setup and maintenance

Hello again and welcome to the third installment of Luthier's Corner. This month, I'd like to discuss a topic that has confounded guitar players for eons: setup and maintenance. OK, maybe not eons, but still. The most important thing to remember is that guitars are affected by temperature and seasonal changes. Therefore, it's not enough to just change strings and tune to pitch. It's these shifts in temperature and climate that cause shifts to occur on your guitar, such as too much relief in the neck to backbowing of the neck, depending on hot or cold, dry or damp air, etc. the first thing you want to do before starting a setup is check the straightness of the neck by sighting down the length of the neck from the headstock to the body, as in photo "A".

When sighting a neck, make sure to look at the curve of the fingerboard as it relates to the straightness of the low "e" string, and the same with the high "e" string. after sighting the neck, you want to do what I call the "bounce" test, which means taking your first finger of your left hand and fretting the first fret of the low "e" string, then take the pinky of your right hand and fret the highest fret on the low "e".Then you simply use your right hand thumb to "bounce" the string at the center of those 2 points to see how much relief the neck has. If it has more than 1 mm, you will need to tighten the truss rod. If it has no bounce at all, you will have to loosen the truss rod. More on that in a bit. OK, the next thing you want to check is your string action, or the height of the strings off of the frets. Ideally, you want to use a measuring rule that has 1/16" increments. I personally prefer a small aluminum rule that I have used forever. Everyone's action preference is different, so base yours on feel. Using the rule at the 12th fret, check to see that the action is consistently the same height from the bottom of each string to the top of the 12th fret across all 6 strings.

If you notice that the action is not consistent across all 6 strings, then you will have to make some adjustments at the bridge. This is important because you want the string action to match the fret board radius or curve. More on this in a bit as well. The next thing you want to do is a visual inspection of the fret board, to determine if it's got build up and needs cleaning or not. If the board is dirty, then you will want to give it a good cleaning and oiling. More on this in a bit.

OK, so you have your guitar laid out on your workbench, ideally, and want to know what to do first. Well, let's go over a list of tools that you will need. You want to make sure to have:

0000 steel wool, or a synthetic 000 steel wool pad A bottle of lemon oil fret board conditioner, NOT PLEDGE!! There are various brands on the market, and the Dunlop is the easiest to use for the novice because it has a cotton wad in the tip, which makes it easy to apply to the fret board. Clean soft cotton cloth to wipe off the excess lemon oil and buff the board to a nice shine. Another clean cotton cloth to wipe the guitar when you are finished. An Allen wrench, box wrench, or screwdriver with which to adjust the respective truss rod that your guitar has. A size 1 Phillips screwdriver and a small flathead screwdriver used for adjusting intonation of the bridge saddles. smaller Allen wrenches, depending on metric or standard, for the height screws of your saddles, if your guitar is a Fender style. 10mm socket for tightening the ferrules of modern tuning machines. Wire cutters for cutting the string ends. A string winder. Tuning fork or electronic tuner. Please see Photo "C" for a better idea.

OK, first things first. You've checked the straightness of the neck and find that it has a little too much forward bow. OK, remove the truss rod cover, if it's at the head stock, using the small phillips screwdriver. then, using the appropriate wrench that fits the nut of your truss rod, you want to tighten the rod an 1/8th of a turn at a time. Please see photo "B". If you are looking at the guitar from the head stock down to the body, then to tighten you would turn it to the right. Obviously if the neck has a backbow or is too straight with no relief, then you would do the opposite to adjust that. Remember the old adage-righty tightly, lefty loosey. it's better to use small incremental turns than it is to over tighten and possibly damage the rod, causing an expensive repair bill later. Ok so once you have the truss rod adjusted to just the right tension, it's time to move on to the action. Take your small ruler and measure the distance from the top of the 12th fret to the bottom of each string to see that the action is where you want it. Ideally, low action is 1/16". This is subjective to personal taste. Please see Photo "D".

At this point is when you determine if you remove all the strings to clean to board or not. If the board is dirty, remove all the strings, first loosening them, and then cutting and removing them. Then you take your steel wool and polish the fret board, in the same direction as the length of the frets, all the way from the nut to the last fret until most of the grime is gone. Please see Photo “E”. WARNING: This can only be done to an unfinished fret board such as rosewood or ebony. If your guitar has a finished maple fret board, DO NOT steel wool it. OK, after cleaning off the grime, it’s time to polish the board with the lemon oil. Don’t overdue it. If the kind you have is a pump spray bottle, spray some into the center of a clean rag and polish the board the same way you did with the steel wool. If you have the Dunlop, you can simply apply the wad end of the tip directly to the board and wipe on the oil, then using the wiping cloth to polish the board. Then wipe off the excess with the dry cloth. Now would be a good time to use that same cloth to wipe off the rest of the guitar and give it a bit of a shine as well. Please see Photo “F”.

OK time to put strings on. If your board is not dirty and therefore not in need of steel wool and polish, then remove the old strings one at a time, replacing each first before moving on to the next. Obviously if you just cleaned the board, then you need to install all 6 new strings. Ideally, you want to start with the low “E” string and move down the line accordingly. First, make sure to turn each tuner so that the hole is parallel with the nut. The next thing you do is pull the string through the bridge until it sits taught in the hole or slot, depending on the type of bridge your guitar has. Pull it to the tuner and wrap the string 2 full wraps around the post from the inside to the outside and then, with the string end now facing inward, pull it through the hole, making sure that the wraps are underneath, from inside to the outside edge of the fret board and then give the string end a sharp bend in the opposite direction of the wind, sort of like an “S” shape. Now tune it up. Do that for each string. Please see Photos “G” through “I” for more on this. After you tune the string to pitch, it is important to stretch the string in properly so it will hold its tuning reliably. The best way to do this is to grab the string, in front of the end of the fret board, with one finger and pull it up about an inch or so, giving a little “bounce” as you tug. Don’t pull hard enough to strain, just enough to stretch. The string will go flat and need to be returned. Keep doing this until it doesn’t go flat anymore. Please see Photo “J”. Naturally locking tuners are a different story and don’t require wrapping the string around the post. Then cut off the string end just past the bend you gave it. With locking tuners, you want the hole to actually be in line with the length of the neck and pull the string straight through the hole, then lock the string in, either by tightening the thumb wheel, or tuning the string to pitch while holding the string end taught, depending on the make of tuner on your guitar. I’ll cover that in a later issue.

OK, the guitar has new strings, tuned to pitch, the board is polished, the action is where you want it, and the neck has the right amount of relief. Just one more thing to do. You need to check the intonation and adjust it accordingly if it’s out. Now, there are different methods that can be used, and while the method I personally use is the most effective, it is the most involved. So I will briefly explain the simplest way to set your intonation that has the least amount of difficulty for the average player. This is where your digital tuner comes into play. Plug the guitar into the tuner and make sure that the guitar is at A “440” (standard) tuning. OK, now, starting with the low “e” string, play the 12th fret harmonic and see how it registers on the tuner. Then fret the 12th fret note and see how it registers on the tuner. The harmonic is the true note that the fretted note needs to duplicate.

So if the 12th fret note is sharp compared to the harmonic, then you need to adjust that strings bridge saddle back or farther away from the neck until it flattens and matches the harmonic. Naturally moving the saddle back will mean that the string will go sharp, so you have to retune the string to the correct open string pitch. Likewise, if the fretted note is flat compared to the harmonic, you need to move the saddle closer the neck until the 2 pitches match. Please see Photo “K”. And again, moving the saddle forward will make the string go flat, so it will need to be retuned to the correct pitch before checking the intonation again. Do this correctly for each string, and you should find your guitar to play more true, and chords should ring more with better clarity, not mention making it much more enjoyable to play.

OK looks like you are on your way to making your guitar play like a champ! Tune in next month when I will cover a few other aspects of the setup process in more detail, such as the differences in Gibson-style, Fender-style, and locking tremolo bridges, ideal pickup height settings for optimal tonal output and volume consistency, and more. Once again, thanks for reading my column and remember no task worth accomplishing is ever achieved if not pursued with fierce dedication. Believe in yourself, and make happen that glorious noise called music! Until next time remember, there is nothing you can't do if you set your mind to it! Cheers!!