What's the going rate for a guitar setup?

**John A.** · 05-19-2021, 11:24 AM

Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar

The Fender website has excellent instructions for a basic setup. They're writing about the Stratocaster, but it's pretty much the same thing on any guitar with an adjustable bridge and truss rod. Some of the numbers may be a little different.

It requires a few simple tools available at any hardware store. Maybe $20? Metal ruler, screwdriver, the allen wrench(es) that probably came with the guitar or equivalents. You're not likely to break anything unless you go crazy on the truss rod -- which takes it out of the realm of basic setup.

Most of the time, it will be an adjustment of bridge height and intonation, I guess. And, that's pretty easy to do. Put on new strings, adjust the the saddles to achieve the recommended heights at the 12th fret. Then, adjust the intonation -- easiest with a good tuner, but it was done for decades without them.

If you get buzzing or if it won't intonate you can check the neck according to the instructions and you can try adjusting the truss rod, but, at that point, it may be worth it to pay a luthier.

Even though I generally do my own set-ups, and even have started doing fret leveling and re-crowning (using my less expensive guitars as guinea pigs), I have to say that having a pro set-up done (along with a fret level/re-crown) on my Strat was a revelation. The tech did a bunch of things that hadn't occurred to me (neck tilt, matching bridge saddle radius to FB radius, filling and re-cutting the nut slots), and fine-tuned everything else that corrected all the ways I had incrementally fouled it up. It played and sounded WAY better. I've since been able to keep it in this condition by not messing with the things that were finally set-up correctly .
Strat-style guitars have more points of adjustment and failure than most other guitars. So this may not be completely applicable to other guitars, but there definitely is a skill and knowledge base to getting guitars set-up correctly.

**sgosnell** · 05-19-2021, 03:55 PM

It's like any other nut and bolt, but there may not be any area where the nut just spins freely, it's usually at least a little tight. If the nut is very hard to turn, it may have been tightened too much. You should be able to turn the adjustment nut with a small Allen wrench without too much effort. It's hard to put too much torque with a 5/32" Allen wrench by hand. Any truss rod should easily handle what you can apply, unless you're incredibly strong. Some rods have a hex nut instead of a female Allen nut, and you can break things if you use your 12" socket wrench on it, so it's better to use an actual trussrod wrench. You can get them on ebay for very little money, even with a socket on one end and a Philips screwdriver on the other, for removing the cover.