Hi to All,
I’m hoping to get some input on what would be a reasonable action on a Guild acoustic. I know I’m opening a can of worms but would like to get opinions from Guild owners and repair people that work on these GREAT guitars.
I have been doing minor repairs and setups for a lot of years with happy customers on my workmanship. I have done quite a few Gibson, Martin, and Guild acoustics and have always adjusted the action to the customers requested playing style or the lowest action available based on the guitars build. I recently had a customer that had brought in a 1987 Guild GF30 for a setup and checkup. He wanted a setup with the lowest possible action. The guitar had a high action of 8/64th on the bass and 6/64th on the treble at the 12th fret. I was able to get the action down to 6/64th on the bass side and 4.5 /64th on the treble by adjusting the truss rod (It’s now almost straight with just .004 at the 7th ) and humidifying the instrument. (It was really dried out!) . I always clean and polish the frets as part of the setup. The frets were checked and are level, with good crowns, but low. I did lower the height of the strings at the nut to a reasonable action at the first fret with no buzzing.
Here is the issue. The guitar plays GREAT with no buzzing on any frets and GREAT projection. The action ended up being 6/64th on the bass side and 4.5 /64th on the treble at the 12th fret. That’s from the 8/64th on the bass and 6/64th on the treble at the 12th fret when I received it. I didn’t have any room to lower the saddle because the saddle is right at the minimum height above the bridge. Any lower and it would lose the break angle and need a bridge shave or neck reset.
The customer claims that a Guild of this vintage should be able to achieve an action of 5/64th on the bass and 4/64th on the treble at the 12th fret. I tried to explain that every instrument is a bit different and not every guitar can be adjusted to a specific action height because of its characteristics. I said that I felt this was a very reasonable action for his guitar. While he loves the way the guitar sounds and everything else that I did on the instrument he wanted a full refund for the complete repair. I did some other touch up work besides the setup. Because I always give the customer the benefit of the doubt I did as he requested and did give him a full refund.
My question is the final action that I achieved, 6/64th on the bass side and 4.5 /64th on the treble at the 12th fret, considered a high action? Just trying to see if I’m crazy or the customer was being unreasonable.
Thanks to all dadroadie
dadroadie
I’m hoping to get some input on what would be a reasonable action on a Guild acoustic. I know I’m opening a can of worms but would like to get opinions from Guild owners and repair people that work on these GREAT guitars.
I have been doing minor repairs and setups for a lot of years with happy customers on my workmanship. I have done quite a few Gibson, Martin, and Guild acoustics and have always adjusted the action to the customers requested playing style or the lowest action available based on the guitars build. I recently had a customer that had brought in a 1987 Guild GF30 for a setup and checkup. He wanted a setup with the lowest possible action. The guitar had a high action of 8/64th on the bass and 6/64th on the treble at the 12th fret. I was able to get the action down to 6/64th on the bass side and 4.5 /64th on the treble by adjusting the truss rod (It’s now almost straight with just .004 at the 7th ) and humidifying the instrument. (It was really dried out!) . I always clean and polish the frets as part of the setup. The frets were checked and are level, with good crowns, but low. I did lower the height of the strings at the nut to a reasonable action at the first fret with no buzzing.
Here is the issue. The guitar plays GREAT with no buzzing on any frets and GREAT projection. The action ended up being 6/64th on the bass side and 4.5 /64th on the treble at the 12th fret. That’s from the 8/64th on the bass and 6/64th on the treble at the 12th fret when I received it. I didn’t have any room to lower the saddle because the saddle is right at the minimum height above the bridge. Any lower and it would lose the break angle and need a bridge shave or neck reset.
The customer claims that a Guild of this vintage should be able to achieve an action of 5/64th on the bass and 4/64th on the treble at the 12th fret. I tried to explain that every instrument is a bit different and not every guitar can be adjusted to a specific action height because of its characteristics. I said that I felt this was a very reasonable action for his guitar. While he loves the way the guitar sounds and everything else that I did on the instrument he wanted a full refund for the complete repair. I did some other touch up work besides the setup. Because I always give the customer the benefit of the doubt I did as he requested and did give him a full refund.
My question is the final action that I achieved, 6/64th on the bass side and 4.5 /64th on the treble at the 12th fret, considered a high action? Just trying to see if I’m crazy or the customer was being unreasonable.
Thanks to all dadroadie
dadroadie