Today I had the pleasure of working on a Gretsch Double Jet guitar in Surf Green with white back and sides. This thing had mojo! All the client had asked for is to get this guitar setup with some new strings. He is switching to 10-52 gauge strings on this guitar. He likes the extra resonance given by the ticker strings.
The client provided 10-52 gauge String Joy strings, which sounded great once on! The thicker string gauge meant he needed to get his guitar setup so the truss rod, bridge height, and intonation is perfectly suited to the new strings.
I first went ahead and took off the strings and cleaned up the guitar. It was fairly clean to begin with, but I removed some of the dust and grime from the body. I then went ahead and polished up the frets, to make bends super silky smooth! A wipe down of the fingerboard and some fingerboard oil for the Indian Laurel fretboard, and the guitar was ready for strings. As a side note, the Indian Laurel fretboard on this guitar had beautiful wood grain. There was even a bit of a dancing figuring within the grain when given the right light!
I then proceeded to adjust the truss rod to give the neck the proper relief for the heavier string gauge. Once in spec, I proceeded to look at the action. First place I looked was at the nut. Given thicker strings were installed, I was anticipating widing the nut slots to accommodate the thicker gauge strings. Surprisingly, the thicker strings fit well within the slots, with enough room for movement unimpeded. I then went to the bridge and made the correct adjustments there.
Once the truss rod and action were set, I intonated the guitar, and gave it a final wipe down. The intonation required a few adjustments to the saddles as some of the saddles had to be flipped around to intonate the string correctly. One that was done, the guitar was perfectly in tune!
See some the photos below!!
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