Corey P. said:
If that's the way the instruments are set up when he hands them to you and they're not to your liking you should absolutely tell him so and not accept it until it's right, or take it somewhere else. If it's a friend doing it for you, then, y'know, punch him. :icon_thumright:
That said, it's perfectly normal to need to make seasonal adjustments, and a 1/4 turn is often plenty - the problem with removing the string tension for more minor adjustments is that the neck will behave differently once back under tension.
Not a friend, but I think I'd like to punch him anyway ... :sad1: You know, in all honesty, I take the blame for not being explicit enough about what I want.
When he handed me the guitar last, I played it chromatically up to the 16th fret. I didn't actually try and eyeball the action and, while I like the fatter sound I get from the 12s, I attributed any difficulty up the neck to string mass, rather than an up-bowed neck.
For the longest time, I had only my acoustic, which had pretty high action -- which more than one person told me is typical -- and my MiM Strat which has the lowest action in the world, never buzzes and plays like butter. The MiM Strat is built like a brick shithouse and has needed next to no care in the course of the 8 years I've owned her.
I'm a drummer. I only got "serious" about playing the guitar a couple years ago. Bought my Hagstroms ... but found that the frets on the Swede were pretty terrible, so I took her in, got some of them hammered in, others dressed and leveled so they were all uniform, and got a set-up to boot, with the neck tensioned for D-standard. The Super Swede is superb, never needed a set-up, neck is ram-rod straight, plays like a dream. Lucky me, on that score.
Later, when I had to shift to playing more stuff in regular old E-standard, I knew the Swede's neck would need an adjustment, so I went to get one. Maybe not enough of an adjustment was made to compensate for the greater tension or maybe the ridiculous humidity has just wrought more havoc than I ever would have imagined. But Hag necks are supposed to be pretty stable due to their truss-rod design, so I'm just left to scratch my head.
It's pretty frustrating. :icon_scratch: