Some advice required.(Finlayson) Action / Truss Rods /Returns

cj73 · November 2020

Snappy title eh?

Anyhoo today I took delivery of a Finlayson d-5ce. I’ve been playing more acoustic during lockdown and my existing two were less than inspiring.

So Christmas was coming and GG had this down at £270 on Friday. Looked good, I liked the scoto-Canadian idea so why not.

It arrived this morning and the first thing that struck me was that it was a lovely looking thing. Quickly followed by, Ooft look at that action you could get a bus between string and board

tuned up and yep it was really high. Proceeded over a few hours to tighten the truss up a bit at a time until it got the point that I was wary of tightening it any further. At this point it was still “on the high side” - between 3.5 and 4 mm at the 12th

Thought no, it’s going back, slackened strings, loosened rod a bit, tuned back up and the g string snapped at the post.

So two questions. Should I try anything else to lower the action (don’t want to be sanding saddle on a new cheapie). And, what will GuitarGuitar do about a return with a broken string?

Andy79 · November 2020

How high is the saddle? Is there actually a bow in the neck?
As you probably well know there’s not a plethora of options if the neck geometry is correct, even less if it isn’t . And yes you shouldn’t be having to tinker around to get it to play. But if it’s got a way high saddle or if there’s a pickup under it you, or the shop may end up shaving a few mm off it

cj73 · November 2020

Yeah. The neck is fine and the action ok at the nut so it’s looking like it’ll need a bit of a bridge shave to get the action down.

I guess the the question is whether to do it or send it back. I’ve got no real experience with acoustics and don’t know if I can/should expect better at this price point.

TheMadMick · November 2020

The way I was taught:

The truss rod is to control neck relief. You should have a slight bow in the neck such that the strings fretted at the 1st and 12th don't quite touch the frets. Plainly, there's a bit of leeway there. - in the up direction anyway

If the action at the 12th is high - measure it there and estimate how high you would like it. Take twice the difference that from the bottom of the bridge. However, you do need to watch the break angle of the strings at the bridge. Sometimes you need to cut a slot in the pin holes or cut away some of the bridge in front of the pins to get that right. Symptoms of a break angle that's to low is the strings moving sideways over the bridge.

This has served me well over the years.

ICBM · November 2020

Poor set-ups are normal on new guitars, especially on cheaper ones and especially acoustics, which are more prone to climate changes and so are often deliberately left too high at the factory since reducing action at the final destination is a lot easier than raising it. Ideally a shop should sort it out before selling, but most box-shifters don't.

What is the relief? You haven't mentioned that at all and you shouldn't be adjusting the truss rod without checking it - the truss rod controls the relief, not the action - the action is only affected indirectly.

Hold the guitar in the playing position and fret the G string (or B if it's still missing

) at both the first and the 15th frets. Look at the gap between the string and the 7th fret - it should be smaller than the string diameter (if it's the B - about half the string diameter if it's the G), but there should be a gap. This isn't perfectly accurate but it will tell you if it's in the right ballpark.

If it is, check the nut height - that makes a surprisingly large difference to the action as well. Fret each string at the 3rd fret and look at the gap between the string and the 1st fret - it should be small, ideally less than 1/4 of the string diameter (that's very small, on the thin strings).

If and only if both those two things are right, and the action is still too high, how much of the saddle is sticking up above the wood of the bridge?

cj73 · November 2020

@ICBM thanks for the comprehensive post. Relief and nut height seem ok. Saddle protrudes by about 5mm low E to 4mm at the high E.

ICBM · November 2020

cj73 said:

@ICBM thanks for the comprehensive post. Relief and nut height seem ok. Saddle protrudes by about 5mm low E to 4mm at the high E.

You could probably get that down by 2mm, which would reduce the action by 1mm or slightly more - the top can sometimes move down slightly when the bridge height is reduced, so normally you don't want to take off quite as much as you think you do. That sounds like it would be about right, especially if there is a little room for improvement at the nut and to the relief. If you're going to, I would reduce it by cutting that much off the bottom rather than sanding it, which will be a big job for that much.

If you like the guitar otherwise I'd probably get it looked at rather than send it back. If you do need to send it back, don't worry about the broken string - that can happen randomly for no reason. I would leave the pieces on the guitar.

cj73 · December 2020

I’ll give it another day of thinking time.

Its definitely better sounding than what I’ve got and it looks good, I just can’t quite decide if I want to keep it. The current “comedy” action is clouding my judgement a bit.

On a a related note then. I’ve been in shops and tried loads of guitars at c£500 and never seen anything like the action this had out of the box. Do the shops get sent special display ones, open loads of boxes to get a good example or do they fettle the display ones?

ICBM · December 2020

It does sound fairly extreme, but I’ve come across a few that bad when I worked for a couple of bigger retailers that sold a lot of cheaper guitars.

Most shops would pick a better example for a display model or fix it if they have an in-house tech.

cj73 · December 2020

i'm not being a sissy am I?

Image: https://scontent-lhr8-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/129201476_10218811106617753_3930399074333158236_n.jpg?_nc_cat=111&ccb=2&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=mF2PptQeiTQAX9CMR_6&_nc_ht=scontent-lhr8-1.xx&oh=c92d1d3267fef911b99e085d060b3eef&oe=5FEAF2A4

Andy79 · December 2020

Have you done @ICBM s check for nut height yet? Looks very high even down at the 5th

cj73 · December 2020

Andy79 said:

Have you done @ICBM s check for nut height yet? Looks very high even down at the 5th

Yeah, I did. I eye-balled it last night but found my feeler gauges this morning and got just under 0.20 mm at the first fret when fretting the 3rd.

Edit: That was on the low E

Cirrus · December 2020

Don't be afraid of sanding the saddle down - I got an acoustic recently that had quite a high action with no neck relief - certain notes on the middle strings caused sympathetic buzzing off the frets behind the fretted note.

I slightly relaxed the truss rod & took about 2mm off the bottom of the saddle, and like ICBM suggested, that took a little over 1mm off the 12th fret action, and I have to thank him for explaining the top movement because I couldn't work out why the action had fell that fraction further than I expected (luckily I was sanding in stages and measuring, so I didn't overshoot).

I'd never done anything like that before, but it's easy - just go slowly, be consistent and make sure the bottom of the saddle is flat when you're done. I took slightly more off the treble side than the bass side and ended up having to put some extra effort into the middle for a bit to remove a curve that was developing as I sanded.

cj73 · December 2020

So, operation saddle down on the cards for tomorrow.

@ICBM ;you mentioned cutting the saddle down rather that sanding. Is there a preferred way to do that or is just rusty hacksaw from the shed time?

ICBM · December 2020

cj73 said:

@ICBM ;you mentioned cutting the saddle down rather that sanding. Is there a preferred way to do that or is just rusty hacksaw from the shed time?

The way I do it is to put the saddle in a bench vise upside down with the right amount sticking up, then take off the excess with a large file - move the file at a fairly shallow angle to the saddle to reduce the risk of chipping.

If the guitar has an undersaddle pickup, it's *essential* that the bottom of the saddle is straight and flat, and at a right angle to the sides. I do that by rubbing the saddle on a sheet of sandpaper on a known flat surface, eg kitchen worktop.

cj73 · December 2020

so the deed is done and the results are favourable

thanks to @icbm for the advice and @Cirrus for the "you can do it" pep talk

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Some advice required.(Finlayson) Action / Truss Rods /Returns

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