Neck Relief
 

I'm curious. Do you fellows set your necks dead straight or with some relief? I'm pretty good with electric instruments, but I had not owned an acoustic for many years.

On my guitars which have a truss rod, with the action tweaked to my satisfaction, I straighten the neck (tighten the truss rod) until I get string rattle when playing, then back off until the rattling stops.

Once the relief is set, there will be some seasonal tweaking but it's in tiny amounts - an eighth turn at a time.

i like almost no relief.. but i probably do it that same way

but if i've to crank it up too much then I know there's something else wrong with the nut/saddle... then I'll turn my attention to those.

About .004-.005" for me.

Thank you Mr, Klepper. That's just about where I have it set right now, with a capo at the second fret, fretted at the 17th fret and measured at the 8th fret.

Thanks also to hann and taylorcc.

I'm with Howard- .004" is ideal for me. Up to .008" is still pretty playable, beyond that is too much.

Wow you guys are exact. I like it with very little relief, I just capo on the first, finger the body fret and make sure that string is just barely off the finger board in the middle. Wonder what barely off measures?
Steve

Around four or five thousandths (.004-.005), probably. That would be just barely over the thickness of a piece of average notebook paper.

That's interesting. I'm doing some work on a guitar saddle and the rest of the setup now, and I note that Taylor recommends .010 as their relief! Actually, I've found that to be pretty good if you are doing figerpicking with slide work. Using picks, and whether your tuning is down below std. or not all seem to have a big influence, also. And don't forget, that even though you aren't supposed to set action with the truss rod, there can be some significant interplay between that and relief!

i used to be quite technical with relief.. till i got tired of having to fret here and there and slide the gauges in and out

I just keep it as flat as I can without buzz on heavy strumming.. then after that happens, i'll work on the nut/saddle. Of course with my blind eye I just spot some light coming between the strings..