[MC5C]

Some might recall that I had an accident around a year ago, left me with nerve damage in my left arm and hand. Makes playing painful, so I've been setting up my acoustic archtops with ultra low action (.050" to .065" high and low E), extra light strings (.010" to .047"), tuning down a full step, and putting up with a little buzz. Did a complete fret dress and setup on one of them a month ago, had it playing great. Picked it up today, and action height on the neck extension was around.030" at the 18th fret, and relief had crept up a bit. So I figure the top is settling down for the dryer weather in the winter, and the truss rod needs a tweak. It took less than 1/8" turn on the double acting truss rod, and a bridge height adjustment that was around 1/16" and I had my ultra-low action back, and playing up the whole neck again. My takeaways from this are modern truss rods are sensitive as heck, trying to run an acoustic archtop like a shredder solid body electric is doable but dumb, and acoustic archtops lose a lot of tone with extra light strings. I also tune down to D-D, which probably doesn't help. But - after 14 months I can actually say I can play again, if only for ten or fifteen minutes at a time.