Any help here would be considered invaluable to me, so please, fellow dopers:
I recently got an Fender acoustic guitar, I don’t know model or anything, but it has a single cutaway and a pickup. The problem is that the action seems to be set for somebody with a crushing grip, which I do not posess. I’ve been playing (self taught) for a long time, so it’s not that I lack hand strength. I do know that the guitar sat for a long time, unplayed, with the strings on. Is there any way I can adjust the action on this guitar? As it is I can only play it for maybe 5 minutes without getting hand cramps.
It does have a tension bar in the neck, but I don’t know enough to just start cranking away on anything without permanent damage. So, what can I do???
I’d say take it down to your friendly neighborhood guitar shop and ask them to adjust it for extra-light strings. I wouldn’t want to risk damaging the guitar by messing around with it.
I was going to say about the same as this, but figured I’d check first, not having done it myself (bolding mine):
“Some acoustic guitars have an adjustable bridge or saddles that can be raised or lowered to alter the action. If possible, some people insert small pieces of wood or paper underneath the saddle to increase the height to their liking. To lower the saddle, however, you may need to sand the bottom of it, or replace it with something smaller. It can drastically change the overall action, and if you are not sure exactly how to go about it, we suggest you take it to a repair shop and observe closely how the repairperson does the procedure, before attempting it yourself.”
True…but if you’re looking to do it yourself, you’re going to need to change the insert in the string saddle. Down at the botton where the pegs are that hold the strings into the body you’ll see they sit over a piece of bone or plastic before they reach the sound hole. If you’re lucky, that piece has some dials on either side that will raise and lower that insert. (De-tune your guitar first so you’re not stressing the hell out of the strings). If there is no dial, you’ll need to swap out that piece for a smaller one that will keep the strings closer to the fingerboard. Take it to a guitar shop and pick out an new insert that is more suited for you.
The tension bar on the neck is probably more of a device to hold it’s tuning (I had a Jackson [electric] with that before…I didn’t see a difference)
Do NOT, repeat DO NOT adjust the bar in your neck. If you don’t know what you are doing (and most everyone does not), you could easily ruin your guitar.
You can sight down the next and use your strings as a plumb line to see if your neck bows (curves away from) or arches towards your strings - but that is about it.
Eva Luna is right - take it to a guitar shop and for $20 - $50 have them do a set up with lighter gauge strings. They can
check the neck
adjust the action down (i.e., distance between strings and neck)
check the intonation
other stuff as needed.
If you want to be a real DIY-er, you can start simply by doing two things:
try buying lighter-gauge strings - .13’s (meaning the thinnest top strong is a 13-gauge E string) is standard for an acoustic, so try 12’s or 11’s for a lighter gauge.
when you are changing strings, pull out the bridge (the piece of bone or plastic that the strings cross over where you rest your strumming hand). Sometimes there are thin pieces of cardboard underneath the bridge, called “shims”, raising it up a fraction of an inch. You can take 1 or more (if there are 1 or more there) of these out to lower the action on your guitar. If there are no shims under your bridge, do NOT try trimming the bottom of your bridge to lower it - take it to a guitar shop for a set up and if they agree that your action could be lower, let them shave your bridge…
I highly recommend having a luthier evaluate it. With good luck, it just needs a set-up, which is typically about 30 bucks. With medium luck, it may also need a new saddle and/or nut, which may double (?) the cost. With bad luck, it may need a neck set, which runs considerably more.
It’s not too hard to learn how to do a passable (though not necessarily good) job of setting it up, but if you value your time very much the savings aren’t much over having a pro do it. Proper set-up involves correct neck curvature, nut height, and saddle height, and these need to be dealt with as a group–you don’t just change one adjustment and expect everything to be right. An experienced luthier can also properly judge whether there are problems which would make a set-up an exercise in frustration (e.g. bowed neck or bridge area). And while shimming a saddle can sometimes help the action, it often results in poor sound quality compared to having a new solid saddle made.
I suggest don’t rush to putting lighter strings on. It’s a quick and easy do-it-yourself procedure to reduce the fretting pressure needed, but it’s addressing the symptom rather than the actual problem. Guitars are generally designed for a certain range of string gauge, and if they’re set up properly, there is usually no “need” for lighter strings. Going to lighter strings can result in poor sound and a reduction in volume. (Heavier strings can sometimes warp the neck and/or the body area where the neck attaches, so that’s not usually a good idea either.)
Some acoustic guitars do have a way to adjust the bridge. I’ve seen some that had thumb screws at each end (as I believe someone above referred to), and adjusting them is not particularly difficult or dangerous (to you or the guitar). My Ovation has a removable bridge with a set of thin shims under it; I lowered the action a little, pretty easily, by removing the bridge and taking out some of the shims. This is also not especially risky, though you should always be careful when mucking around with a guitar’s setup.
If the bridge wasn’t made to be adjustable, it becomes a rather more complicated matter, involving filing/shaving it down (from the bottom, if possible) or replacing it altogether. For things like that or adjusting the tension bar (which should only be done if there is a bow in the neck), you either have to know what you’re doing or take it to someone who does. There are plenty of books (e.g. The Guitar Handbook) that will explain how to modify the setup of your guitar yourself. It’s not terribly complicated, but as another poster said, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you could damage your guitar. If you bought this guitar new, the store that sold it to you should handle something like that for you (and you might be better off demanding a replacement – a new guitar should not have a bowed neck).
But the other thing to be aware of is that if the manufacturer set the guitar up with such a high action, it may be because a lower action would cause the strings (especially the bass E) to buzz against the frets either when played open or in certain fret positions. It may not be possible to get the nice low-action feel that you’re looking for with that particular guitar. (Which is why it’s always best to play a guitar as much as possible before buying it.)
Good luck, and I hope it turns out to be a simple adjustment for you. A guitar is like a woman: if she doesn’t feel right when you squeeze her, you won’t enjoy her much and she’ll never make the sweet sounds you want.
Not replacing the strings and constantly tightening them up will bow the neck, I was gonna suggest what WordMan warns against, so take it to your local shop and have it repaired right.
