later have to decrease the neck relief or lower the saddle, your strings will be too low at the first fret, that is, your nut slots will be too deep and there you are in the deep doo-doo that you worked so hard to avoid.
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