Often times, a guitar’s poor action is fixed with an easy twist of a truss rod like I explained in my “neck relief” article. However, adjusting the truss rod should not be the primary source for fixing your string height! The guitar is built bearing in mind that the neck will be set properly. Putting too much relief in the neck in order to raise string height can lead to problems elsewhere, so it’s important to set the neck well and then adjust your string height at the bridge. To find a height that works for you, there’s no harm in experimentation! Try setting the bridge to where it’s uncomfortably low, and gradually raise it until you’re happy with the playability. Personally, I prefer to use a measurement tool to quickly dial in a height that I know I’m comfortable with. The “string action gauge” from Stewmac has everything you would need. The bottom of this tool has markings that go up in increments of ten thousandths of an inch beginning with .010. Placing this edge down behind the low E string, the distance from the fret to the bottom of the string should be around .075-.078, so, between the .07 and .08.

On the other side, again place the edge down behind the high E string. The distance I go for on this side is around .063-.065, or, you should just see the .06 marking peaking out underneath the string. The numbers I’m using here are for guitars around a 25″ scale length, assuming standard tuning, and neck relief set similarly to how I described in my neck relief article. From here, you can make minor adjustments to suit your needs! If at this point you are still experiencing fret buzz in certain areas, your neck or frets may need some extra work in order for the guitar to set up well. Sometimes the strings may be too hard to push down in the first fret, or may even play too sharp! It is not uncommon for the nut slots to be cut too shallow. With the right tools, this is an easy remedy. You’ll need a set of files, sized correctly for each string. You don’t want the slot to grab and choke the string, so you actually want to use a slightly larger gauge file than string gauge. As a general rule, try to go .003″ larger. So, for a .010 high E string, a .013″ file would be fine. Some stores offer double edged files that are marked 1-6 instead of a gauge – be sure you know which gauge they are before cutting!

In some cases the number may not necessarily pertain to the string slot you are trying to cut.
The other 2 tools I use are a straight-edge, and a set of feeler gauges to measure the height of your first fret. The idea is, of course, to not cut your slots too deep!

Remember to make sure your neck is set before making your nut adjustments. If you cut it with an over bowed neck, you run the risk of having open-note fret buzz once you straighten it out again.

Laying the straight edge down across the first two frets, try sliding different combinations of gauges underneath until you find a combo that just contacts the straightedge.

Let’s say .040 is the one that worked. Now, you want to add ~.005 to that number to make .045, find the two feeler gauges that total this new number (or close to it), and use them as a “shield” when cutting your nut.

In this case, I took size .022 and .024, stuck them together, and lay them flat on the fingerboard against the nut. Then, I cut each slot with the correct file until making contact with the feeler gauges. It’s a quick and easy way to get your proper nut height set without having to worry about going too low!

After you’ve got your neck set, your string height at both the bridge and nut set, and your intonation dialed in, you should be ready to play!

Happy playing!

Written by: Vince Schaljo

Vincent’s Guitar Workshop – Issue 3 from MyRareGuitars.com

Joey Leone’s recent article on the importance of set-up was spot on. Years back, I worked as a salesman in a small, independent music store. I’d never worked in music sales before, so unpacking brand new guitars fresh off the UPS truck was a new experience for me. I quickly discovered that they were almost never properly adjusted. It was a roll of the dice at best. The guitars that happened to come in playing well were the first to go out the door in the hands of happy, paying customers. The other instruments would hang on the wall a lot longer, while we repeatedly explained that a professional set-up would make them play and feel much better. So I got to thinking that if I learned the basics, and at least got the guitars and bass guitars into reasonably good adjustment, sales would go up. I started talking to our guitar tech, and asked him to explain to me how it all worked. He was amazingly patient with me while I relentlessly picked his brains, until finally, I began to “get it.” I got pretty good at setting up the instruments, and sales went up substantially—not that the owner of the store was in a hurry to give me a raise for my efforts!

Still, I was glad for what I’d learned. While major repairs and maintenance (including fret work and the neck set on acoustic guitars) were things I was wise enough not to tackle, routine adjustments became, well, routine. The electrics were the easiest to work with, because most of the adjustments were done mechanically, with a screwdriver and an Allen wrench.

I found a quick way to scope out a truss rod adjustment, without needing the expensive machined straight edge our tech used. Using both hands, I’d just press the bass string down in two places on the fingerboard, simultaneously–say at the third and 11th frets–and then pluck the string with a free finger. If the string bottomed out, it meant the rod was too tight, and the neck too flat. Conversely, if I could see much more than the thickness of a playing card’s worth of space between the string and the frets (looking from the side, as you would while playing), it meant the rod was too loose, and the neck had too much forward bow.

After that, I’d start adjusting the saddles—up or down for string height, and on the electrics, forward or back for string length. These two adjustments—height and length—are highly interactive. If your strings are higher, you have to press them down farther to play a note. That means more stretch, higher tension, and raised pitch—resulting in the need for lengthening the string, by moving the saddle away from the nut a bit. Lower strings mean less stretch, and less need for compensation. Different players like different string heights, of course, so there’s no single right way to do this, but at the store, I’d try to find a middle ground that would satisfy most players.

Nut slot adjustments are something untrained players shouldn’t mess with. The tech showed me how to do them, using an X-acto saw blade and 400 grit sandpaper. If the slots aren’t shaped properly, the strings won’t seat and flex properly, causing all sorts of problems. I started out doing nuts on cheap, entry-level guitars that had action bad enough that I could hardly have made them worse. And amazingly enough, I had a pretty good touch, and was able to do them well. Still, I left the top-of-the line instruments to our tech, though I’ve done the nut slots on my own pro guitars, since then. Ironically, most guitar techs don’t take the slots down far enough, in my opinion. That’s because if they go too far, the strings start buzzing, and they have to make you a new nut, or at least do some extra shimming—things they really don’t want to take the time do. I think the open string clearance between the nut and the first fret should be about the same as the clearance obtained between a closed string (that you’ve pressed down at a given fret) and the next fret up (toward the bridge). That way, you don’t get additional stretch at the first fret, sparing you the all-too-common aggravation of a guitar that plays sharp at the first fret. But talk to your guitar tech about it. As the saying goes, don’t try this at home.

Worn frets make guitars play sharp! That’s because as a fret wears down, the string vibrates from the front edge of the fret, rather than from the crown—effectively shortening the string, and thus slightly raising the pitch. Worn frets can also cause string buzz against higher, less worn frets. If you then raise the action to offset this, you create all sorts of tuning and playability problems. So get your frets worked on, when they need it. A guitar tech I know suggested that changing your strings is like buying gasoline for your car—something routine and inexpensive. Getting your frets adjusted and replaced is like buying tires. More expensive and done less often, but it’s something you simply must do, from time to time.

Keeping your guitar in tune requires strings that still have some elasticity. They don’t have to be brand new, but over time, strings become stiff and brittle, long before they break. Stiff, brittle strings play sharp, so once they reach that point, it’s time for a new set.

String gauges can make a difference, too. I like fairly heavy strings on my Strat. I use a 12 to 52 set, with a wound 3rd string—pretty much the same gauges I use on my acoustic flat top. I find them more stable, tuning wise, than lighter strings, and I like the fatter tone I get. But some people have no trouble with the lighter, faster, 9’s, 10’s, or 11’s. It just depends on your touch and style.

The weather affects your guitar! Humidity swells wood, higher temperatures expand everything, colder temps contract everything, and all of these variations affect the tension on your strings. A guitar can be in tune at home, and get wonky in a cold car trunk on the way to a gig. At the gig, you re-tune the still-cold guitar, only to have it shift on you again as it warms up in your hands, requiring you to re-tune again (and again!). Don’t worry. It’ll eventually settle down. Better still, arrive a little early, and let the guitar warm up before you play it.

Finally, let me just touch on the question of scale tempering. Musical scales are built around theoretical mathematical ideals, but real world instruments have built-in compromises. These compromises are called scale tempering. The modern equal-tempered tuning system was a major innovation developed for keyboard instruments during the time of J. S. Bach, and his composition, The Well Tempered Clavier, demonstrated its effectiveness. Prior to that system’s introduction, you could not play in some keys without retuning your keyboard. These days, most guitars are built according to the equal-tempered system, but ironically, acoustic pianos employ a variation called “stretch tuning,” to compensate for the sharp harmonics generated by their stiff, massive, bass strings. The piano sounds more in tune with itself, but it’s a challenge to get guitars and other instruments in tune with the piano. Guitars with compensated nuts, guitars employing the Buzz Feiton nut and tuning system, and guitars with computer-designed curved frets are all examples of recent attempts to improve tuning accuracy and compatibility with keyboards.

There’s no way this short article can address all of the things that affect how in-tune a guitar plays on its own, and with other instruments. But I hope it points you in the right direction.

Gordon Kaswell is an award-winning composer, working musician (playing guitars, keyboards and bass guitar), and freelance writer. He lives in the Pacific Northwest. You can email him at gordon@efn.org

Adventures in Intonation from MyRareGuitars.com

Tuning a Gibson Acoustic Guitar

Everybody deserves to have a guitar that plays well, stays in tune, and is in tune with itself. This is not just the privilege of globetrotting superstars, but everyone who owns a decent instrument.

Before I go any further, let me give you the proviso that I am not a guitar tech, set-up guy, or luthier. I’ve been playing for almost 4 decades and I’ve picked up a lot of valuable information along the way. What I do know is when to go to an experienced guitar technician / luthier to get problems solved. The whole purpose of this column is to inform those of you who were curious about some of these things but were afraid to ask or just plain didn’t know. You experienced guys and gals – Eddie Van Halen and Django Reinhardt: who’s better? Discuss.

New Eastwood Wandre Deluxe Electric Guitar

New Guitars

In preparation for our upcoming cross-Canada tour this summer as a member of The Bachman Cummings Band, I decided to take my 2005 G&L ASAT Deluxe to my friend Brian Mascarin, a very in-demand luthier and guitar technician in Toronto, to have him dress the frets for me. Now you would think that the frets on a $2,500 guitar like a G&L would be set-up to perfection. Not so.

Consider the journey that guitar took to get to me: it was made in California in a very temperate climate, traveled across the continent in a truck, possibly in freezing weather, and arrived in Toronto where it hung in a music store for the better part of two years by its neck! And with the same set of strings!

I detected an annoying buzz under the D string that I couldn’t get rid of so I took it to Brian. He said it is not uncommon for some guitarists to come directly from the music store with a brand new Gibson, Fender, or Paul Reed Smith to his shop where he sets up the instrument to its new owners specs and tweaks any minor flaws that the factory may have overlooked. Keep in mind that with the worldwide explosion in popularity of the guitar, these manufacturers have to pump out literally hundreds (thousands?) of guitars every month. It is not realistic to assume that these instruments are 100% ready to go in every way for every player’s needs.

The need for a set-up by a qualified expert is even more crucial in the case of instruments made offshore: drastically different manufacturing climates, month-long trans-oceanic journeys with varying degrees of temperature and humidity, and high volume factory output are factors that have to be considered. No one can dispute the very high levels of quality and workmanship that goes into guitars made in Asia but keep in mind the changes and the journey your instrument has undergone before it got to you. No wonder it needs a bit of tweaking and TLC!

Guitar Strings on the Wall

Strings

Quite often I hear of guitar owners complain that their newly purchased axe just doesn’t play the same as it did when it was purchased (Hey! It was in tune when I bought it!).

Did you change the strings? Of course you did. You took off the now tarnished and oxidized strings that the factory installed and put on a fresh set of your favourite brand with your favourite gauge – you know the super slinky .008’s with the .056 E string! Or the good guys at the store or e-store threw in a set of strings for you. Now the neck has a bow in it and the strings are an inch off the neck.

Why? Because you changed the geometry of the instrument. Here’s a real nugget for you – a guitar’s playability is affected by the gauge of string you use! A set of strings exerts hundreds of pounds of tension on a guitar’s neck. When you change the gauge or thickness of those strings, the tension on the neck changes. Your guitar was set up with a certain gauge of string at the factory. Unless you replace the strings with exactly the same brand (string characteristics in the same gauge vary from brand to brand owing to different manufacturing techniques and different metals used), your guitar will play differently. The only way to accurately determine the gauge of a string is with a micrometer and not many music stores have one of those under the counter.

What to do? Pick a brand and a gauge of string, get your guitar set-up for that string and stick with that string. When you experiment with different brands or gauges (and you should!), get the guitar setup again for that particular string.

Guitar Neck Truss Rod Diagram

Truss Rods

The truss rod is what is adjusted to add or reduce – relief – or bow in the neck. As I said in the opening, I am not a repair guy and I’m not going to tell you how to adjust your truss rod. I personally don’t think you should because the potential for permanent damage is huge. This is when you should go to an experienced technician.

Tune-o-Matic Guitar Bridge

Intonation

Ever wonder why some chords play in tune and others don’t? That’s intonation – the guitar’s ability to be “in tune” with itself. Without going into a long boring treatise on the tempered tuning system developed in the 16th century or whenever it was, suffice to say that your electric guitar, thanks to Mr.McCarty and the engineers at Gibson in the 50’s, has a bridge with little moveable saddles on it called a “tune-o-matic” bridge.

These little saddles adjust the string “length” relative to the 12th fret, which theoretically is the midpoint of the note. There are many resources on the net to get more details on the theory, but the idea here is to let you know that if you have a decent electronic tuner, a small screwdriver and a bit of patience, you can intonate your guitar so that it plays more in tune with itself.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Plug your guitar into your tuner.
2. Tune the strings to pitch.
3. Pluck the harmonic of the 6th string (pluck the string with your finger directly over the 12th fret without fretting the note).
4. Fret the note at the 12th fret and compare it to the plucked harmonic.
5. If the fretted note is sharp, move the saddle back (or to your right looking down on the guitar). If it is flat, do the opposite. Make small adjustments until the pitch of the harmonic and the fretted note is the same. Do this for all 6 strings.
6. If you’re confused, go see your friendly neighbourhood guitar technician or luthier. A set-up with new strings, truss rod adjustment and intonation costs around $20 – $50 but it is well worth it.

Resources

Please visit David’s Website and don’t miss the Bachman Cummings tour this summer!

Here are the names of three very qualified technicians / luthiers in the Greater Toronto Area:

• Musicality, Brian Mascarin (416) 787-1531 Toronto
• The Peghead, Mike Spicer (905) 972-9400 Hamilton
• The Guitar Shop, John Bride (905) 274-5555 Mississauga

Guitar Tuning & Set-Up Tips of the Stars! from MyRareGuitars.com

Custom Longhorn Guitar by Bill Wagoner (Plymouth, IN)

Here is one of my solutions to the problem. I bought a 1968 Coral Longhorn Body off of EBAY for 65 bucks. It had never been used, no neck, not even a neck pocket, no routing for pickups, no wiring, no pickguard, nothing but a body. Enclose is a pic of the body as I got it and the guitar I made out of it. I did all the wiring, inlays, designed and made the pickguards by hand, assembly, set up, everything.

My inspiration for this project was the old BIGSBY guitars made by Paul Bigsby back in the late 40’s and early 50’s and also the gaudy Cool Italian guitars of the 1960’s. Also I was thinking of the original handmade Mosrite stuff where Semie Mosley would include a fancy pickguard, arm rest and so forth.

My first step was to decide on pickguard material. I went with the white pearloid, or what I call Mother of Toilet Seat, in other words, fake pearl. My pickguard material came from ALL PARTS. I sell their stuff in my store and it is great quality. I knew that I wanted to cover the entire headstock with it but that presented a problem. The neck is basicaly a generic strat type neck but since you cannot bend the thick pearloid I had to make it two pieces. I decided to make the second piece double as my truss rod cover. The neck came from a low priced strat style guitar called a Palmer. Great neck for almost no cost and it plays like a dream.

Next was attaching the neck and body. Since this body had never had a neck, there was no neck pocket. After observing what I call the First rule of guitar repair, I routed out an area to attach the neck about an inch of so deep and also removed part of the material under the fingerboard to get the proper slant to the neck in relation to the body. Due to the fact that I was going to use a rosewood archtop bridge I did not need to worry about where I placed the neck since I could position the bridge anywhere I wanted after the guitar was together.

What is “The First rule of guitar repair?” For every minute you DO something to your guitar, you THINK ABOUT IT for 20 minutes FIRST. If you take your time and approach guitar repairs this way you will make a lot less mistakes in the long run! After attaching the neck, I started on my Inlays. All it had when I started was the boring and traditional plastic dots. I drilled those out of the neck and replace them with real abalone dots. Next I used diamond shaped abalone pieces that I bought from RESCUE PEARL Company and cut them into triangles. Then I routed the fingerboard and added them to make the pattern you see now. You can do a search and find Rescue Pearl on the net, nice folks and very helpful and reasonable prices too. I then started to design the pickguard. I wanted it to follow the lines of the F-hole rather than hide the F-hole as they do on so many hollow body guitars. I used old file folders and cut the patterns from them with scissors after drawing them free hand and then copied them in pearloid. The arm rests and the control plate were done the same way. I used an old Seymor Rail pickup I had laying around and kept the electronics simple since there is a limited amount of space on the body anyway. I also made sure to position all the electronics where they can be worked on easily from the F-holes in the future.

Finally I strung her up and added the ALLPARTS Rosewood bridge. Incredibly, the intonation on this guitar is perfect, no need for tune-o-matic bridge saddles at all. It has a wonderful warm woody tone that is different than any of my other guitars and I just love it. Add to that the fun of making it myself and I have a guitar that will never leave my collection.

Post by: Bill Wagoner (Plymouth, IN)

Frankenstein Longhorn Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

The Pizza Guitar Rescue Mission

I guess I should explain who we are first. We are Buddha and the Pests, a group of itinerant musicians who play together whenever the mood or money moves us. Lately we hadn’t seen a lot of movement so the gig at the “Big E” was a blessing. I’m Buddha, the lead singer, songwriter, rhythm guitar and quasi-leader of the clan. You’ll meet the other guys later as they join the stories, but yes, one of our hobbies or “missions”, as Reverend Right calls it, is the rescue of abused instruments. You know the ones I’m talking about. The ’59 semi-acoustic, electric Kay that someone spray painted flat black and decorated with skull and bullet hole decals. Or the ’66 Fender Mustang that someone covered with Elmer’s glue and then sprinkled with a generous dose of silver and gold glitter. Yeah we like to save these orphans and try to rehabilitate them when ever possible.

I’d seen an old beater in the mall the week before, but hadn’t had the time to check it out. Hopefully it would still be there. I worked my way back past the piles of odds & ends, old lamps, tube radios, junk, store fixtures, etc back to Frank’s booth in the very rear of the building. And there it was, lying on top of a stack of old speakers. I’d noticed it there before, but had never really looked at it closely. It appeared to be an old American or Japanese electric guitar from the early 60’s, one of the thousands cranked out in some factory and sold at Sears or Western Auto stores back then. It may have been a mail-order birthday present from “the World’s Largest Store” that made a young West Kentucky boy jump for joy when he ripped open the package for which his parents had scrimped and saved for so long.

It had been a shiny brown sunburst, the color guitar folks call ‘tobacco brown’, but now it was a little worse for wear. It was covered in a layer of dust, but that was the least of its problems. The white pick guard had been broken to pieces and part of it was missing. The electronics-(the pick-up, jack, tone and volume control)-were lying in the hollowed out cavity of the body. They were faded and slightly rusty, but they might still work. One major problem was the piece of bright yellow adhesive tape with the scrawl of $25. There was no way that was gonna happen, at least not from me. If it was all in one piece and not too banged up I might give the ‘list’ price, but not in its sorry state. I’d determined that I would work out a deal for the guitar provided I didn’t have to fork out any actual, physical cash. I could then clean her up and bring her back to the land of the living or at least hang her on the wall.

Frank, the proprietor of this particular stall, preferred cash money but as this piece had been sitting for over a year he might just deal. Amazingly he agreed to swap even for a ¾ size children’s guitar which I’d picked up at a yard sale for $4. What a deal-and no actual cash changed hands! I was quite pleased with my trading prowess. However, on reflection this may have been Frank’s version of what they call in the retail industry a loss leader. You know the 24 rolls of Wal-Mart toilet paper for $3, which is a great deal, but then you wind up spending $37 on junk you never planned on buying in the first place. I left Frank’s booth with the beater and with an early 60’s Teisco bass, but that’s another story. Oh, I also left a trombone and a small chunk of change. Grrrrrrr.

The Pests were standing around in the parking lot at the Dairy Queen:  smoking, farting and discussing the set list for tonight’s show. They looked at my finds, shook their heads in dismay and piled back into the van. I dropped the Pests off at the Executive Inn and then headed for home planning out how to rehabilitate my new patient. I had a couple of hours before I had to get ready to play so I thought I’d jump in to the rehab. The first step was to try to clean off some of the accumulated years of grit and grime. I found an old pizza box to sit the guitar on, (so as not to scratch it), though at this point no one would probably notice any new blemishes. Then I tracked down my special spray bottle of guitar cleaner which was on top of the armoire next to the little xylophone-playing girl wind-up toy. I’d learned early on to use an actual guitar cleaner after accidentally dissolving the decals off of another pawnshop treasure. Who was to know that what I thought was a high school shop project which I’d picked up for $12 in a Galveston pawn shop, was actually a short lived American creation from St. Louis. It looked like a double necked, 6-string/12-string Frankenstein guitar. The “Stratosphere Twin” logo had disappeared in seconds along with about $300 in collector’s value. It still brought $200 from Guitar Emporium so it wasn’t a total bust. But anyway, I started cleaning up the guitar peeling away the layers like an archaeologist on a dig. Most of the major gunk was coming off, but I noticed that the top layer of veneer or more likely plywood was bubbling up in a few places. Elmer’s Carpenters glue and a few clamps would straighten that out. After taking care of the glue job, I set the body aside to dry and took the electronics inside for testing. I plugged the cord into the jack only to be greeted by a loud buzzing roar. Note to self: One should always turn off the volume before plugging in any electronic equipment, especially if you’ve been playing Hendrix the night before. I turned the volume down and tapped on the pickup. It worked. Further tapping and knob turning determined that the volume and tone controls also worked. Wow, this one might not end up as “just a wall hanger” after all.

Let’s see. The electrics work, the body’s somewhat clean; the next task was the pick guard. Pick guards are designed to protect the surface finish of a guitar, but they also often serve as the support for the pick-up and controls. As this guitar’s finish was pretty much finished already, I needed a pick-guard to mount the gear on. The original pick-guard was definitely smashed into pieces. It was missing several good sized chunks so it would have to be replaced. You can buy pre-made pick-guards for some popular models of guitars like Strats or Les Pauls, but this guy was not of the popular school.

Also, as I was trying to prevent having any $ outlay on this project, I began searching for alternative options. Looking up I noticed the fluorescent light above me. The fixture was covered with a sort of crystallized sheet of plastic which served to diffuse the light. Hmmm. My wife probably wouldn’t notice that it was missing, so I stood on a chair and worked the sheet out of the light frame. I placed the sheet on the pizza box, (so as not to scratch it) and traced the shape of the original pick guard with a black magic marker. The guitar was going to look so cool with this sort of shiny crystal like pick guard! However, my exuberance waned when I tried to cut the sheet. Scissors, tin snips even a razor blade-box cutter led to jagged fractures that spread like cracking lake ice during a spring thaw. I then noticed one of my daughter’s old “In Sync” posters hanging on the wall. The glass was actually a thick mylar sheet. Eureka! I put the mylar on the pizza box, (so as not to scratch it) and proceeded to trace the pick-guard again. This would look so cool. You’d be able to see the controls and wires through the clear cover sort of like those Ampex Dan Armstrong guitars from the 60’s. However, once again the material would not cooperate. It would not cut smoothly. I laid the “new” clear pick-guard, with its jagged little edges down on the pizza box. It looked like I was going to have to fork out some boot and buy some real pick-guard material after all, and probably even have to pay someone to cut it out. I stared down at the failed experiment in frustration.

But then, wonderment of all, that little light bulb went off again. The rough, clear, cut-out was sitting on top of the pizza box. The Box was from Homerun Pizza and had the image of a baseball player batting in the center. The way the cut out was laying, the words “Home Run” and the batting figure fit perfectly into the pick-guard shape. With trepidation I traced the shape and then used the razor blade to cut out the guard. It fit.

I screwed the new pick-guard into place and plugged her up. A flip of the switch, a few plunks and the sound of the 60’s beamed out into the ether. Aaah, another successful guitar rescue.

Help BUDDHA and the PESTS! We’re broke! We’ve got CD’s, songs, film treatments, amps and guitars for sale. Contact us today!!! [BUDDHAnthePESTS[-at-]aol.com]

Post by: Buddha and the Pests

Guitar Rescue: A True Story from MyRareGuitars.com