#16
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I have always done my own setups.
I like my action a little higher than factory setups. As far as the saddle goes I shim with credit card and paper strips till it is just right then measure with a micrometer to fit a new one. The last was a new Eastman and the off the shelf replacement was just right about 3/32" taller than the factory one. Like I said I like my action a little high. A bonus is no one asks to play my guitars. Nut slots, I had a tool made that rides on the frets and holds a piece of hacksaw blade ground to a sharp point. The blade is set to cut 0.050" higher than the fret plane. A little pencil dust in the cut gives a bottom when I cut the string slots. A set of gas nozzle broaches makes a good slot final gage. When I built my banjo I used a zero fret and a 1/16' piece of brass as a string separator / nut. I would post a picture but can't figure it out.
__________________
"My opinion is worth every penny you paid for it." "If you try to play like someone else, Who will play like you". Quote from Johnny Gimble The only musician I have to impress today is the musician I was yesterday. No tubes, No capos, No Problems. |
#17
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When it comes to adjusting the truss rod (for neck relief) or adjusting saddle heights, I can do that.
Everything else, I don't trust myself to mess it up, so I gladly pay $50-75 to get a setup done from a trusted tech.
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Furch Little Jane Limited 2020 LJ-LC (Czech Rep.) Alpine/Cocobolo Furch Little Jane LJ 10-SR (Czech Rep.) Sitka/EIR Hex Sting P300 (Indonesia) Sitka/Lam.Sapele |
#18
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OMMV |
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#21
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Assuming is not knowing. Knowing is NOT the same as understanding. There is a difference between compassion and wisdom, however compassion cannot supplant wisdom, and wisdom can not occur without understanding. facts don't care about your feelings and FEELINGS ALONE MAKE FOR TERRIBLE, often irreversible DECISIONS |
#22
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I think OP would be well-served by taking the road trip, getting the instruments professionally set up, and have a comprehensive conversation with the person who did the work. And offer to pay for the conversation. Lots to learn, all easily overlooked. Being well informed from the beginning is really valuable.
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#23
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I've done my own set ups on my electric guitars. Basically, this involved tweaking the neck relief and setting the bridge height along with adjusting the saddles for intonation. I've never messed with the nut and any fret work was left to a pro.
An acoustic set up usually involves tweaking the nut, saddle and neck relief and maybe some fret work. Work on the nut, saddle and frets involves removing some material and I would much rather a pro do that as he would have plenty of experience at those endeavors.
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=================================== '07 Gibson J-45 '68 Reissue (Fuller's) '18 Martin 00-18 '18 Martin GP-28E '65 Epiphone Zenith archtop |
#24
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"I'm not comfortable with doing it" is 100% legit. "It's too expensive to get tools" is silly if you've got thousands of dollars worth of gear, especially if a single setup starts to run up towards $100 in your area. |
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Taylor 717 BE WHB Eastman E6OM TC |
#28
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I can't post a picture here. I got the plan for the tool from a Frets Magazine back in the 1970's. I had a machinist friend make it for me.
__________________
"My opinion is worth every penny you paid for it." "If you try to play like someone else, Who will play like you". Quote from Johnny Gimble The only musician I have to impress today is the musician I was yesterday. No tubes, No capos, No Problems. |
#29
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Everything in the embedded video is wrong, dont do it that way. You can do a saddle and relief but you wont be able to do the nuts correctly. It takes a lot of experience because it isnt just getting the nut slot a bit higher than the fret. Correctly done, the nut slot is supposed to be curved shape so that the string lays in it all the way to the departure off the nut. Of course you could buy some blanks and spend time setting the maximum height with feeler guages and then practice getting the curve correct but how are you going to know if its correct?
Ill do the bottom end adjustments but not the nut. It will go to the best tech I can find. |
#30
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Tesla is a super ridiculous analogy cause no one is talking about $5000 worth of tools here, the tools are cheap and don't have any associated maintenance costs and take less space than a shoe box to store. And there is nothing proprietary or secret about a guitar setup, unlike a Tesla. Tesla won't give you a manual, won't sell you parts, and will fight you tooth and nail if you try to have anyone but them touch your car. And a Tesla probably has 10,000x the # of parts a guitar has, and has many items that if not assembled correctly can kill you. Nothing you do to a guitar is life or death. (Meanwhile probably more of us *should* go ahead and learn to do some basic car maintenance.) But the main point is if you're afraid to try you can't learn, and if you're in that boat you might want to be careful telling everyone else it's too hard to learn. This kind of attitude in general is why no one is handy at fixing anything anymore. Everyone thinks you have to be a professional with years of training to do anything and everyone should stay in their lane and only do whatever they went to school for. Good thing the people who actually invented guitars and all the associated gear didn't have this attitude back in the day. Stuff like angling the nut slot is no more difficult than holding a knife at the correct angle on a stone while you sharpen it. It's just not that hard to learn. Also so many of us here have had bad experiences with techs. They don't warranty their work. 99% of them are not factory authorized to work on the guitar. They give you no guarantee of their work. 2 out of the 3 setups I paid for they never even bothered to touch the nut. A lot of places act like they're afraid to touch your guitar and try to talk you out of having them do anything. Mostly cause most of us can't tell them in plain language what they want and they're afraid they're going to change the setup and then we don't like it. And there aren't that many of them and a lot of us would have to drive a long way or ship guitars to have stuff done! |