Differential Equations, or setting up a new neck from scratch

S

swarfrat

Guest
I've done plenty of intonation and string height setups, neck relief...not a lot of fret work. I've recently dabbled with nuts. But so far they've all been incremental changes to existing guitars.

When you're starting from our of the box, and a nut from scratch... Where do you start? I'm trying to get the nut done first. Seems logical and necessary. But everything affects everything else. 

Is the order nut, relief, action? Can't really set action without a slotted nut but relief just needs full tension right?
 
You got it, nut, relief action.
That order.
Set you nut 1st.
Now just string it up. It doesn't matter what the action is as we will finger/capo at the 1st and 12-14th (or so fret). Measure relief at 6th-7th fret (depending on your finger/capo) and set.
Now set action.
 
I got my string spacing set and the two e's (or in my case E and f' - I tune many of my guitars in P4)  are close to final height. I wasn't sure about trying to get them all the way dialed in before getting the relief set, but I guess that's ok.

 
The first thing is the neck relief.    The Truss rod takes a period of time to settle in, so I generally can't get a good setup on the first day. 

For the action height and intonation adjustment, it's an iterative process.  Especially for the nut, I am wary to remove too much in one go.  It  takes me several months of playing, measuring and filing away small amounts until the nut is set to the correct height.

 
You can set neck relief 1st if desired. Neither nut height or action is taken into consideration when setting. But there is no need to do so, and it limits your future possibilities.

I prefer nut adjustment 1st as once that is set, it allows me options in relief vs action adjustments to achieve my goal. To say, more than 1 way to skin a cat.
I may prefer a lower action and more relief, OR higher action and less relief. You can't make those decisions without you nut already being set.


 
Oh and I suggest that considering you are using a normal nut. If using one that uses shims to adjust, then the world is your oyster.
 
This is an duck. 7.25" radius boat neck but it's strung with 12's and I'm shooting as low as I possibly can get them on a 7.25" radius. This ain't your Lennywannabe
 
@#$_&. I got one of the slots way off. I was going outside to inside. So I got 1,6,5,2 cut
When I went to cut 4 I realized 5th string is off.

Going to see how that super glue trick works.
 
swarfrat said:
Going to see how that super glue trick works.

It saved the slot for the B string on my cheapo 5-string bass kit when I filed it too deep. Still need to tear that thing apart and start over from the ground up (literally; had a beast of a time getting the wiring correct on it), but for now, the superglue thing works.
 
I tried the super glue with bone dust. It's regular viscosity and I think it's too thick or too old or just needs accelerator. Overnight and it's still soft down deep. I guess I'll be starting a new blank. Scritch scratch.....
 
swarfrat said:
I tried the super glue with bone dust. It's regular viscosity and I think it's too thick or too old or just needs accelerator. Overnight and it's still soft down deep. I guess I'll be starting a new blank. Scritch scratch.....

Try doing the filing wet. Cyanoacrylate cures immediately on exposure to water.


 
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