A Beginners Guide to Setting up a Guitar

 

Congratulations! Father Christmas has brought you, the beginner guitarist, the axe of your dreams! But since it was delivered mail order, straight from the factory in China, it won’t be set up properly.  But wait, with a few simple tools and a little patience you can have your axe playing like a dream.

When your guitar comes from the factory it will have been set up quickly with a cheap set of strings, and by someone being paid to do as many as possible as quickly as possible.  This means that your guitar has not received the careful attention it deserves, and as a result it can play and sound awful.  You could get a professional luthier to set up the guitar on your behalf, but its not too difficult to do the work yourself.

There are three basic adjustments to make to your guitar, these are: The Truss Rod, The Action and The Intonation.  Let’s look at how we can adjust these each in turn.

Before we start it might be worth investing in a guitar tool kit.  These are around £15 online or widely available from music shops.  These include all the tools you need to maintain your guitar, including an action gauge, hex keys, snips and string winders.

Firstly, the Truss Rod.  This is a threaded bar that runs along inside the neck.  It resists the tension that the strings exert on the neck to stop it bowing.  If poorly adjusted the neck can either bow too much, meaning the strings are too far from the fingerboard, or bow too little meaning the strings buzz as they touch the frets.  To adjust the Truss Rod, you will need to expose the adjustment nut.  On “Gibson” style guitars this is under the cover on the headstock, or “Fender” style guitars it is found at the body end of the neck.

Gibson style Truss Rod.

Depending on your guitar, you may need a hexagonal (Allen) key or a socket wrench.  Often these are supplied with a new guitar.

Place a capo on the first fret, this removes the effect of the nut on the guitars action.  Next fret the low E string at the 15^th fret.  Take your action gauge and measure the clearance, sometimes called neck relief, at the 8^th fret.  It should be 0.007”.  If you don’t have an action gauge you can use a feeler gauge or a piece of printer paper folded in half.  If the clearance is too much, the truss rod must be tightened.  Turn the nut clockwise no more than a quarter turn at a time, then remeasure.  It will take a few moments for the wood to settle so don’t rush the adjustment.  If you need to keep tightening continue a quarter of a turn at a time.  If the clearance is not enough, loosen by turning anti-clockwise, again a quarter turn at a time.

Once you are happy with the Truss Rod adjustment we can move onto the Action.

Action is measured at the 12th fret.

Remove the capo and measure the clearance of the strings at the 12^th fret.  The treble strings should be no lower than 3/64” whereas the bass strings should be around 5/64”.  Play a few chords and notes and check for buzzing where the strings vibrate against the frets where they shouldn’t.  Adjust the bridge height on a “Gibson” style Tune-o-Matic bridge using the thumb wheels on each side.  On “Fender” type guitars the saddles can be adjusted individually for each string using a small hex key.

Try to get the action as low as you can, without the string buzz, this will make the guitar much easier to play.

The final basic adjustment is the intonation.  This is to ensure that the fretted notes moving up the neck remain in tune, by making sure the length of each string between the bridge and nut is correct.  In fact, you should recheck the intonation regularly, and readjust every time you restring your guitar.

For this you will need an accurate electronic guitar tuner and a small screwdriver to adjust the saddles on the bridge.

Use the electronic tuner to bring the guitar to concert pitch, (E, A, D, G, B, E) and then fret a string at the 12^th fret.  If the note is sharp, the string needs to be lengthened.  If the note is flat the string must be shortened.  Adjust using the screws at the back of the bridge to move the saddles.  Clockwise to lengthen, anti-clockwise to shorten.  Adjusting will change the pitch so you will then have to retune and then recheck the note at the 12^th fret.  Repeat this for each string in turn, until the open strings and fretted notes match.

Adjustment of a Gibson Tune-o-Matic Bridge

Now you’ll find that the guitar is easier to play, better at keeping in tune and sounds great!  There are more adjustments you can make as you get more confident, such as the height of the pickups or changing the string gauge which will change how the guitar sounds and plays.  Until you are ready for that though, just keep on practising!