Seagull S6 set up

** Apologies if the whiteboard isn't too clear in this video - the result of setting the camera to a less distorted 120 degree picture angle after requests from some subs **

This video shows me setting up Salvatore's Seagull S6 acoustic guitar. I've already set up 2 Taylor Babys for Salv; this was his 3rd Reloved set up. He reported tuning instability and the guitar just not feeling right to play.

The guitar came via courier in its very effective custom-tailored hard case. Straight away I worked out that most of the tuning instability was coming from residual slack still stored up in the strings. This is easy to demonstrate: you just pull hard on any string and watch it go out of tune. If I can do this weeks, months or even years after you fitted strings then it's going to go out of tune all the time while you play it.

My second main observation about this guitar was that there had been some heavy 'spot' levelling of frets at the top end where the neck joins the body. Closer examination showed frets that were buckled; a previous owner had then attacked the raised parts of the buckled frets with a file or sandpaper to bring them down. This had clearly worked for the chosen action of 3.5mm at the last fret but had unknowingly made it difficult if not impossible to lower the overall action any further at a later date without doing significant fret levelling.

Normally on acoustic guitars I can lower the action substantially without the underlying uneven frets coming into play. That wasn't the case with this guitar; as soon as I reduced the saddle to give my preferred action c. 2.5mm at the last fret a patch of choked notes on the G and D string right at the top of the fret board showed up.

This drew my attention to that area and I could start to diagnose what exactly had happened to this guitar in the past. There had clearly been some damage across 4 frets which the previous owner had taken a file or sandpaper to. At first I had thought it was just bad fretting...although that would be surprising for a guitar maker like Seagull.

The more I looked the more I recognised the buckling in the frets as consistent with the guitar having been dropped mostly face down against some hard object, bashing the frets and driving the strings into them at the same time. A deep gouge on the edge of the fingerboard and some tiny string-width digs on the frets supports that hypothesis.

In this video you'll see me getting close to a decision to stop and recommend a complete re-fret on this guitar; it was touch and go whether or not I would be able to level the last 4 frets enough to meet the severe 'low' the previous owner had created behind them and which was causing the choking from that point on.

Luckily, there was enough fret metal to continue with the levelling until the notes freed up but you'll see just how much metal had to come off those last 4 frets to work with the damaged previous ones.

Once this was done, the set up then proceeded as normal and the end result is a beautiful guitar that plays and stays perfectly in tune.

The video is probably useful because it illustrates how fret levelling is always a continual process of assessment and re-assessment, making judgment calls at every stage.