guitar question

[khlee]

hi again. I just restrung my guitar with .11 gauge strings from my previous .13 gauge strings. (i meant to get the same gauge but when i brought my original strings to the stupid local guitar guy to find out what gauge it was, he said it was .11s, which i realized was baloney). do I need a truss rod adjustment? if so how do i do it myself?

 

[TheShiz]

acoustic or electric? and if you do not know what you are doing do not mess with the truss rod! most likely you will screw up your guitar if you do.

 

[TheShiz]

oh yeah, just changing stringe gauge should not require truss rod anyway, thats for when the neck gets warped. also with 13's before i'm pretty sure you have an acoustic.

 

[khlee]

yep, acoustic

 

[kevinthenerd]

Don't screw with the truss rod. If it doesn't look right after changing the strings, take it to somebody who knows what they're doing. If you're going from heavy to light, you especially will have no problem without a truss rod adjustment. Your action might be a little lower (distance between strings and 12th fret) with less tension, but I wouldn't mess with the truss rod myself if I were you.

 

[yellowperil]

You may or may not, depending on the guitar. When you move to a lighter gauge, that decreases the tension so the neck may bow slightly upward. To adjust a truss rod, you stick an Allen wrench on the end of a truss rod (on an acoustic it's usually in the soundhole) and turn it clockwise to tighten or counter-clockwise to loosen. If the neck is bowing upward you would turn it clockwise to tighten and thus straighten out the neck. However, I strongly recommend you take it to a guitar tech if you're not sure if the neck is straight. If it plays fine (no buzzing) it's probably OK.

 

[kevinthenerd]

<-- plays a thoroughly-modified Yamaha EG112 that sounds better than most people's Strat's