Month: February 2020

If you didn’t know, Takamine is one of the big names in acoustic guitar manufacture in the world today. With humble beginnings in 1959 as a small family-run guitar shop nestled at the foot of Mount Takamine in the central Japanese town of Sakashita, the fledgling company took the mountain’s name in 1962 and has since given to the world some amazing-sounding instruments.

This 12-string electro-acoustic guitar came in for a change of strings, some action correction and general maintenance, but then things aren’t as simple as they seem when it’s a 12-string (Are they ever??)!

The action was slightly high but the more worrying thing was how badly the nut sat in its slot. Look carefully at the picture on the right (above) and you will see what I am talking about. What was more, it was plastic, as was the saddle (below).

Both elements had to be shown the dustbin but look what I found while trying to remove them. 

Somebody – either the manufacturer or the owner, or someone else – had used an epoxy-like adhesive to glue the nut and the saddle was not something that you see everyday. Cleaning it out needed a thin chisel to be put to work!

This type of a corrugated saddle is used when the pick-up under it has little contact points which the raised portions of the saddle sit on, leading to better sound capture. But this feature can also cause a lot of problems if everything is not in sync.

So, I threw out saddle, casing, pickup and all and put in a new, simple, under-saddle pick-up and a new bone saddle.

The new, taller bone saddle made up for the missing height of the casing that I chucked out. In the end, I had to shave down the saddle just a little bit to get the action just right.

Also needing attention was the strap button positioning on the heel of the guitar.

The strap button should never sit on the centre of the heel but on the side of it. Which side? The side that comes on top when you hold the guitar in the playing position.

So, the button was unscrewed, the hole filled up (you never leave open wood), a new hole drilled on the side and then the screw put in place.

Then it was time to give the fretboard some tender loving care (TLC), but before that precautions needed to be taken so that the sound system inside did not attract the steel wool fibres. The soundhole was taped off and then I went to work on the fretboard with 0000 steel wool and boiled linseed oil.

The relief in the neck checked, I then went about snugging up the hardware on the headstock. All but two of them were tight.

Then it was time to string her up with swanky, shiny new strings. 

 

When you brought home your guitar and got its initial set-up done, the tech guy ensured that the numbers (measurements – action, relief, nut action, etc) added up. That made your learning and playing a breeze.

Now your beloved acoustic guitar is 7 – 8 years old and you have religiously played it almost every day over this time. Excellent!!  

However, you notice that ‘pits’ are developing in the frets exactly at the spots where the strings hit against the frets. For those getting apprehensive, fret not. This is normal wear and tear that every instrument – acoustic or electric – goes through if it is ‘played’.

Just like a pothole in the road, the erosion starts slow till the pits are so deep so as to catch strings in them and affect your playing.

So, what is to be done? Fret-levelling!

It is tedious, time-consuming process where a level surface (like the one in the picture below) is run along the fretboard with sandpaper on the contact surface and rubbed till the ‘pits’ are rubbed out of the surface.

pix courtesy: guitarrepairbench

Then follows more work in putting the ‘crown’ back in the frets and bringing them up to a mirror-like shine. But that entire process, I feel, I should reserve for another post. Suffice it to say that after a proper fret job, your frets should look brand new. Much like this:

You string ‘er up and start to play but the guitar is not responding the same way as it used to. Yes, the frets are fine but the action at the nut (1st fret action) has increased.

Let me explain. The action – at the 1st fret and at the 12th fret – was initially set to the original-sized frets. When you tried to take the ‘pits’ out of the frets, you removed material from the frets, lowering them. However, the nut remained at the same height!

Thus, the increase in action at the 1st fret. If you need to get the old action of the guitar back, you will have to lower the slots of the nut so that the strings sit lower, bring the action down.

Most people will tell you that all you need to do is deepen the string grooves and all would be well. Like this: 

I say ‘No’! If you lower the slots in the nut, will your strings sit to the prescribed depth: half in the slot and half outside it? Like this?

NO! NEVER! The way out, then, is to knock the nut out of its groove and sand its bottom, just like you would a saddle, to lower the action. A little at a time does the trick! 

You can loosen the strings, pull out the nut and re-sand it, but if you overshoot the desired nut height, you will have to replace the nut.
More expense!!!