Acoustic Setups. There are many people asking about setups. The specs for Martin are already listed in another section on the page. The big thing is to understand what this is and what it can do to improve the playability. The height at the nut and 12th fret are critical. The nut , if too high can make the action feel hard and uncomfortable to play. I like to keep the action at the nut as low as possible. Some guitars had zero frets. This means the nut did little more than space the strings. The zero fret contacted the string and the scale length was set from there.

The nut height is best checked with the strings capoed at the 2nd fret. Martin will ship out a guitar with as much as .030 at the nut. I find that .012 is the lower range. If you look at the clearance of the 3rd fret with the 2nd fret capoed you can gage off that and .005. This allows plenty of head room.

The 12th fret is where the action is scaled . By this I mean if the tech asks if you want a 2/3 set up , he is refering to 2/64th of an inch and 3/64ths of clearance from the top of the 12th fret to the bottom of the E strings. He can adjust this with the saddle or truss rod. You will also hear "relief" mentioned. This refers to the bow of the neck. The neck is not 100% straight but slightly bowed to allow the string clearance. If the action cannot be set into a comfortable playing condition , then a neck adjustment is needed. This is done with the truss rod. If there is no adjustable truss rod , then a reset may be the only course of action. On modern guitars the truss rod can save this from happening over a longer time but eventually it will be needed.

To keep the guitar in shape as long as possible keep the guitar in as stable environment as possible. Also when no being used for long periods slack the strings to 1/4 tension. This will lesson the stresses on the neck. Don't store a guitar in the attic . Extreme temperature variations are horrid to a guitar.