Adjusting action on a Gypsy Jazz guitar?

Rodrigo Ugarte

Basically...how do you do it?
I came up with this question because out of a sudden my Cigano GJ-10 started buzzing on almost every fret. After adjusting and bowing the truss rod, neck was pretty warped but still had buzz. I realized I might need higher action in general.
Also, do you think this has something to do with the weather? I recently traveler to a very dry and cold place.

BluesBop Harry

You can shim your bridge with pieces of wood veneer (cardboard, picks, etc)... Don't ever use your trussrod to adjust action.
Humidify your guitar during dry seasons.
Use fresh strings.
You could have two bridges of different heights and switch them up but I find it's better to keep your guitar in consistent humidity as much as you can.

Rodrigo Ugarte

How do you usually humidify a guitar like this one? That might help. Also, are you from Mexico City? Me too.

BluesBop Harry

Search for Bob Holo's posts on the subject: http://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/12414/
http://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/19568/#Comment_19568
There should be a bunch

AndrewUlle

I run a console humidifier in my guitar room (dining room to my wife); that's better than having individual dampits for each of our guitars. In the winter, I fill the 5 gallon reservoir twice a day. Winter dryness will cause the action to drop, especially on Selmer or arch top guitars.

Bones

Rodrigo, it sounds like you need to take it to a luthier and also you may need a case humidifier. Do NOT mess with the truss rod unless you know what you are doing as you can cause big problems.

How tight did you make the truss rod? How many turn(s??) tighter than just snug?

Jazzaferri

There is a lot of good advice on this site about care and feeding of GJ and acoustic guitars. Use the search forum function at the top right. Hours of reading and advice from some of the best luthiers in the field.

Guitars can be quite delicate in some ways and are easily damaged by changes made without a good understanding of what should be done.

Jeff Moore

Rodrigo Ugarte. If you keep your guitar in a case (all the time when your not playing it) you can put anything that holds water into the case and let it slowly dry. A sponge, an apple, anything that doesn't touch your guitar but let's moisture into the case.
If you want your guitar to stay in by itself without a case in a room (like I do) so I can just pick it up and play it, you have to humidify (make wet) the whole room. This means buying a machine called a humidifier.
Whether you put it in the case, or in the room, you should buy a humidistat that can measure the water in the air. They are (in the US) $8 in Ace Hardware store. This cheap thing looks like a clock and never needs a battery or any power. Nice!
The humidistat will tell you how much water is in the air on a scale like a clock. You must read it every day and keep your guitar case or room between 35 and 55.
Your guitar will not be fixed when you fix its humidity. It will get better but not return to perfect like it was. You must have it "set up". Set up just means making it play well again.
Controlling humidity is something that the guitar player learns about AFTER he buys a nice guitar. Humidity is like taking a shower, you must at least look at your humidistat and maybe add (or in wet climates, take away) moisture every day. Ugh....
Almost all of us have gone through, or will go through learning to control the humidity of our guitar.
Good luck and just get started doing this.

I just thought about this. If you want to leave your guitar open in a room, this room must be closed up. The doors and windows and anything else that lets fresh outside air in must be shut, or you will have to use the case. A room that is a little bit open to outside air can not be humidified. It has to be a closed room with the door closed all the time.

Craig Bumgarner

Like Jeff says, get a humidity gauge. Better yet, buy a couple You will probably discover, as I did, you can't tell much about humidity levels without one.

The only other thing I might add is it is much easier to humidify a room if it is smaller and can be sealed up fairly well. My old shop was 13'x25' and due to circumstances, I could not close the door fully. My room humidifier would go through 1-2 fillings of water a day and it was hard to maintain a steady humidity level. My new shop is 10' x 16', but I can close the door which has weather stripping seals. One filling is lasting a week to 10 days and humidity level is staying between 39- 41% steady.

My humidifier (Optimus) has a dial to maintain the level and given a reasonably isolated room, it seems to work very well. The dial is not calibrated, so I used it in conjunction with the humidity gauge.

An unused closet might work well with some weather stripping on the door and my guess is a filling would last a couple weeks. As maintenance of the humidifier is the main reason for humidity system failure, the longer the system goes between maintenance, the better.