Make a Musicians Forum
01-07-2012
, 07:09 PM
01-07-2012
, 08:18 PM
01-07-2012
, 08:34 PM
As analoguesounds said, the last thing you want to do is **** up the neck with an improper truss adjustment. That's about the only thing you can screw up to the point where it can be hard to correct. Cracking the underside of the fretboard isn't any fun to fix, but it's possible.
Truss:
Check the relief in the neck by pressing against the body fret and 1st fret (bass string) and tapping in the center between these two points while holding those two frets down (use that guide Rokke posted for procedure of this). Easiest to use index finger on left hand and thumb on right hand and then stretch your middle right hand finger to the mid point between both pressed frets.
When you are tapping, you should have about the thickness of a medium to heavy guitar pick between the top of the FRET and the bottom of the string.
If there's too much relief (space), you need to tighten the truss; if there's no relief, you need to loosen the truss.
Now, here's where people screw it up. If you've never done truss adjustments before, always start with a 1/16 of a turn (yup, that means a tad less than 12 to 1 on a clock), especially if tightening the truss.
The second way people screw it up is confusing lefty-loosy/righty-tighty. Just hold the guitar so the top of the bolt is facing you; that is, if the truss adjustment is at the bottom of the neck, flip the guitar upside down (neck facing the floor) then turn clockwise for tightening. If the truss adjustment is at the top of the neck, put the guitar body between your legs and have the headstock under your chin.
Make a 16th of a turn and check the relief 20 minutes later (the effects are much faster, but the neck won't completely settle for hours, and GREAT setups are a balance between truss and bridge adjustments. This means there is a general range of relief in the neck that is considered proper, but every instrument is different and both the bridge and truss work in conjunction in finding the ideal string height (as well as geographical climate). There are no shops that will continually tweak both until they are down to moving the truss 1/64th of a turn, and I can't really blame them).
If the truss didn't take, do another 1/16 of a turn - rinse and repeat. Stop at a 1/4 turn total, unless you have a good idea what you're doing.
Action:
Now, before doing all that (fine truss adjustments), you want to set your action first. Some old dogs might scoff at the idea, but clearly the most accurate and best way to set action is to match the radius of the fingerboard using a radius gauge (you can buy them at stewmac, but they are also easy to make).
If you don't know the radius of your fingerboard, you take a radius gauge (ones with notches cut out for strings) and place it on the board until you find one that fits (or search your model guitar). Say, it's 10". You then set the individual string saddles using a 10" understring radius gauge. This will make the bottom of all six strings curve to a 10" radius, matching your fingerboard radius exactly (matching the neck radius will help prevent "fretting out" on bends).
Once your radius is set, start the truss adjustments, if needed. This is where the skill comes into play. You need to balance saddle height with neck relief, and there's no easy way to explain it - just comes from experience. For example, you loosen the truss and the action is a bit high so you lower the action (using your gauge).
Now the action is nice in the high register, but a little high in the low register. You tighten up the truss a tad, raise the action, now it's great in the low register and not bad in the high register. Keep working it. A shortcut is to make your fine adjustments with your most problematic string and once that's set, adjust the rest of the action relative to that string.
Every shop will just get the neck in a general acceptable range (as well as the action), and just call it a day and move on to intonation. This is probably how you should start too, and then scrutinize your setups more and more with each one you do until you learn how each of your instruments responds to the slightest adjustments. Remember, you are setting up the instrument to your playing style/needs, not a dude in the back of a music store, or whatever.
The above will take several hours to do since the wood takes time to settle completely, but it really depends on just how close you want the action. Some instruments you want kissing to board, and some you want it higher to bring out the tone more.
That said, if it's an inexpensive guitar, the nut is probably too high, so that will put some serious restrictions on the quality of your setups, but you can always learn how to do nuts down the road.
Cliffs: tl;dr
Last edited by Mitch Evans; 01-07-2012 at 09:03 PM.
01-07-2012
, 10:52 PM
01-08-2012
, 01:53 AM
01-08-2012
, 02:14 AM
01-08-2012
, 02:15 AM
Quote:
A little bit of guitar polish on a rag each time you change strings. If you're talking about mang that's been caked on for 10 years and you can't get it off with a rag, then you'll have to be resigned to scratching the finish a little. Take a thin guitar pick (the only legit use for one 
) and gently shimmy it off the neck. Even then it's possible the lacquer might chip off with the mang. At worst, you'll have to take steel wool to it (if you're really bent on getting it all off), but you'll most likely remove some finish.
That said, eventually maple finishes wear away anyway, and they will start to look like the picture below (which gives it character, imo); you'll just be speeding up the process is all, but you can definitely slow it down if you're careful.
) and gently shimmy it off the neck. Even then it's possible the lacquer might chip off with the mang. At worst, you'll have to take steel wool to it (if you're really bent on getting it all off), but you'll most likely remove some finish. That said, eventually maple finishes wear away anyway, and they will start to look like the picture below (which gives it character, imo); you'll just be speeding up the process is all, but you can definitely slow it down if you're careful.
Thank you sir. I definitely wouldn't mind the neck looking like that, that's pretty sweet looking imo. Can you use steel wool on a neck when the finish is worn off like that?
Quote:
Are you sure it's lacquer and not poly? Unless it's a very pricey Fender or a very old one it's probably poly.
For actual lacquer (as in nitrocellulose lacquer) I use naptha which is essentially lighter fluid, pretty standard and it works well. But you need to be cautious using it around anything with glue. I use it sparingly. Mostly give it the old wipe down.
For actual lacquer (as in nitrocellulose lacquer) I use naptha which is essentially lighter fluid, pretty standard and it works well. But you need to be cautious using it around anything with glue. I use it sparingly. Mostly give it the old wipe down.
According to Fender's website, it's a Satin Urethane finish fwiw.
01-10-2012
, 01:45 AM
