What do you like your relief and action set at?

Matt300ZXT

Matt300ZXT

Well-known member
I got a buddy that wanted me to tweak and set up his FGN Les Paul. I was going to buy this guitar from him a while back before I got the 95 Studio that I got and put sweet dubbel kreem DiMarzios in. He mentioned the action was a little too high for him, but he doesn't like it super low. Also, he mentioned he thought he was noticing some sympathetic vibration in the guitar, like one of his other guitars was doing. He said he couldn't find a sweet spot with truss rod adjustment and action though so that's why he wanted me to do it.

Anywho, I took a couple measurements right out of the case when I got it home. The bass side at the 12th fret was 6/64ths, which is a little high, the treble side was around 6.5-7/64ths, which is almost twice the standard. I took the strings off, flattened the fretboard and rocked the frets. It only had 2 barely high frets, 2 and 4. A few taps of the brass hammer knocked them back in and fixed that. The fretboard absolutely drank up the conditioner like a fish and the paper towel was almost black from where I had oiled it and rubbed it into the board. I got it back together and raised the action a little to start getting some of the buzziness out of the high registers (he's not really a solo player anyway) and tweaking the truss rod to get some of the buzziness out of the middle of the fretboard, around positions 7-10. I don't have a capo or feeler gauges (at least not here, they're in storage) so I had to do the ol' fret at the first and where the neck meets the body and eyeball/tap the 7th fret trick to see how much spacing there was there.

I'll have to wait until he comes to pick the guitar up to see if he likes the way it plays now, if not, I can tweak the truss rod or action a little while he's here until it gets to where he likes it. For using 10s in standard, and having the tailpiece down on the body (I like it higher up for a bit slinkier feeling string tension), it plays noticeably easier than it did when I first got it here. I'd say cutting the action of the treble side down so much really helped a lot. I think I have the bass side set at 5/64ths and the treble side about 4-4.5/64ths now.

After letting it sit all night and acclimate, there is still a little buzzing on the A and D (mostly the D) strings around frets 9-14 that, even with a noticeable dip around the 10th'ish fret when looking down the neck of the guitar. He said he's going to bring his feeler gauges when he picks it up, so that way if we get a setting he really likes, he'll have hard numbers to keep on record and can set all his guitars up to those specs. I never had a particular set of specs to set a guitar to, I always just did mine by feel, so a tech would have a hard time setting it up "how I like it" because I never had any numbers to give them. Now that I do my own, and have the tools, I can set one up to a spec I like and save the info (once I buy a capo and get my feeler gauges out of storage) and replicate it on other guitars.

However, I never heard any of these sympathetic vibrations he was talking about in the guitar. I think he's hearing something that isn't really there. We'll see when he comes to pick it up. He may even want the action set higher on the bass side to get rid of a little of the buzzing up there, but there's only so high you can set a guitar's action before it just gets too difficult to play comfortably. I hope he isn't expecting absolute perfection, because guitar is not an instrument that can attain absolute perfection.
 
I prefer my necks a bit on the flatter side myself. My Les Paul is set up fairly flat with a Faber bridge with 9s in standard and getting practically no buzz at all, but his is getting a little more. Every guitar is different. Maybe when he gets here he'll want the neck set a little more flat and I can take some of the relief out and flatten it back a bit. I was hoping he'd be here while I was doing it so he could play it as I went through the various steps and I knew a bit more of what I was shooting for rather than a shot in the dark as to what he wanted.
 
Set all my guitars up the same way. Surprisingly when I heard how John Suhr sets up guitars, I was pretty damn close.
I check the relief, using the D string, not the low E string.
Hold the D string down at the first fret, and whatever fret where the neck meets the body.
Tighten the trust rod until there is minimal relief like a pubic hair of relief.
Action at 4/64ths at the 12th fret.

On a Les Paul style bridge, or a Floyd, action at 4/64ths under the low E, and high E at the 12 th fret.
 
CarlF said:
Set all my guitars up the same way. Surprisingly when I heard how John Suhr sets up guitars, I was pretty damn close.
I check the relief, using the D string, not the low E string.
Hold the D string down at the first fret, and whatever fret where the neck meets the body.
Tighten the trust rod until there is minimal relief like a pubic hair of relief.
Action at 4/64ths at the 12th fret.

On a Les Paul style bridge, or a Floyd, action at 4/64ths under the low E, and high E at the 12 th fret.
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I checked it on the D string after a lil more truss rod adjustment and it has just a wee bit of relief at the 7th fret. No feelers here to measure it, but it feels really good right there with just a wee bit of movement when tapping the note. It's currently 5/64ths on the low E and just under 4/64ths on the high E. This thing feels really great to play, at least under my fingers, and most of the superfluous noise I was getting earlier this morning is gone when playing it acoustically.

I think he'll be happy with the way it feels and plays now. I guess I could always find some Gibson factory specs and set it to that if he really wanted that, but for brangin' teh metulz, I think he'll be happy. If I ended up buying the guitar from him and was going to set it up for me, I'd probably put a little bit of fallaway on the higher frets to really clean up the notes on the higher registers, but I play waaaaay more solos than he does.
 
Floyd Eye said:
This. My 4001 likes it dead flat. Everything else has a tiny bit of forward bow starting somewhere up around the 3rd fret.
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Seems like neck relief is something done more out of necessity on an axe with bad fretwork. A way to hopefully cut down on the buzz. I won't own a guitar that can't have a nice low buzz free action and little or no relief.
 
Well, he's a big time metal dude. He is huge into thrash and some heavier stuff from time to time. I've got this guitar set at what I feel is a perfect setup for the average guitarist. However, while jamming on it to test it out I played Hold On by Wilson Phillips. I fear if I tell him, he'll get pissed and won't speak to me again. However, if I do and he does, maybe he won't want the guitar back and I scored a free guitar.
 
Matt300ZXT said:
while jamming on it to test it out I played Hold On by Wilson Phillips. I fear if I tell him, he'll get pissed and won't speak to me again. However, if I do and he does, maybe he won't want the guitar back and I scored a free guitar.
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:LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

LOL, that post just made my day Matt!!

You gotta tell him!
 
I like the action around 5/64's at both E's at the 12th fret, with a little bit of relief.... maybe .010 or .012. I find I can't play real well on most of my friends guitars because the action is too low.
 
Exact specs above I use across all my guitars. I hit the strings pretty hard and need some relief. To my ears guitars sound much better with med to medium high action.
 
Practically a dead straight neck. Fretted at the first and 17th frets, no relief at all; fretted at the first and last, maybe a slight bit of relief at the 9th fret.

I then set the action so that at the last fret, the 6th string measures around 2.0-2.2mm, the first string around 1.8-2.1mm

This goes for all my guitars
 
I tend to set mine by feel. I'll use a Stew Mac neck straightedge and set the neck flat and go from there. I usually end up with pretty low action and maybe a tiny bit of relief. I'm Ok with a little buzz as long as it's not through the amp or choking notes out.
 
I see many here like it the same way:

As little relief as possible.

Radius gauge for the strings/Radiused.

Action though changes per guitar to be honest for me. Some guitars like it just a bit higher, but my action is never high anymore, though I can pick quite aggressively.

I like about Low E:1.4mm to High E:1.2mm in general. Pretty low.

I have a few guitars that feel really good with 1-1.25 on Low E going to 1mm on High E.

This is only with electric guitars, of course.

The Vintage Mustang I just sold I had set at 1.25mm Low E down to 1mm on High.

Super silky playing and no buzzing.
 
I prefer a pretty high action with slight relief - never measure, just go by feel.


Mostly because I tend to use large strings in standard or close to standard tunings. I need my guitar to take a beating, and low flat action is not ideal
 
I do 4/64 on every string, except the low E. I set that to 5/64.

Some of my guitars like a little more relief than others, but I set each as straight as I can where the strings still ring freely.

EDIT - I should point out I measure at the 17th fret.
 
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