I’d like to learn how to lower the action on a classical. I know I can get a luthier to do it but with seven guitars here, the action needing slight lowering on four of them, and my inability to leave this jail cell for a while, I think it would be a good DIY skill to pick up, at least starting with the one guitar the warden lets me have in my cell.
There’s a lot of info online about whether and how to do it (although more advice here is always welcome), but since there’s a chance I’ll mess it up while on the learning curve, I’d like to know a few things: 1) Is there a noun for the “action” of a guitar other than literally ‘string height’? I can easily handle the Chinese for ‘lower the string height’, ‘reduce the saddle height’ and so on but can’t figure out whether there’s a noun like ‘action’. 2) Are there good luthier supply lines here locally like an accurate gauge for string height, or will precise rulers so? (I’ve got a stainless one marked down to the half millimeter which I imagine will do.) Do people turn to online suppliers like Stewmac, and are there more affordable or other sources? Any other good online sources you’d recommend for shipping to Taiwan, probably just a blank nut and saddle or two in case I mess up the original; I might also want to change three guitars’ nuts and saddles to unbleached bone, in which case for the nuts I might pick up a set of luthier’s nut files, although that might be a bit pricey so for new nuts so I might just start with trying a saddle. I might mail have to find a way to get a couple guitars to Taiwan_Luthier. BTW, @Taiwan_Luthiers TL, you’re back in Taipei, right? Still at the bottom of the mountain? What would you charge for installing a bone nut to replace a plastic one and ensuring the action’s low but without fret buzz? And for a saddle, which is easier, what would you charge?