How is action measured?

wim

When people are talking about, say 3 mm action, what distance exactly are they measuring?

I have usually assumed it is the distance between the top of the fret and the underside of the string, at about the 12th fret. Is this correct?

Note that the measurement would changes depending on which fret you're measuring on and which string you're measuring on.. So are people talking about the average over 6 strings? I have noticed on many guitars usually the high E sits a bit closer to the frets than the lower strings.

How is the best way to measure this distance, because it's not going to be very accurate with a ruler.. I usually just slide a wegen pick between the strings and more or less guess (i have some wegen picks that i know are 2.5mm, 3.5mm, and 5mm thick)

BluesBop Harry

wim wrote:

I have usually assumed it is the distance between the top of the fret and the underside of the string, at about the 12th fret. Is this correct?

Correct! Measure both E strings... I like to use stacked picks, 1mm and 1.5 and just eyeball it. 3mm for the bass 2.5+ for the treble is where I like it