Guitar setup advice please guys???

[colinboy]

Hey guys,
I hope ye dont mind me asking for advice on this matter.Its not actually for a musicman guitar im having trouble.i bought a lovely guild acoustic guitar afew months ago and i need to change the string gauge and lower the action to make it abit more playable for myself as its hard on the fretting hand especially higher up the neck.id prefer to try and do it myself instead of bringing it to repair guy for setup as im fed up with giving them my hard earned cash.

 

[ivanmihaljevic]

Changing string height on a regular acoustic guitar is not an easy thing to do. Most acoustic guitars guitars do not have any kind of string height adjustment screws. You actually have to take out the plastic part of the bridge and cut it down a little bit, but the problem is - there's no way back.
If you're 100% sure that you want to do this, my advice is to take it to a professional.

 

[dstockden]

yeah listen to Ivan, if you mess it up its new bridge time (although i guess if you didnt take much off you could shim it back up a bit), best to take it to a pro.

 

[edstorer]

At the risk of stating the insultingly obvious, try adjusting the truss rod first. Most acoustic guitars take an allen wrench. To lower the action or adjust the relief for heavier strings, tighten the truss rod (clockwise). Before you tighten though, turn it a little bit counterclockwise to make sure it moves freely. Break truss rod & you're really going to hand some $$ to your local luthier.

Best of luck.

Ed

Two 1991 Silos and a bunch of other axes.
Three Fender amps.
And a partridge....

 

[pjc812]

What the other guys said, and drop a string guage first. If you're at 13-56, go 12-54 and so on. I wouldn't go lower than 11's Lowering the saddle height should be an absolute last resort, and even then taken under extreme consideration.

Guilds are awesome acoustic guitars. Lowering the saddle could potentially destroy the guitar's acoustic tone (assuming it's AC/EL) because an acoustic guitar is it's own amplifier. It requires a certain amount of pressure on the top to generate its tone and that pressure comes from string height, among other things.

Incidentally, how old is this guitar and what model is it? The New Store Stock Guilds I've played have all played like butter - once they've been strung with high quality strings.

 

[colinboy]

thanks for the advice my friend.i only got the guitar less than 6months ago.i havent touched the truss rod as i was afraid of doing damage but i looked up the guild website and read the user manuel so i will try and adjust truss rod myself tomorrow and see if it does any good.
heres a direct link to the model i bought.

Guild® Guitars | Made To Be Played Since 1953

 

[fsmith]

I'm not sure anyone else is doing this or not... A lot of people knock Ovation, but they did something that was pretty neat. They actually have three or four 1/32" shims under the bridge. I needed to lower the action on my 12 string and ended up removing a couple of the shims and giving the trussrod a tweak. The difference is like night and day.

It also gave me a new appreciation of the ingenuity of the EBMM trussrod system...

 

[gerry d]

Colin, I could do the job for you but I'm too far away, I 'd reconsider doing it yourself if you don't have any experience... a Guild is an expensive guitar...

 

[pjc812]

Those are great guitars for being Chinese. There's another thread around here regarding Schertler products, this is one of the guitars I installed a Schertler Blue Stick pickup in. Sounded great.

 

[colinboy]

your only up da road in derry so hop in your car and come to cork and fix me guild for me ha ha.i went onto the guild website and looked at user manuel and it mentioned trussrod adjusting.anyways i gave it afew turns clockwise to lower the action.it did seem to make adifference alright but i put on a capo on the 2nd fret and 1 or 2 of the string were buzzing abit so i turned it back alittle.i was considering changing to alower gauge maybe.would i have to fix intonation again if i changed string gauge?

 

[gerry d]

your only up da road in derry so hop in your car and come to cork and fix me guild for me ha ha.i went onto the guild website and looked at user manuel and it mentioned trussrod adjusting.anyways i gave it afew turns clockwise to lower the action.it did seem to make adifference alright but i put on a capo on the 2nd fret and 1 or 2 of the string were buzzing abit so i turned it back alittle.i was considering changing to alower gauge maybe.would i have to fix intonation again if i changed string gauge?

Tell you what I'll meet you half way in Galway...... seriously though get a pro to do it, it shouldn't cost much at all... I lowered the action on my Martin D28... and it made the world of difference...

 

[ivanmihaljevic]

your only up da road in derry so hop in your car and come to cork and fix me guild for me ha ha.i went onto the guild website and looked at user manuel and it mentioned trussrod adjusting.anyways i gave it afew turns clockwise to lower the action.it did seem to make adifference alright but i put on a capo on the 2nd fret and 1 or 2 of the string were buzzing abit so i turned it back alittle.i was considering changing to alower gauge maybe.would i have to fix intonation again if i changed string gauge?

Most acoustic guitars don't have an option to adjust intonation since they don't have movable saddles, so you don't have to worry about having to fix intonation