Putting Heavier Guage Strings On An Acoustic- Are any adjustments needed?

[GUITKRAZY]

Greetings fellow Acoustic players! Again I would like to thank everyone in this forum for their support and advice in my Acoustic Cruisade!

Last night while playing my alvarez I broke my D string They were the Elixers (Light Guage 12's) I play the acoustic pretty hard, and the other night while playing my Takamine I broke the D string as well- So I decided to go with the next step up guage strings- I picked up the D'addairio EXP 12's (which are 13 gauge) I am wondering, am I going to have to do any other adjustments to my acoustic after putting these on?

Believe me I love my Alvarez, but the strings just seemed a bit light for me? I do not want any problems down the road!

Thanks for any tips or advice!

[Freeman Keller]

Normally there is no problem going back and forth between lights and mediums. You might also want to consider Elixer's "light mediums" 0.012 to 0.056

Some people will say you have to tweak the relief but from you other posts it sounds like your Alvarez was set up pretty well, if anything the relief will increase very slightly.

I don't think it should be common to break strings (I rarely break them and I'm retuning all the time). Where did they break (tuner, nut, saddle, middle)? Any idea why?

[pathofspirit]

I just put medium guage 80/20 Martins on my EJ-200 in order to fill out the sound a little. I've done this before and it didn't need any special adjustment.

[GUITKRAZY]

Thanks for the response! Freeman, on both acoustics they broke right below the nut- The Takamine I have had for about eight years, and never broke a string on it- however the Alvarez is only about a week old and it broke- I don't feel that I play that hard, and I use Dunlop Tortex .50mm picks (the thinest they make) so I don't know what the problem could be? I will say that the Alvarez is the first acoustic that I have owned that had the Elixer strings, and after doing some research, evidently they are great strings, but they break easy? So I am going to try the EXP's 13's (.012 gauge)
Thanks again for your help!

[AK47]

Calling Freeman. Do you thnk his nut slots might be too tight?

[CyanideChrist]

You may have to adjust the trussrod and widen the slots on the nut. And possibly adjust the action too.

[theGOOCH]

You may or may not need a truss rod adjustment.

Like FK said, more often than not, you don't.... especially if your guitar was designed for mediums.

[GUITKRAZY]

Originally posted by CyanideChrist You may have to adjust the trussrod and widen the slots on the nut. And possibly adjust the action too.

It is funny you recommended this! Last night, I put the EXP (Mediums) on the Alvarez, and the Low E string is in the nut pretty snug- I was going to ask if I need to "Open" the nut slot a bit? Again, I would like to thank everyone on this forum- it is a wealth of information, and it is a great comfort to be able to come here for help!

[AK47]

If nut slots are too tight your problems could be any or all of these. Strings binding in nut when tuning, string breakage at the nut, string might not be seated in the nut causing the action to be too high at the first fret. A string too tight in the nut could actually crack the nut. If your nut slots are too tight you might want a tech to fix it for you. Fixing this without a set of nut files is tricky at best and string seating at the nut is critical for intonation and good sound. Your whole problem could be in the nut rather than the string gauge. You said you aren't having this problem with your other guitar. This is not an expensive repair. Search [frets.com] Frank Ford has a section on properly cut nuts.

[Freeman Keller]

We'll I'm 300 miles from home at my daughter's house and just thought I would pick up e-mail and check HC....

Do I think the slot(s) are too tight going from lights to mediums? Probably not - that is only 3 thousands of an inch difference, but it shouldn't hurt to very slightly open them - maybe just a couple of swipes with a folded 220 or 320 sand paper. You just had a great setup done on that guitar so I wouldn't lower the bottom and - just round it a little for the slightly wider string. Still should be OK for the lights if you want to go back.

You might want to radius the slot slightly towards the tuners - a good trick it to put some masking tape on both the fretboard and the headstock so you don't slip and a scratch it up (ask how I know)