Hi all, I’m quite new to all of this, really enjoying the first few modules of the app and playing along with the backing tracks.
I bought myself a new guitar a week or so ago, by the method of dropping in to a local shop and playing my three chords on a few of the low to mid-range guitars until I found one that appealed aesthetically and sonically. It’s a Sigma dreadnought, DT-1 model - a German company these days, making a Chinese copy of a D-28. Solid spruce top though! I’ll pop a photo in below.
Wondering how well it’s set up, I’ve measured the action as well as I can with a steel rule. The low E has about 3mm gap between the bottom of the string and the 12th fret, and the high E about 2mm. Does that seem a reasonable starting point? I can certainly get the few chords I’m going for at the moment.
Nice rig! Those measures are probably fine. Pretty average.
Did it have any set up from the shop?
If it plays well, leave it alone. In the future, after you have more of a feel for it, you could consider changes if you felt the need.
I like to check the relief as well. I find it makes a difference if it is correct and is easy to adjust yourself with a hex wrench.
It is NOT a way to change the action (although it does). You adjust to correct relief, not action height. But measuring action does depend on the correct relief.
Fret the 6th at fret 1 and 12 and with your third hand see if you can slide something thin, like a business card under at the 6th fret. It should just fit, roughly 0.008 inches. You can use a pick to hold the string down for you by putting it under the fifth string and over the 4th and 6th.
Don’t worry about it unless it is pretty far off. If it happens to be off, and you bought from a store, they would probably adjust it for you.
Happy NGD.
Sigma are fine and as you say a solid wood top.
Nurture a relationship with them in that case. Contact them soon with a little ‘thank for the guitar, I’m enjoying it’ type of message. Follow it up with a new message ‘in a few weeks / months, after it has settled, I will want new strings and maybe try a different make / light gauge, could you tech look it over for me please?’ type of message.
@oliver_bendix the shop I deal with has a free set up with in the first year you own your new guitar. The shop you bought the guitar may have a similar policy. Hey recommend yiu play the guitar for a few months so the guitar can accumulate to your home environment before having it set up.
Happy NGD
Very nice guitar, congrats If the guitar is easy to play and you can comfortably fret barre chords in the first 2 frets, then you don’t need to worry about the action height. However, as others mentioned, you’d want to make sure that the neck relief (i.e. how “curved” it is) is not excessive and that there is no unwanted fret buzz. Make sure that if you do your own setup later on, you always adjust the relief with the truss rod first and take care of action height specifically after that.
Solid advice by @Richard_close2u
Make sure they like working for you
You could ask, when going to the shop for a restring with lighter strings, whether they can quickly assess whether a setup would be beneficial or not
,I wish you a lot of fun with it.
