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Ringo, yep! Ruler works fine for me. If you are shooting for 1/1000 of an inch accuracy for action setup you are working way to hard

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

C'mon guys, let's get real about some of these numbers!


Why so high at the first fret? For every other fret trio, you'd put a fret rocker across and expect it not to rock - every fret trio, all over the neck. Here you'd have a 0.015" gap over fret 1 if you used a fret rocker between the nut and fret 2. So fretting at 3, clearance over 1 should be veeeerrry close to zero. I leave just a puffteenth to allow for a bit of nut wear.

So take the nut height down to zero, and that takes the action at 12 down by ~0.0075" which leaves you with an action at 12 of 0.0385", or ~1mm for the rest of the world. On an acoustic guitar?? Medium/high action at 12, first string, acoustic guitar (lights, 12-53) is 2mm. So with action at 1mm you're reducing the dynamic range by a factor of 4 (power is proportional to string amplitude squared). As a bare fingernails player, I'd struggle to pluck with a string amplitude of less than 1mm and why sacrifice so much dynamic range?


Exactly. The trick is to make a 2mm set up (1st sting, fret 12) feel like a 1mm set up, which, as Ringo suggests, means a lot more than just action numbers. It's about string break angles (both ends), straightness of string pulls, length of string "overhang", fretboard curvature, string spacing, neck profile, etc. etc. etc. You know when you've got it right when a player asks "Are these 10s?" when, in fact, they're 12s.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Just wanted to point out that the SM set up gauge is marked in increments of .010" which is roughly equal to one half of a 64 th. So it would appear accuracy is about the same and the rest is semantics.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Subtle.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I shoot for .070-.090 too. The Stewmac gage is great. The decimal measurements staggered horizontally are very easy to read.

I was born into fractions. Unsatisfied and idealistic, I experimented with metric. Then, decimals saved me.

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Pat

Trevor, those are my notes from Kent Everett's setup DVD. They feel pretty good to me. Are you saying a good medium high action above the 12th fret with light gauge strings would be twice as high?

Edit.

I went to a guitar makers festival recently and found that most of the instruments on display were set up far too low for my taste.
Some were really difficult to play fingerstyle without buzz on the bass strings and the trebles sounding choked.
Unfortunately many use a 12th fret string height as the measure of an instruments quality, but having string clearance is just a physical necessity, however well levelled the frets are.
Don't sacrifice sound and dynamics for numbers, play hard in a big room and hear what it sounds like.

Words to live by I would say.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

A good medium-high action above the 12th fret with light gauge strings (12-53) is 2mm. That's twice as high as the low action quoted (once the nut height has been set properly). With the nut properly set up, the action would actually be lower over the first few frets on my set-up numbers and less susceptible to fret rattle than when using Kent's low action set-up numbers. Plus the fact that you can actually pluck the strings!

Agreed. There's nothing quite like a well plucked steel string guitar in a good room!

BTW, if any of you are having trouble measuring, try a wedge gauge. Personally, I normally use a 300mm (12") rule which is wide enough to span frets 11 and 12 and read off the 1mm scale interpolating to 0.1mm. I'd say my read accuracy is +/- 0.1mm (0.004"), but I need to put my glasses on for that, these days!

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

If you're doing setups in thousandths of an inch, I suspect that slight variations in humidity will keep changing your numbers. Probably same if you 'think' you are using fractions of millimeters.

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Under Compensated Nut!

I also use the SM setup gauge. While true that the graduations are at .010, for me it is very easy to split those lines and get much closer. I have done that for over 30 years with a Starrett scale and a microscope for countersinks and am usually good to .002-.003 verified by various high quality measuring equipment. Pretty easy to gauge the lines and gaps on the SM gauge especially with with some kind of loupe. Do worry a little about parallax error on the D-G strings but it is not much. Lot easier for me than tapping over feeler gauges or trying to to read heavy lined scale that is rocking on 1 fret.

Tim

Precision accounting? The derision is mounting.
...but a foolish "vision" breeds cruel misprision.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I don't know about anyone else, but I could use a recap:

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Meddlingfool - I go .090 bass .070 treble as my standard. People can ask for adjustments from there.

ChuckB - On a spec guitar, I shoot for .092" E and .065" e.

Brian Howard - I think most repair folks and road tech's seem to use the half 64th as a standard, usually wrote as follows. 4.5-3, which is my typical low action and 6-4.5 would be my high action.

James Orr - LOW ACTION: Treble: .045” Bass: .075”
MEDIUM ACTION: Treble: .060” Bass: .090”
HIGH ACTION: Treble: .075” Bass: .105”

James Ringelspaugh - For me 64ths are easy to read on my best small ruler so that's what I think in terms of. 5 - 3.5 at the 12th fret is generally a very good low setup for light gauge PB strings from 6th to 1st... I'll take the 6th down to 4.5 with a medium gauge set depending on playing style.

Trevor Gore - Medium/high action at 12, first string, acoustic guitar (lights, 12-53) is 2mm.

Pat Macaluso - I shoot for .070-.090.

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I think that's where things stand so far. Thanks for sharing your target numbers, fellas.

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George :-)

Yup, I target Bryan Kimsey's numbers as well and have been getting better results with each of my guitars. However, as a relative rookie and a right-brain builder, I'm always striving to understand what, how and why others are thinking, as it helps me build a more complete grasp of the geometry.

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George :-)

I used Bryan Kimseys for a few years and then switched over to the numbers John Arnold was using at the time which were lower at the nut and a bit more evenly balanced at the 12th fret. Not sure if Bryans numbers have changed since then so very possible they could now be the same. Maybe John will jump in and explain what he is doing. At some point someone has to ask " What kind of music do you play?" " What gauge strings are you using?". Action can be lower for a light fingerstyle player than someone who is heavy strummer or a heavy picker playing mediums.

Tim

Thanks, George.

Don't forget that there are two ends of the string that control the action at 12. There's not been a whole lot of focus on the end where most of us play, where we feel it most.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

So true about the nut. Also true about truss rod adjustment. A little bow or lack there of, will make a significant contribution to final setup

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

I seem to have come late to this party, but I'll offer two comments:
Yes, I saw this on Kent's DVD as well, and frankly it's never made any sense to me -- and I guess Trevor Gore responded in a similar way. If fretting at the 3rd fret, the clearance over fret 1 should be and can be MUCH smaller. Most guitars I see have high string slots and there's often more room for improvement in playing comfort at the nut than at the 12th fret.

The setup figures I use are very similar to those published by David Freeman in American Lutherie (2009, Vol 99: 6-11, 51). Not surprising, I suppose, as I trained with David and my course notes agree well with what he published (there is an obvious conversion error somewhere in the published table, but I can't remember where). I have these reworked into an Excel table in both '000ths inches and mm, and have it taped on my shop wall for easy reference. I don't think I can attach an Excel file here, but I've attempted to attach it as a pdf. I measure string height UNFRETTED over the first fret and shoot for 0.010" for the high E and 0.020" at the bass side (decreasing across the board in increments of 0.002").

How do I measure this? I used to use rulers and automotive feeler gauges, but switched 2 years or so ago to the Stewmac "Nut Slotting Gauge" http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Special_tools_for_Nuts_and_saddles/Nut_Slotting_Gauge.html. At $60 it's a bit pricey and the dial indicator is not available in metric. But, I ALSO use this for ALL string height measurements above the frets, including fingerboard relief and action at the 12th fret. I have no idea why Stewmac make no mention of these other uses -- it works perfectly, is FAST and precision is better than ±0.0015", which is much better than I can do with rulers, business cards, height gauges and/or feeler gauges. My ageing eyes are appreciative and it means I have a very precise measurement recorded for every instrument I set up and can reliably quantify change from one set up to the next. I think it was money really well spent -- I'm surprised no one else has mentioned it.

Tim, thanks for the setup guide pdf and recommend for the gauge.

Sorry to be dumb about this but could someone please tell me; when 1st and 6th string are referred to, which is the bass and which treble.
Need to make sure, don't want do another things backward. Thanks!

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

No such thing as a dumb question. By convention, strings are numbered starting at the treble side.


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