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I used to have a thread catalogued that went through the setup process. Correct string height at 12 fret etc. can doneone point me to the correct post? Or tell me the general settings again?

Thanks,

Mike

I believe this link was in the thread you mentioned http://www.bryankimsey.com/setup/actions.htm

For Medium Action

Lights Gauge Strings
Action at the 12th: 4/64” treble, 6/64” bass

Med Gauge Strings
Action at the 12th: 5/64” treble, 7/64” bass

You might be thinking of Hesh's thread on fretwork. Try and author search with that keyword.

Robbie, that's a great article. Hadn't seen that one before. Are the numbers mentioned at the 12th fret. Are the strings not pressed at first fret for the measurement? Sorry for sounding so lame. I go long between setups and appear to forget what I have learned.

I just had Ed Bond set up one of my guitars and his standard action at the 12th is 0.090" low E and 0.070" high E with light strings. Plays really really nice at that height. Get yourself the string height gauge for Stew Mac next time you place an order. It's an awesome tool for set up.

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That's what happened with me too when I was a builder only and only capable of producing around one instrument a month. So much time passed between fretting, nut making, set-up, compensation, etc. that I felt like although I could get by I was not doing justice to my creations nor my clients.... It's good that you recognize this Mike and that was my first step too to getting much more interested in the aspects of Lutherie that are not woodworking.

The industry norm is to measure action at the 12th high e first and low e last without anything fretted.

Specs such as the Martin specs of 4/6/64th" for 12's for a dr*ad sized instrument and 5/7 for 13's also a dr*ad sized instrument are great specs and will make 95% of folks pretty happy. But there are other concerns as well such as what kind of music one languishes with arrested development with and how hard they hit as well. Either factor can require some changes to the Martin specs.

I like to talk about the truss rod, nut slots, and then saddle as my systematic approach to set-up but there is WAY more to it if you want to get into the nits. One huge consideration that rarely even gets noticed... is the radius on the saddle. Often an incorrect radius can make the thing play inconsistently because it does not provide the sequential raising of the strings from the treble side to the bass side. Poor fret work is often the single most limiting factor for any guitar....

The number one shortcoming that we see in everyone's instruments be they small Luthier built or f*ctory built is the nut slots. Nearvona, Buzz Feitin (sorry if I got the spelling wrong, not intentional just being lazy here on a Sunday morning) were in my opinion solutions that were created because folks did not understand how to cut nut slots.... I expect lots of push-back on not buying into snake oil here and no problem, bring it on but properly cut nut slots go a very long way toward solving the very same intonation issues that compensated nuts or what ever iteration of compensated nuts one embraces.

Well cut nut slots are often so very low that some of us cannot even see the space between the high e and the top of the first fret crown. It's more a bending of light and hopefully the "tink" noise that we want to hear meaning that the string is not laying not the fret crown at all times.

Things such as an F bar chord become very easy with well cut nut slots and mouch more difficult in the absence of well cut nut slots.

Anyway a very wise man once told me that the human eye is an absolutely amazing tool in the sense that although it won't necessarily quantify what it sees in the precision measurement sense just like a computer processor it has an excellent ability to discern differences or that one is not the same as the other.

Gauges, measuring tools, etc are not necessary to cut nut slots because our human eyes are extraordinary tools in this regard. It's not a question of what the clearance might measure it's a question of what's right and works well.

For action measured at the 12th I rely on a simple engineer's scale and the 1/64th" increments. I can still see this pretty well thankfully and measuring the action at the 12th comes into play after the rod has been adjusted and the nut slots properly cut.

There is a thread on Frets right now about setting action with the truss rod. For those interested it might be a good read. We are not fans of using the truss rod to set action although it does have an impact that's not the intent of the rod.

We are going be announcing a new class offering to builders and folks interested in repair that will be called "Set-Up For Builders" and with no offense intended, ever...., well maybe sometimes.... it's going to be offered because the set-ups that we see on Luthier built instruments often suck.... F*ctory instruments are no better...

Nearly every day we have a client come in complaining of how difficult the guitar is to play. It's often the case that it's 1.5 years old, a major maker, and was never set-up because it was sold though G*itar C*nter or an Internet reseller... The clients believe that they have a brand new instrument so how can it possibly not have been set-up....

Wrong.... What great fun for us is that in a few hours when they sit down and try it again after we are done the difference is often amazing to them and they often comment on being able to do something that they could not do well before such as that F bar chord.

For me and sorry for being pedantic I'm a detail guy and with my own stuff I recognized that all that I was doing was leading up to that moment when a "qualified" prospect for my stuff sat down, strapped a Heshtone on and went at it. Just like with an important presentation where one's job may be on the line when the client is trying one of yours the set-up is the "user interface" if you will and if it's not right the immediate impression of the prospect is that the guitar does not play exceptionally well. When that happens one may never get to if the guitar sounds exceptionally well or if it's made exceptionally well, or even if the builder is inspiring confidence in trusting them with thousands of dollars.... exceptionally well.

As such you can see my bias here and hopefully so. Set-up is every bit if not more important than what binding you use, a rosette design, top selection, etc. If the thing plays like a POS it's going to be perceived as such.

I recognized that I was at a real disadvantage because the finer things that contribute to a great set-up I never got any practice with and the time between getting to do set-ups, make nuts, etc. was so long I forgot much of what I had learned just like you, Mike.

What I did was seek out an apprenticeship AND seek out a very high volume operation too where I would get lots of practice every single day. It helped me greatly and these days in the evenings when I sit down to play the greatest piece of music ever written, Smoke on the Water..... my personal guitars including f*ctory built PRS's, Fenders, etc. all play like butter and I never find myself being irritated at a buzz or strugglingly to do anything.

Set-ups matter and although we all love to run our machines and plane this and clamp that at some point as Rick Turner once said on this very forum we are making GLOs, "guitar shaped objects", if we don't also do what it takes to understand things such as set-ups, repair work, etc. I'll add that at some point some of you guys will have to be resetting a neck on one of your creations or regluing a bridge as I had to do last month on one of mine. You really don't want to be that guy who has to post very sophomoric questions asking others how to support and repair your very own stuff when you also position yourself to offer instruments for sale. Sure we are happy to help but we also are human and as such have opinions. Someone who cannot support the full spectrum of what their warranty includes is taking a very long walk on a very short pier in my experience....

I applaud Mike for recognizing an inherent shortcoming for builders, all of us, we do not usually get enough hand's on experience with set-ups.

Hopefully that would be the same radius of the FB. That's what I've been doing and it seems to work.

Thanks again for taking the time Hesh. A builder can't here enough of this stuff. Regarding nuts. It often surprises me when I'm filing a slot and think"dang, I went to deep", but no buzz.

I wish I was a little closer to your part of the world. Spending time with you guys goofing around on guitars would be time well spent.

Cheers!

Danny You are very welcome and also very welcome to come visit us any time that it works for you.

Sure if you build with a constant radius then the saddle is the same radius.

The guys taking our fretting class in a few weeks will learn how to build and/or convert to a compound radius. They can still build with the board in say a constant 16" or what ever but the board gets converted to compound in the process of leaving it on the instrument. Any body hump from geometry issues gets nixed as well and fall-away is also induced.

So here's a quiz for you guys on a nice sunny Sunday (hope it's sunny where you guys are too).

We are intending to build in a compound radius and here are some constants:

1) At the first fret the board radius is 12"

2) At the 12th fret the board radius is 16"

Question: Using Stew-Mac's radius gauges or what ever you have to determine the radius now we need to make a saddle to work well with this instrument.

What radius approximately.... should the saddle be?

The weiner wins a tub of OLF truss rod nut lube..... (not really but it's not been used before here....)

When I was measuring string height earlier this year, I realized that I had some inconsistencies even though the E and E were dead on. I decided to try radiusing the saddle with a radius blocked lined with sand paper instead of what I had been doing (tracing the radius onto the saddle from a radius gauge and filing away). It gave me a perfect radius across the top. I press the saddle blank against a piece of maple I have to give it some support, and sand it up and down the length of block until the radius is set.

20"?

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"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

What Rod said - 20"?

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

25.4"scale length wood be an 18" radius saddle.

Bob

Any scale length it would be a 20" radius assuming a "conical" type compound radius.
And no "?"

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I stand corrected. It is aprox 20". (20.506")

Bob

Thought you guys might like to see this.
I bought about it a month ago and after 6 or 7 setups have found it better to use than any rule or other action gauge. Saves my tired old eyes a lot.
Pretty self-explanatory.

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Great job Rod you were the first with the 20" answer and Colin and Steve got it correct too.

The appropriate radius would be around.... 20" and I say around because there are a few nits that might come into play if the player is really demanding and wants super low action. But for the most part a 20" radius saddle can be made off the instrument and dropped in and will likely work very well with the standard set-up numbers that I've provided above.

See the post that James made above too because he nailed it as well!

Bob S. just posted again and now has it right too - great job guys!!! Keep this up and when you are an old fart like me and still interested in Luthierie you too can be setting up instruments to your heart's delight AND making lots of people happy!

A bit of a story for you that is appropriate to this discussion. One of our clients is a former pro player and he's the one that has an ex Navy Seal escort him to our shop or anywhere he has to go when one of his instruments is part of the trip too. He has two D Aquistos that he bought directly from Jimmy. He also knew Jimmy and he has played with the likes of Joe Pass and other top tier jazz players.

He likes action of 2 and 2.5..... This is the kind of player who although most of us could never play anything with action that low this guy most certainly can with NO fret noise either. Other jazz players that we know often like higher than average action but not this gentleman.

Our mission was to refret his beater..... guitar..... a 1940 G*bson L-5 in excellent condition. Somewhere back in time he had it refretted by one area Luthier but could not play the thing afterwards because this Luthier put large, not jumbo frets on the thing. The client was livid and in time found another Luthier to ask to remedy the L-5. That Luthier likely, we are not all that sure.... milled the existing large frets down in height and also charged the client the same price as a refret would cost...

The client still could not play the thing and put it away for some years until he found Dave Collins. Dave refretted the L-5 last Thursday and we had the client in Friday with his Navy Seal friend who has become my friend too by the way. Dave would set the truss rod and then the saddle after spending some time on a new nut and the slots. The client would play and then while playing raise or lower his own action while still holding the chord.... and keep on playing. Toward the end it was "great" but in a perfect world he would be able to do something that it still could not do. Dave examined the bridge, determined that the radius had changed over time with the strings eating into the BRW and recut the saddle slots to the correct radius.

Our client played it and loved it and is a VERY happy camper now.

We are pretty happy too I'll add and I personally loved hearing this guy play!

This is very much part of our world with everything from heavymetalvomitdude who buys into every snake oil offering on the Internet to the famous musician who needs a body guard or in another case a disguise to be in public...

Sometimes, often the better players DO know what's possible and although they can be pretty demanding they are not at all unreasonable if we have the knowledge, experience, and chops to make it happen for them.

Set-ups matter!

Cool Colin who makes it?

Guy called Chris Alsop in UK
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Guitar-String-Action-Gauge-Accurate-measurement-using-transmitted-light-TA003-/171058961584?hash=item27d3e89cb0:m:m8221LpQZL8NooJD_KYVK2w
If you go for it, please tell him I sent you.

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Speaking of nits... Did you mean to say a 12" radius at the nut (and therefore the nut also has a 12" radius). A 12" radius at the first fret would not equal 20" at the saddle but something larger than that which would indeed depend on the scale length.

Collin, I think I want one of those. I was stringing up number one of 6 tonight. Nothing stresses me out more than that. I live in a very busy house with two teenager boys. As I'm tensioning strings, eldest pulls into driveway with his new tuned (loud) truck exhaust. Dog starts barking crazy-like. Thought I was going to have a breakdown. Argh. Alls well so far. Action to high and I have two "deadish" strings. G and high e. Guessing that's nut and/or saddle related. Thoughts welcome. Let it stretch out tonight. Check relief tomorrow.

Owner wants to play it on Nov 5 at a live show. My nerves are frayed

Hang-in Mike.

I answered another post on FRETS.net about someone getting a strange sound and the answer is applicable to your question too in terms of a laundry list of things to check to get notes ringing loud and clear.

http://fretsnet.ning.com/forum/topics/can-anyone-help-me-diagnose-this-sound

If you can be more specific as to what you are hearing and when and how we can give you more targeted answers and assistance.

Good going Dave! Yep I should have said the radius at the nut face so good on you for the details and details do matter!

Buy yourself a set of pin gages for measuring both nut and 12th fret action on all strings - not just E and e.

Start with Bryan Kimsey's numbers for both 1st and 12th fret action on all strings and then go from there according to your subsequent preference. The string height does change the sound and higher strings tend to sound a little louder than lower strings - which is why the bass strings ride higher than trebles on steel strings.

Doing this - you will ensure you have a very consistent setup. You can then work from there to fine tune it to your preference.

I did this on all my builds and got many compliments on the action and setup. The local guitar store tech that I befriended commented that his setups were prettier and much faster than mine - but the string setups and fret leveling would be hard for him to improve on. He subsequently bought a set of pin gages like mine to verify setups - as he really liked the feel of every string being intentionally, individually set. It's a lot easier to hit something when you know exactly where you are at.

Thanks

John