Lowering my action?????

Georgie

I play a Fender 70's custom pawn shop strat which has a maple neck (that I like the tone of) but today I had a noodle on my partners new rose wood strat. The action was a lot lower and I found it easier to play. I don't know if it was also to do with the different woods but wasn't sure whether to have my action lowered????

Any advice would be good.

richardhomer

Assuming neck relief is correctly adjusted and the nut is correctly cut, lowering the action is straight-forward.

Using the correct hex key only (you do not want to chew up the height screws using anything else) drop the top E saddle down, half a turn at a time, retuning between each adjustment. Bend the string up a full tone from the twelfth fret right up the remainder of the neck, to check for choking. If there is any choking, raise the saddle slightly.

Repeat for the B string (but bend on and a half tones and the G (but bend two full tones). Then set the D, A and bottom E to the desired height.

Reset the intonation and adjust pick-up heights.

mike_l

^^ I do similar, but only 1/4 turn at a time.

Megii

Search "guitar set up" on YouTube should bring up lots of advice - I seem to remember some good videos on the subject from a guy at PRS.

One thing I do find to be very much the case, is that how low you can set the action before an unacceptable amount of fret buzz occurs, is very much limited by how level the fret tops are - so you may find that at some stage you want to learn how to do a fret level and dress, or have this done by a good guitar tech. However, that's probably saying too much at this stage.

Georgie

Oh :-< didn't mean that!!

Sorry guys I meant is it a good idea to have it done? Can it be reversed? Etc

mike_l

It's a good idea to get your guitar(s) set to where they're comfortable for you to play them. Some prefer a higher action, some lower. Some like 9 guage strings some like 10's, others 12/13 etc.

The thing is if your guitar isn't comfortable for you, then you won't get the best from it, or yourself.

Has your local shop got an on-site tech, or can they reccommend a local tech, this way you'll be able to tell them exactly what you want.

Personally I like 9's (I've stepped down from 10's due to old hand injuries), a low action and a Floyd Rose, with quite a flat board. Others like a higher action, with a more rounded fingerboard and hate Floyds. It's a personal thing.

Georgie

I had it done today - I LOVE IT!!! I had the frets cleaned, restrung and lowered!! What a transformation!!! So happy and it plays lovely. Thanks guys for the advice.

dilbert

Georgie said:

 I don't know if it was also to do with the different woods but wasn't sure whether to have my action lowered????

Why can't I stop smirking when I read the above. 

And yes. I know how juvenile that sounds  )

Georgie

oh no!! Was that another dumb blonde moment I had!!! I seem to get worse with age!!! >:D<

sweepy

A big +1 for your local guitar techs , they aren't all clueless rip-off merchants . I always have a policy of charging sensible prices for two reasons.

When I fix guitar for the local shops they slap a 1.83  multiplier on my bill to cover their VAT and biscuit and tea budget, so I would feel guilty charging too much, silly I know , but thats the way I like to do it .When it comes to repairs dropped to my door i generally fix a price between the two, so everone wins and you get repeat business .