High Action or Low Action - What are your thoughts?

**darkwaters** · 03-25-2021, 08:33 AM

I guess I fall into the Medium/Low camp?

Relief = .008" (or thereabouts, so almost straight)
Action (High E, 12th fret) = 5/64"
Action (Low E, 12th fret) = 3/32"
String gauge = 10s or 11s

My touch is pretty light, but any lower and buzz starts to annoy. I can live with a smidge.

**sgosnell** · 03-25-2021, 03:57 PM

I am unable to understand why anyone would want to have to fight the strings.

**mr. beaumont** · 03-25-2021, 03:59 PM

I need it high enough that I can dig in a bit and not get "splatty."

**Roy Boy** · 03-25-2021, 04:26 PM

Edit- OOPS! I just noticed the post I responded is over 2 years old- too late

I can tell you from experience that using a radius block to level frets will not produce the results you want. As a builder, I invested in the beautiful Stew Mac 18" machined aluminum sanding beam. It is a dream for putting a radius on a fingerboard. However, once you put frets in, the radius of the top of the frets IS NOT 12" but 12" + bead height. It seems like it would be too little to make a difference but it is not. The first time I tried leveling frets with that beautiful sanding beam, I quickly realized that I was grinding a lot off the ends of the frets (probably 0.010 - 0.020") before the beam ever kissed the middle of the frets, leaving a huge amount of recrowning on the ends of the frets. I ended up using a flat sanding beam to grind all the frets down to match the low ends so the frets would all have the same bead height. This took one level and crown off the lifespan of a new set of frets. Lesson learned (the hard way).

So if you need to fine tune the level of frets for low action, a flat beam with a fine grit of paper is your best approach. I hope I've saved you a lot of work (and grief). -RB