Still Friday, about 3:00 p.m.
It is Finished!!!!! Yay!!!!
Well, it's about 3:00 p.m. right now, and the guitar is finally complete! I spent around four hours working on the final stages of the set-up.
After the nut slots were the depth that I wanted them, I strung up the strings to pitch again and measured the string height over the 12th fret, at the bass E and the treble E strings. What I was shooting for, for my action, was a final string height (measurement from the bottom of the string to the top of the fret) of 6/64" at the bass E and 4/64" at the treble E.
What I had was 10/64" at the bass E and 10.5/64" at the treble E. That meant that there was a difference of 4/64" at the bass E and 6.5/64" at the treble E. What you do, to determine how much you need to take off the bottom of the saddle, is take off twice that difference. So, what I needed to do was remove 1/8" from the bottom of the saddle on the bass end, down to 13/64" at the treble end.
I did that, reinstalled the saddle, and all was well . . . except for the low E string, which now was buzzing!!! However, since it only buzzed when played open, that told me that the problem was probably in the nut; the nut slot for that string was probably cut too low. I hate when that happens! But it's not such a terrible fix --- I just took some baking soda, dropped it into the low E nut slot, and dropped some thin superglue in there to harden the baking soda. I waited a bit for it to fully harden and then recut the slot, being careful not to file down as far as I had originally. When you do this, you really have to take it slowly, because the difference in the depth of the slot is often a very minute difference; however, that minute difference in the nut slot depth can make a very big difference in whether or not the string will buzz.
After I had that all complete, and there was no more buzzing, I spent time filing down the top of the nut, so that the strings would sit halfway in and halfway out of the nut slot. I then rounded off the back of the nut and polished it up with the range of Micromesh grits. I also polished up the saddle.
Later, after the guitar has had time to settle in, I will go back and try to get the action even lower; right now the strings are tight and the action at the first fret feels a tad higher than I'd like. But it's good for now. The guitar has a nice, full sound, which I know will improve further as the guitar settles in and opens up.
I guess this guitar was a success! And a weird thing --- it's almost exactly two months to the day since I started this project (I started on February 12th) . . .
Now for some photos (and a video to come):
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HERE'S A VIDEO (or three) ABOUT THIS PROJECT:
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