Setups: DIY or take it to a pro?

[personatech]

It's time to do a little fine-tuning on the setup of my two acoustic guitars, a Seagull S6 and an Eastman E1OM. I've owned the Seagull for a bit over a year after having bought it new; the Eastman arrived about a month ago. Neither has been professionally set up but the out-of-the-box setups were sufficient and only required a small tweak of the truss rod.

I've been considering taking them both to a pro for a good setup, but the closest luthier I would trust is an hour and a half drive away in the Raleigh area.

It occurred to me that for the cost of a couple of setups, I could buy a decent toolkit and do the work myself. I've been adept at setting up my basses and electric guitars for years but, admittedly, acoustics are very different animals. I suppose that, were I to screw up, I can chalk it up as lesson learned and have a luthier fix my "handiwork." FWIW, I do already have Erlewine's Guitar Repair book, so at least I have that covered.

Hopefully, some AGFers have taken this plunge and could provide some advice?

[jklotz]

It's not all that difficult. If you can do your electrics, why not an acoustic?

My advice would be to watch some you tube vids then follow the steps in the book. If you think you are getting in over your head, stop and take it to the luthier.

PS - Don't ever force a truss rod. If you break off the end with the nut, you'll be looking at some major surgery to get it back.

[rokdog49]

If you are patient, diligent and have the proper tools and parts, there is no reason why you can't do this yourself.
The abundance of "how to" on You Tube will afford you the step by step directions you will need.
The real issue is, do you want to? I understand the driving distance situation.
For a real setup by a Pro, I would make the drive. YMMV.

[B. Adams]

I all your setup is going to involve is cleaning, a string change, and tweaking the truss rod, those are easy things to do at home. Some very minor fret work is relatively easy too, as long as you're super, super careful with abrasives and files. Saddle adjustments are more challenging to get right, and nut work is another difficulty level altogether. Neck resets or anything of that sort is beyond what most DIYers can handle, obviously.

I'm in the process of upgrading/adding to my tool kit, and I have another $400-$500 or so to go until I'll be relatively happy with my tool selection, although that includes some fancy things that aren't necessary for a typical setup job. I could pay for quite a few setups with that kind of money, but like you, I'm an hour away from any "professional" guitar techs, and I'd rather do my own work anyway.

I think anyone with decent tools and a bit of mechanical ability can setup a guitar, but there's something magical about a really good setup, which very few people can do at home and not every "pro" can do in their shop. Just be careful and don't do any irreversible damage!

[beninma]

I'd say go for it since you seem mechanically inclined.

For the Nut & Saddle both would I would do is see if you can order replacement nuts & saddles from Seagull & Eastman respectively. You don't need them but they can serve as your insurance policy/backup. Particularly for the saddle if you screw it up it's trivial to drop the replacement one back in and be back to where you were.

Maybe read something like a Dan Erlewine book that covers setup. Get some decent nut files, action gauge/straightedge, and some feeler gauges.

My guitars are similar value to yours I guess, I still felt nervous doing them but I took it slow & careful and got good tools and both came out fantastic.

I have debated what would I do if I went and bought a much more expensive guitar, say $4000-5000 range. (Both mine were originally $650 made in mexico guitars.) I've played a lot of guitars up to about the $5k range and almost none of them seemed like they were any better setup than my $650 guitars were, particularly with respect to the nut. There have been a few outlier guitars I've picked up that had already been setup incredibly well. One was a Nash Telecaster style. The other was a Taylor Builder's edition that was a demo model at a road show.

I made the decision to get tools & learn to do my own setup after feeling like I was getting the runaround from local techs/luthiers. I was attributing this to them not wanting to waste their time helping someone with modest guitars. But I don't think that is the case.. I have an acquaintance who bought an 800 series Taylor in the last year that needed setup work and he got major runaround and had to go to 3-4 different techs before anyone did quality work and got it right. The shop he bought it from was totally unhelpful.

[Tahitijack]

One of our now departed mom and pop guitar shops had a sign in their repair shop that said "We fix do it yourself jobs". My first guitar included a free set up. I'm not mechanically inclined and they did excellent work so one of my few luxuries was to have my guitars set up there. Played like butter after.

[Mike Sylvia]

If you want it done right, do it yourself. I see far too many techs who have zero clue as to what they are doing. I've never been to a GC that has a tech worth his/her weight in salt. If I needed anything like a neck reset, I would send it to the original manufacturer.

[beninma]

Originally Posted by Mike Sylvia

If you want it done right, do it yourself. I see far too many techs who have zero clue as to what they are doing. I've never been to a GC that has a tech worth his/her weight in salt. If I needed anything like a neck reset, I would send it to the original manufacturer.

I hear you on GC "techs".

As far as I can tell the only way I would expect to get a good setup is if I take my gauges & such and measure the current setup on the guitar in thousandths of an inch and then give the tech a detailed sheet explaining what specs I want for all the adjustments.

E.x. Neck Relief: Specified in thousandths of an inch with a capo at the first fret and the string fretted at the last fret the truss rod is supposed to have an effect on.

Nut slot clearance above first fret for each string specified in thousandths of an inch for each string.

Clearance from top of 12th fret to bottom of each string specified in 64ths of an inch

Give them a worksheet and then they know exactly what you want. But if you're prepared to figure out how to write that spec you're probably part way to just doing it yourself.

[vintageom]

I have worked on my own guitars and those belonging to friends since 1971 and have learned how to do a lot, but I know my limitations, which are:

Refrets
Fret leveling and crowning
Neck resets

[vindibona1]

I think in terms of DIY, there are two caveats: 1) Are the nut slots cut PERFECTLY and is it easy to play your cowboy chords without too much hand strain? 2) Are the frets PEFECTLY LEVEL all the way up the fingerboard? If you can put checkmarks in both those boxes a DIY setup is in order. The one thing I will *never* touch is the nut. That takes know-how, experience and touch as we're dealing with thousandths of an inch to get it right...or wrong. And level frets shouldn't be taken for granted even with expensive guitars. I've seen $4000 guitars come from the factory with unlevel frets.

If those two things are in order, then it comes down to neck relief and string height/action from the saddle height. If your guitars don't currently have bone saddles, now might be a perfect time to swap some in. By changing the saddles you don't run the risk of irreversibly messing up what you have. Bone saddles can be had for $15 each, so probably less cost than the fuel to drive to the luthier.

Good luck


Good luck.

[Ed66]

I've only got one decent shop in town and I thought I was getting good setups until I ordered an Alvarez Masterworks off the internet that came in with a perfect (for me) setup. I didn't know what I had been missing. At that point, the only other tools I needed were a good set of nut files. I went ahead and picked them up, along with a backup bone nut and saddle in case I botched anything. As has been stated, there is plenty of good info on guitar setup out there on YouTube. Just take your time and don't rush things. I've found the best sequence is to make sure your truss rod is adjusted to the proper relief, make adjustments to the nut and finally the saddle. Since I've lucked upon my "golden setup" as I'll call it, I just take measurements from it and apply to my other guitars to get them to match. I've setup 4 different guitars in the past year and they all play great.

The bottom line is, if you're at all handy with tools and spend some time to understand what you're doing, the chance of anything bad happening is very remote.

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by Mike Sylvia

If you want it done right, do it yourself. I see far too many techs who have zero clue as to what they are doing. I've never been to a GC that has a tech worth his/her weight in salt.

Here's the Catch 22.

Most guitar players play instruments that are poorly setup and most of those players don't know the difference. Many players decide they want to learn to do their own setups, but don't know what a really good setup is as they have never had one. So, they do their own setups producing an "okay" setup, rather than a really good one. Once they have done a few, they start doing them for other people, most of whom also have no experience with a really good setup. Some go on to get a job doing setups at a local store, Guitar Center or otherwise. And, the circle is complete. A lot of the advice given on this forum regarding setup and adjustment is by such folks. (No, just 'cause you can, doesn't mean you should adjust the truss rod as a first line of defence against any playing malady.)

If one has the desire to do so, and is willing to acquire the tools and experience to do so, I'm all for people doing their own setups. However, as Dirty Harry said, "A man has got to know his limitations".

[Blueser100]

Lots of good advice. But be careful about info on You Tube videos, there's a lot of wrong information out there. A couple of reliable sources are Stew Mac and frets.com. They have guides and photos that provide some guidance on the correct way to setup your acoustic guitar.

https://www.stewmac.com/How-To/Onlin...tructions.html

[beninma]

Originally Posted by vindibona1

I think in terms of DIY, there are two caveats: 1) Are the nut slots cut PERFECTLY and is it easy to play your cowboy chords without too much hand strain? 2) Are the frets PEFECTLY LEVEL all the way up the fingerboard? If you can put checkmarks in both those boxes a DIY setup is in order. The one thing I will *never* touch is the nut. That takes know-how, experience and touch as we're dealing with thousandths of an inch to get it right...or wrong. And level frets shouldn't be taken for granted even with expensive guitars. I've seen $4000 guitars come from the factory with unlevel frets.

The nut is just not that hard if you read how to do it and get the tools.

It is not a thing where you file once and you just took 5/1000ths of an inch off the slot. As long as you're not a hamfist and you got decent tools you can work really slowly and be very precise. Work slow and check your work constantly and you can lower a slot by 1/1000th of an inch and no more if you want to. Some nut materials are so hard that's just the way it works. Others are softer but still easy to work with.

It honestly feels to me like it's harder to be precise sanding a saddle. The thing with the nut is you're adjusting pre-made slots. The guitar is acting as a fixture holding the nut in place. If you stack feeler gauges like you're supposed to the gauges act as a stop on the file.

When you work on the saddle everyone tells you to just hand sand it on a piece of sandpaper. No jig or tooling to force you to hold it level and sand it evenly in all directions. Oops.. you just lowered the treble side more than the bass side. Oops, the bottom of the saddle is no longer perpendicular to the bridge. Etc, etc, etc...

[personatech]

Originally Posted by Mike Sylvia

If you want it done right, do it yourself. I see far too many techs who have zero clue as to what they are doing. I've never been to a GC that has a tech worth his/her weight in salt. If I needed anything like a neck reset, I would send it to the original manufacturer.

Yeah, the dealer I bought the Seagull from said, "We have a tech guy who does good work." I asked how much a setup would cost; he said, "About forty bucks, including the strings." Further comments suggested that the extent of the setup was pretty much what I already do at home - no comments on nut or saddle adjustment! A shame really - he's much closer to me and I like to support small shops when I can.

There's a supposedly excellent luthier in Cary ("FretKing") as well as many in Raleigh and Durham (Harry's and Guru Guitars in Raleigh, High Strung in Durham) who I would be much more comfortable with. Again, that would be a drive...

To the others who have encouraged me to take the plunge - thanks! Were I to decide right now, this is how I'd go but I am still open to other opinions.