Setting up a guitar

[Crucial]

So I've got a guitar that is set up for C Standard and has 13-60 gauge strings on it.

 

I want to go down to 10 gauge, standard tuning. Do I need a professional to set it up? It has a tremolo system, and I'm comfortable adjusting the springs, but I've never messed with a truss rod.

[MONGOOZ]

going from 13-60 to 10-48??

well.....you're definitely gonna need to adjust the truss rod....and the trem may become a bit of an effort.....that's a huge difference in tension.....if you've got the 40 to 50 bucks to spare....i'd let it be someone else's headache....just sayin

[the_gunslinger]

It's not hard to adjust a truss rod. Just go in small increments to adjust it, don't crank the {censored} out of it.

[poolshark]

^ Seconded. Provided you go a quarter turn or so at a time, truss adjustments are easy.

[Crucial]

What about the intonation? Will that get messed up by this change?

[poolshark]

Probably, but also a pretty easy fix. Marginally more difficult with a floyd, but still doable.

[kirs]

One of these takes the guess work out of truss rod adjustments:

 

[Doctor49]

One of these takes the guess work out of truss rod adjustments:

 

 

One of these only allows you to measure what happened after you adjusted the truss rod.

 

The guesswork is in how far you have to turn it to achieve the right result and that has to be done in small steps and allowing time for the neck to settle.

[Bro Blue]

You will need to adjust both the truss rod and the intonation. Going from 13 to 10 will be less pull on the neck.

[ashasha]

Use lots of bacon grease.

 

Seriously though, projectguitar.net has a pretty good guide on doing the truss rod and it's not rocket science. It's about personal preference more than anything with that.

 

I am pretty sure they have intonation guides as well.

 

I did a video a few years ago on youtube about setting the spring tension. If it was me I would use that and once I had the guitar tuned to pitch and still blocked (you'll see what I mean if you watch the video) I'd do the intonation then. It'll be a lot easier to do when it's not moving around and you know that you've got a good solid reference point.

 

They do make some floyd rose intonation tools, but even with as many as I've done I just do it the hard way manually. Tune to pitch, check it, loosen the string, unlock the screw, move it, tighten the screw, tune it, check it, realize I went the wrong way, smack my kid for laughing at me, rinse and repeat.

 

Here's the video if you are interested. If not, that's fine.

 

vNNAVzS3cS4

 

And don't crack on how I say 'tremolo' it's been done a million times already.

[Snowcow]

One of these takes the guess work out of truss rod adjustments:

Totally unnecessary. A truss rod needs to be adjusted so that the player is comfortable with the string height and amount (if any) of string buzz/rattle. Feeler gauges are not required at all. I've set up hundreds of guitars over more than 3 decades and have never once used a set of feeler gauges.

[ashasha]

Totally unnecessary. A truss rod needs to be adjusted so that the player is comfortable with the string height and amount (if any) of string buzz/rattle. Feeler gauges are not required at all. I've set up hundreds of guitars over more than 3 decades and have never once used a set of feeler gauges.

 

I agree, but for starting out it does help when you are reading a guide or a book and they give you some measurements to use as a ballpark.

 

Personally I eyeball it go by feel, but a good quality business card is really close with a capo at the first fret while fretting the 15th. I usually dial it in a bit more after that, but it gets me in a good safe area to start with.