Official Luthiers Forum!

Oh yeah, you can make the zero level or slightly higher, it's a Luthier personal taste thing. In this instance when the complaint is too much effort to play the thing a level zero fret will be as low as the action can go (easily...) at the nut end.

Understood Hesh.
Needs a fret redress at least due to wear on the lower five frets.
The intention is to initially flatten the main fret plane with the truss rod, then dress the the zero fret level with that, set up the proper relief, see how it plays, and then measure how much I need to lower the saddle. I would decide whether to leave the zero fret level or slightly higher than the other frets at this stage.
Unfortunately for the client, the treble side saddle at the moment is quite low over the soundboard.
Strange for a guitar only 5 years old or so.
Dropping that enough to get the action down would leave it too low for volume/tone, I think personally.
I've now spoken to the client and discussed all this with him.
I'll have to do the maths properly tomorrow, but I'm thinking to suggest a graduated fret height, from +/-0.9 mm at the nut to around 1.1 mm at the 12th, which will keep the saddle around the same height I think, but lower the action by around 0.2 mm, then I can see how it feels, and maybe get another little bit off the saddle to get the action to a reasonable figure at the treble side, while addressing much of the high fret problem at the same time.
Otherwise, it's a neck reset (bolt-on neck) plus the fret job.

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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.

Colin my friend I just got back to this thread after using Titebond "extend" to glue a back back on a Martin. The glue name reminds me of a marital aid....

Your plan sounds good and good luck to ya.

I wanted to suggest that when a saddle gets pretty low the break angle often sucks and you can correct this by milling little string ramps into the bridge ramped toward the saddle. That can get some of the volume back and more importantly enough break angle with even a lower saddle so that you can set the action correctly without worrying about how low the saddle is and the insufficient break angle.

If the thing is in need of a neck reset soon or now you can improve things by concentrating when leveling frets on the first several fret positions and try not to remove material from the body joint area. This effectively increases the neck angle and at times can keep a guitar singing for a number of years before it's time to rip the neck off.

I just looked at this brand in so much as I've never seen one before and they look Martinesque and pretty conventional in design and build so the usual tricks might be helpful and that's why I'm suggesting some of them.

Good on ya too for doing repair work! It will improve, greatly improve your building chops AND the instruments that you build will likely have killer set-ups making them even more attractive to all who encounter them. Good going!

Thanks for the tips Hesh.
The bridge is also going to have to be lowered somewhat, there's only about 1.5 mm of saddle showing, and it's on the high side anyway, at over 0.375".
As the top of the bridge is more or less level all over, just rounded over at the back and front, the pin holes will have to be reamed out, new ramps made anyway, and the top of the holes countersunk again.
I'll probably fit unslotted pins while I'm at it, I'm sure they're slotted (plastic) pins. May as well do the job properly.
I've been doing repair work/setups anyway for decades, mostly on my own guitars and my friends'.
Now I've "officially" started a small business, so insurance, council rates, income tax, business cards, a bit of advertising, security etc. is (almost) all set up and running.
I had small "showing" in a crafts event locally over 12 days recently, with 3 of my guitars, and had a good enough response (especially to the set-ups) to justify having a stab at this (couple of definite orders, several repairs and more interest in guitars and building courses early next year)

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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.

How much over .375"?

That's 3/8", the common, standard steel string bridge height.

The typical string height over soundboard is 1/2"' which is 3/8 bridge, 1/8 saddle. I know you know this already, but if you're contemplating a bridge shave, some geometry ain't right.

You're not far wrong!
See end of above post, where it says

And an earlier post ...

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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.

This is dichotomous to me.

How can it be too low over the fretboard but too high over the soundboard?

Post multi beer, ymmv...

Hmm - sounds like you've have had a few already!
And who are you calling "whatever it is"otomous - Don't swear at me!

Let's see, as far as I remember, everything wot I've posted so far is about high action/high frets/low saddle (or string height above soundboard).
Don't have a clue where you got low over the fretboard and too high over the soundboard. everything I've posted is the exact opposite!
Suggest you have a look at it after the morning coffee, or just don't worry about it.
And thanks again for your Evo fret story.

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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.

Congrats on the new business and repair businesses are fantastic stalking horses for selling spec guitars!

You can take the bridge to around .340" if that's what it would benefit from AND you can take the treble side of the bridge a tad lower to improve break angle along with string ramps and that might get the thing more playable. Many makers make the treble side of their bridges lower anyway for this exact reason, improved break angle since the treble strings need to be lower than the bass strings.

There are many practices that come and go in terms of being frowned upon in the trade and some examples are cutting the fret board at the body joint to get the neck off. This is considered a "hack" solution these days.... Another practice that used to be more common than it is these days is shaving bridges to make them lower and get by longer before neck reset time. In the case of shaving bridges though there are lots of instances where the instrument is not valuable, well never be an iconic instrument and as such it's real value in life is it's ability to be played properly and the joy that it provides to the current steward. Often on some of these instruments a neck reset will never make economic sense and if you stand behind your work and I am sure that you do it can represent risk and liability to the Luthier as well if we attempt to take it on for less than going rates.

So shaving the bridge on some of these sorts of instruments is "appropriate for the instrument" and that phrase, "appropriate for the instrument" is one of our guiding principals. The other one is Hesh gets grouchy if he does not get lunch by 3:00PM....

We've been seeing a LOT of fairly new instruments that it seems neck reset time is arriving way early.... We are also seeing lots of cracks in tops as well and have a theory about why this may be.

In the states the great recession was the worst economic downturn since the not-so-great depression. $15T in mostly middle class wealth evaporated and along with it the single greatest risk of our profession from a business viability point of view kicked in....

Since we are service providers and not for antying critical to folk's survival we depend on the disposable income of others....

As the economy tanked guitar makers, the large f*ctories saw sales greatly decline....

Somewhere in each of these organizations are wood buyers who's mission is to procure the materials that will be used say 3 - 5 years from now after some seasoning. This expenditure does nothing for the organization in the near term and when revenues are seriously declining we suspect that some of the futures planning, stocking the stash, etc. was deemed a lower priority over keeping the lights on right now.... It's a theory and we can't know if it's valid but with all of the green wood related failures that we have been seeing now for a couple of years that's what we suspect.

Anyway I digress again....

I'd get grumpy long before then...
Similarly in the morning I need 2 cups of coffee before I'm fit to speak to!

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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.