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Hello guys.
I have an acoustic guitar: Takamine EG320SC. It's cheap, but nice to play at home. Anyway, since I bought it had a very high action, and a few of time after I bought I partially solved taking off a shim under the saddle.
But the action at the 12° key is still almost 3mm, though the neck is almost straight, probably the truss-rod can go over. I'm tired about it and I want to play it more easily getting a medium/low action.
I can't change the saddle or sand the bootom because... see this:

https://hazeguitars.com/blog/adjusting- ... ted-pickup

Saddle + piezo is a weird thing, so I can't sand the saddle. The only way to get a lower action is increase the depth of the slot in the bridge.
Is there a way to make it at home without using peculiar tools?

No.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

At 3mm action, you'd need to lower the saddle by around 1.4mm to get 2.3mm action at the12th..
How much height do you have above the bridge each side?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

How old is it it may need a neck reset.

In addition to milling the saddle slot deeper you can also file the top of the saddle down, very, very carefully. Then mark and intonate the strings individually and recrown.

But the approach you should be using should not be this chasing this or that. Great set-ups and the people who do them know that there is a sequential nature to the set-up where it starts with one thing and ends with another.

The point is each variable that we address in the set-up and there are at least three.... is done in a proper order so that you don't have to backtrack at any point. When done correctly and sequentially the last step of a set-up on an acoustic like this one is the saddle.

So with all this said did you address the nut slots? Nut slots on the vast majority of guitars are way too high and f*ctories and stores never take them low enough with a few exceptions such as Elderly Instruments in Lansing Michigan.

I do set-ups all day, all night actually and I do around 600 of them a year. With the sequential approach of addressing the variables in a specific order we gain some ground with each thing we do. In combination we often can get to a desirable action.

Also if it needs a neck reset the economics are not there for a Tak to do the reset and the things were never built to have the neck reset.

So if it was in my shop step one would be does it need a neck reset. If so all we can do maybe, maybe is trick a few things to fool the guitar into a more playable state. Creative fretwork milling down the first frets and not touching the last frets can effectively change the neck angle a bit too.

So does it need a reset? If not set the relief (truss rod) first, then the nut slots which is an art by the way and easy to go too far and then and only then when all these things have been milked for what we can get we measure at the 12th and if it has 12's on it I set action at 4/64th" for the high e and around 6/64th" for the low e. This is a Martin spec for low action for a dreadnought sized instrument. A bit lower for an OM and a bit higher for 13's.

But again if it needs a neck reset get a different guitar it will only get worse and there is only so far you can adjust things out before the need for a neck reset can't be ignored.

One more thing.... If you do not use the pup (pickup) you can toss that shitty saddle assembly and make a proper bone saddle that is as low as it needs to be. You can also purchase a K & K after market pup for $99 that is hands above the crap that came on that Tak.

Hope this helps, welcome to the forum.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

First thing: I measured well the height of the low E strings at 12th. Not so bad, it's around 2,60mm. I think 2,40mm (4/64") could be OK, for me. I can't say at high E because I broke a string, very old strings, I was going to change them anyway. I'll do tomorrow, maybe.
(I just wanted to see if there's other shims under the saddle, in case I missed another one some years ago, but there's no shim, of course.)

I don't know anything about the reset of the neck. In general, the guitar is fine enough, just it always had the action a bit too much higher then the standard.

I didn't want to sand the top side of the saddle because the intonation, maybe it's too hard for me work with that.
Honestly, the nut slots seems OK, I used light strings, but I never had problem with that or press the strings at the firsts positions. I just found the strings too high over the middle of the neck. The first keys are OK, I guess.
Change the piezo and the saddle with some common saddle and piezo could be pretty good, and easy, maybe, but it's a cheap guitar and I don't want to spend money to get something I use just at home, but at the same time I need to keep a piezo under the saddle.

What about this?
https://www.stewmac.com/luthier-tools-a ... -levelers/

The stew-mac tool is a leveler you were wanting to remove material and this tool would take forever. A saddle mill is what is used to mill saddle slots regardless of if we want to change the size, depth and even relocate a proper saddle mill will do all these things and more. Our web site has a video of ours if you are interested http://www.annarborguitars.com

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Ann Arbor Guitars

For starters, before you tackle reshaping the top of the saddle or trying to mill the slot, check that a “low” saddle won’t drop your strings enough. The Takamine G series I’ve worked on have come in with a “regular” saddle. Once you remove all of the shims, the next step is to swap the saddle for a “low” one. They’re readily available on eBay and other places at reasonable cost.

At some point, simply lowering the saddle by whatever means introduces other issues on a G series. If a neck reset is truly required, it’s time to trade guitars.


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Hey Tim that's a good idea and I did not know about other height Tak saddles being available. If you have a link handy please post it and I'll order half a dozen to have on hand for these. They, the Taks are all hitting neck reset age at least the ones from Tak's heyday before Taylor took off and captured the turn-key acoustic performer market for a while.

Thanks man!

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Of course I can't buy a saddle mill to use it just one time.

Look at this image:


On the same page there's this image, too https://images.reverb.com/image/upload/ ... 2qti4e.jpg
That say Takamine G series has the low profile saddle.

I think my guitar has the low profile saddle. It's the number 4. The number 5 is very tall.

This is the picture of my saddle.


Tim Mullin, maybe you mean there are lower profile of that saddle (not original). I found this: https://www.chrisalsopguitar.co.uk/shop ... ddle-PS009 About 37 £ (45 €) (50 $). Probably better material than the stock saddle, but a bit more expensive than I thought.

regardless you have to get that neck reset the numbers you are giving are pretty high
so if your action is high your intonation is more likely to be a problem so figure how much must come off to bring the action to
a good height. you want to be under 2 so if your at 3 mm you have to take 2mm off the top. If this isn't possible that neck will
have to be reset.
So get your guitar to a tech and see what he can see with a hands on inspection . Sad thing is this guitar is worth less that the cost of a reset

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Maybe you're right the guitar need the neck reset, but it has to be an issue of the guitar since just it came out from the factory, so. I have to say that I had the guitar for almost ten years and the action it's always been like that and it's not a problem I have in the last period, I just used to say "never mind, I'll play this guitar just like it is". But the the idea to do one day something about the action was there.
I mounted today new usually strings: D'Addario 10-47, the intonation is perfect following the tuner on-board and by ear.

If it's winter in Italy and you are not humidifying the guitar properly it will amplify any need for a neck reset and John Hall is correct. It does not matter that the instrument has been fine in the past if it has a poor neck angle or a deteriorating neck angle it is what it is and there is no denying it. I've seen a perfect neck angle get bad in one winter.... I've also seen a new guitar need a neck reset in 3 years.....

So you may have few things going on, dry guitar, deteriorating neck angle, non-serviceable saddles and poor design from Tak.

Showing us a pic of your saddle means nothing. I need to see the saddle in the bridge to see how much of it is proud (above....) the bridge? I also would like you to straighten the neck and sight along the side of the fret board to the bridge. If you lay a straight edge on a straight neck where does it intersect the bridge below the top of the bridge, above the top of the bridge, something else?

Please provide or I can't comment further without data this is not rocket science you have not provided the kind of information that we need, that I need to comment further. I triage hundreds of instruments annually and can spot the need for a neck reset in seconds. Please do the straight edge test I've asked for so the rest of us stop spinning our wheels?

Thanks

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Also those strings 10- 47 I am not aware of any offering from D'Addario like that AND they are WAY too light for an acoustic guitar. Electric guitar lights are 10 - 46..... acoustic guitar lights are 12 - 53-54ish.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

I can’t imagine that Takamine guitars are shipped with a “low” saddle — who would ever use a tall one? The G-series I swapped saddles on had had the original totally mangled from top by the owner. I simply ordered an integrated low saddle from eBay, removed all the shims from the slot and we ended up with “OK” string height, but really a reset would have been preferred. I don’t do resets on Takamines.

10-47 are indeed super light and generally not recommended. I keep a single set of Elixir NW PB 10-47 on my shelf for a semi-pro client. He insists on them. 10-47 is otherwise reserved for super fragile instruments. D’Addario has 10-47 available in most of their acoustic string models.


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Of course I can't hope to solve any issue of the instrument talking about it in a forum, just pickup some advice, I imagined the issue was the saddle too high.

Just to be clear the high action issue in this guitar was there since I bought it. When I live the humidity is pretty high. I have a dehumidifier that I turn on from time to time on purpose.

The picture of the saddle was because the high or low profile saddle thing.

I'll see if I'll take a good picture of the saddle in the bridge, at least.



What do you mean? My guitar seems have a low profile saddle, but I just looked at some image in internet, I don't know these other saddle except the one on my guitar.
Maybe my luthier could sand it from the top, I can't, but he could do it, I hope without messed up with the intonation.

I mounted the 10-47 because the high action, coincidentally At least those are light. With a lower action I could mount thicker strings with my pleasure, indeed sometime I found it a bit light and my electric guitars has no light strings strings (Stratocaster 10-47, PRS 10.5-48, Ibanez with scale 25.1 12-54 one step down tuning).

Linde, I agree with the opinions voiced by my colleagues here. I also believe you do need to have the instrument seen by a pro. Focusing on the saddle will get you nowhere as there are other points that need to be taken care of before you even begin to think about lowering it.


Pierre
Guitares Torvisse

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Pierre Castonguay