adorshki
Reverential Member
Well my tube's pretty old and kind of dim, but string height looks ok from those.
Ideally we'd like to see shot from exactly the same plane as the fretboard, of the strings' height above the 12th fret.
For the bridge/saddle we'd like to see the same, from the same plane as the top. We're trying to gauge saddle height with an ideal of a minimum of 1/8" of height.
What we're looking for is evidence of the saddle being shaved down to a degree that might be a sign that the neck needs resetting.
In a nutshell:
When a neck starts yielding to years of string tension, it starts to get pulled "forward" and this makes the strings get higher above the frets especially as you go up the board.
Shaving the saddle is a stop-gap measure to postpone the expensive reset job, but it's not an ideal solution since it normally reduces the guitar's sound output, among other things.
The best way to gauge need for reset is to lay a straightedge along the fretboard (after making sure truss rod is adjusted correctly for flatness, that it's not bowing forward itself) and extending it to the bridge. Ideally it will meet the top of the bridge precisely.
If it falls below the top of the bridge it could mean a reset's needed.
There are tolerances on the "ideal" specs, we've heard of Guilds being built with alignment as much as a couple of millimeters or so below the top of the bridge, and others that sank that far over the years and then stabilized.
The related spec is for combined height of bridge and saddle themselves: the "ideal" is about 1/2", with tolerance around 1/16"-1/8"or so.
This is to check that the bridge and/or saddle haven't already been shaved, which could give a false impression of a good neck angle when the alignment check is performed.
Bridge height is also related to bridge mass, mass contributes to top movement, also, if it's too thin it's more prone to cracking at the saddle slot.
I realize it might be difficult to explain or ask an un-knowledgable seller to perform these checks, and I also wouldn't ask the same type to adjust trusses on a Guild 12, that takes more than the average level of skill, but at least you've got the concepts now in case they're handy.
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