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Its just a guide line i think, as i found my preferred action to be lower than most people's. Some prefer higher action of course.. just find your own taste.
Measure from the top of the 12th fret to the bottom of the string, strings unfretted.
A typical action would be just over 2mm on the bass E and just under 2mm on the top E.
You'll need good eyesight, or a specific string height gauge (most useful)
If your action is higher, check whether the neck is straight. If so, check the nut (fret at the 3rd, and strings should just clear 1st fret). If neck is straight and nut is OK, then look at saddle height.
It's so easy to put right too. No idea why it's not addressed as a matter of course by most retailers.
But I think some tunes sound better when capoed, or they’re played that way because the original was. I’m also fortunate that my guitars are well set up so the nut isn’t an issue.
Relief looks to be almost but not quite straight (when fretting 1st and last frets and pressing the string in the middle there’s a bit less than a high E diameter worth of movement I’d say
Nut slots - I’m not entirely sure - I did the test @TTony mentioned above and there is movement over the 1st fret but not a wild amount - here’s a pic of the nut with nothing fretted
Can the height be lowered without compromising the string break angle? To lower the strings by ~1mm at the 12th fret, you'd need to take ~2mm off the bottom of the saddle.
It won't make a massive difference to your >3mm action. Taking 0.3mm off your nut height will only lower your 12th fret action by 0.15mm.
It might be the angle, but the pic looks as though the middle strings are closer to the first fret than the outer strings. There's a train of thought that nut slot height should increase slightly from treble to bass strings. I don't subscribe to that. If you capo on any given fret that creates an effective "zero" fret that is uniform in height. That's the way I want my open strings to feel.
My technique is to measure the height of your first fret by putting a straight edge across frets 1 & 2 and measuring the gap between straight edge and fingerboard with feeler gauges. I stack a 0.1mm to that height and place the stacked gauges against the nut. I then file to that depth across all strings using proper nut files.
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
I don’t feel up to making nut slot adjustments - it’ll end badly/clumsily.
Sounds like I might benefit from a minor nut fettle and a bit more of a saddle fettle ?
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
I made that mistake several times when I was starting out doing repairs, until I realised why. You can always take off more later if you need to, but if you need to raise it again then (at best) you have to shim it, and at worst need a new saddle.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.