[allthumbs]

Hi Kirk. I put heavy strings on my electric and now the action is too high to hold some chords without my fingers hitting adjacent strings. I tried to fix it the easy way, lowering the strings at the saddle. I started to get string buzz so that was that. I am going to adjust the truss rod. My tuner says that all the notes between the first and twelth fret are slightly sharp so thats a pretty good indication about the truss rod. I downloaded a couple of how to pages so wish me luck. As soon as the tuner says the notes are at pitch, I am stopping. A new truss rod replacement would cost more than the guitar new. I don't recommend this to newbies. I wouldn't do it myself but, I live in a small village and it will be 1 or 2 months before I can get it to a guitar tech.
allthumbs

[Kirk Lorange]

allthumbs ... if your guitar can't take the strain, switch back to lighter strings. There's no sense pulling things out of kilter. Maybe next time you're in the Big Smoke, take it to a pro who can advise on how to set it up for heavier strings. I'd be leery of doing it myself, but maybe you have more confidence in your fixing abilities than I do.


Either you sacrifice tone and volume, or playability -- find the happy medium -- but don't sacrifice the guitar.

[allthumbs]

Took a shot at adjusting the truss rod but found my cheapy guitar is not set up for that. The next plan was to check the intonation and sure enough almost every string was out. I have it playing pretty close to pitch now up and down the neck so it sounds a lot better.I guess I will wait to see about the action. I would get another guitar before I sacrificed tone with lighter strings. I saw a video of SRV jamming with Jeff Beck. SRV's heavy string tone made Beck sound like he was playing a toy guitar with the skinny strings he uses.
allthumbs