Also makes a perfect gift for any guitar player. Order Yours Today! Makes a perfect gift for guitar players! Rated 5 out of 5. Similar Posts. One of THE most important elements of Time for teardown — removing the old Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. One side more often than not has a little more bow than the other.
So when adjusting the neck, you want to check the relief on both the low E and high E. Most times you will find that the Low E side has more relief than the high E side of the neck. This is usually ok unless the high E string is resting on top of the frets. Then you will need to add a little more relief to the neck until the high E has clearance over the frets. If your neck is considerably warped, then we definitely recommend taking it in to get professionally evaluated to see if a more drastic repair is needed.
With the neck straight we can adjust the height of the strings which is called the string action. Adjusting the string action on a Les Paul style guitar is pretty simple.
The bridge sits on top of 2 thumbwheels which are threaded on to a post or into a ferrule installed on the top of the body. You rotate one of the thumbwheels clockwise to lower that side of the bridge or counter-clockwise to raise it. Some posts have a slot in the top of them where a flat head screwdriver can be used to easily adjust the bridge up or down.
The adjustment is easiest if you detune the strings a little to reduce the string tension pushing down on the bridge. But the best tool to use is the ESP multi spanner tool.
It is a double-sided steel wrench where opposite sides of each end is toothed in order to turn the thumbwheels to lower or raise the action of a tune-o-matic bridge or tighten and loosen nuts. This tool is a must-have and saves you from tearing up the skin on your hands or slipping with the pliers and scratching up your guitar when trying to adjust the action.
Using a ruler or a string action gauge card and holding the guitar in playing position, measure from the top of the 12th fret to the bottom of the string. This is how you get the string action measurement.
Depending on the guitar and playing style, the action can be adjusted slightly lower or higher from this starting point. The bridge saddle radius should match or be slightly flatter than the radius of the fretboard. Using radius gauges, measure the fingerboard radius and the saddle radius and see if they match. When cutting the saddles, make sure to cut at a slightly downward angle towards the tailpiece to insure the string sits properly in the notch. One common problem you will find is that the factory bridges will start to collapse or bow in the middle due to the soft metal they are made out of and tension of the strings pushing down on it over the years.
A critical adjustment that is easily overlooked is the string height at the nut. A correctly adjusted nut can help improve playability and intonation on the first couple of frets especially for barred or open chords.
To measure the height of the strings at the nut, we measure from the top of the first fret to the bottom of the string with our ruler. We then will use the proper nut files for the string gauges used to cut each slot in the nut to the desired depth. It is also important to cut the nut slot in a slight downward angle. If the nut slot is flat, then the string will rattle and buzz when played open. Another trick is to slightly cut the backside of the slots at an angle for the D and G strings towards their respective tuner posts.
This will help alleviate any more friction of the string inside the slot which will help increase tuning stability. From here you can lower each slot until you feel each string is low and comfortable enough for your playing style. These two strings can go down slightly further and still play and ring out normally. After each slot is cut to the desired height, clean up any dust or debris from the area and apply a nut sauce or lubricant to each of them to help keep the strings moving freely and prevent any binding in the nut.
If you accidentally make one or more slots too low, then shimming the bottom of the nut or building up the nut slot will be needed in order to correct this. Each saddle in the bridge is threaded on to a screw that can move the saddle forwards or backwards to adjust the length of the string in order to set the intonation correctly for each one.
This will make the notes below and above the 12th fret as in tune as they can be with each other. Then fret the low E string at the 12th fret and play the note. And yes, too off-topic. Let's stick to Setups here! This is an old post but shows up high in searches, so I figured it would be useful to include a link to this Basic Guitar Setup guide available on Gibson's site.
Even when findable through Google, I got those resources from calling Gibson's Customer Service on the phone. You can post now and register later.
If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. Paste as plain text instead. Only 75 emoji are allowed. Display as a link instead. Clear editor. Upload or insert images from URL. Gibson Acoustic. Share More sharing options Followers 0. Reply to this topic Start new topic. Recommended Posts. Aymara Posted May 24, Posted May 24, Hi, I thought the following guide might be helpful for the not so technically experienced players and for those, who don't know a good!
Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options Who better than master luthier Jim DeCola to tell us how to set one up to perfection? His step-by-step advice holds good for many other classic Gibsons, too. Ultimately, you want a slight amount of relief in that neck, by which I mean a slight amount of concave bow. The other strings are graduated between those dimensions.
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