Strung Up My Guitar and Played it Last Night

[Darryl Young]

Sure was nice to hear it. I had no idea what to expect......but it sounds nice and tonight I could tell it had already opened up some since yesterday.

I did have one big bummer....well two. First, I don't have good light above my workbench and was holding a small flashlight in my mouth while slotting the bridge. Wouldn't you know it the flashlight fell out of my mouth and hit the upper bout putting a dent in it. Nice (and so smart on my part). And I have the neck angle wrong. I will have to go back and see what I did wrong but I need to angle the neck back more as the action is too high. I'll probably leave it as is for a couple weeks then reset the neck when I'm doing the final setup. The neck angle appeared about perfect when I first fitted the neck to the body but I didn't know what I was doing and while chiseling out the interior of the heel near the tenon, I chipped off the corner of the heel. I repaired it but had to sand down the face of the heel to make it look right and that is where the neck angle got off. then I went too far the other direction (though I thought I had it spot on).

Anyhow, I'm surprised it sounds this good this early so I'm happy and the neck angle can be easily fixed (I haven't glued the fretboard extension down).

[johnnparchem]

Darryl,

Glad to hear you have have been able to play your guitar. Are you sure the neck is not bowing forward from the tension of the strings, that could be adjusted with the truss rod?

John

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Darryl,
Congrats on getting your guitar to this point. I'm sure you can fix the dent, and work out the neck set. Isn't it amazing how good a guitar you build yourself can sound??

Kevin

[Tony_in_NYC]

The best moment of the build is strumming that first chord, ain't it? Congrats on finishing it!

[darren]

congratulations, Darryl, just finishing after all this time is an accomplishment in itself... you'll get the issues worked out, just take some time to enjoy the music before taking it apart again.

[Darryl Young]

Thanks everyone.

Good point John. I will check the relief and see if this is contributing to the problem. I'll start another post about truss rod adjustment to make sure I do it properly.

[Ken C]

Darryl, congrats on getting her strung up! I love that part but for the anxiety caused by the creaking and popping of the guitar as string tension increases!

Ken

[Darryl Young]

The popping wasn't too bad.....less than I expected actually.

Here's something interesting that I hadn't thought of before.

I set the neck so the fret plane cleare the bridge by 0.040". The bridge is only 0.320" tall so this would be slightly lower than a standard 0.375" bridge. The neck needed a lot more back angle than this. I now have the fret plane 0.100" over the bridge it is now just barely under standard Martin specs.

What was interesting is how changing the neck set changed the sound of the guitar. With the action way too high and pulling the top upwards, the sound was a little harsh with a lot of overtones on the higher strings. Now that I have the neck angle about where it should be (will lower it slightly more in a week or two when I do the final setup on the action) the guitar sounds warmer. Now I'm sure part of this is due to breaking after being strung up for a few days......but that's not all of it. I'm guessing that an upward pull of the bridge killed a little bass and added the overtones giving the slightly harsh sound. Now that the strings are pulling almost parallel to the top (or slighlty down), maybe the top can move in the monopole more. Not sure and I'm just guessing......but the change in tone is for real. I previously hadn't thought about the neck angle affecting tone this way.