How to Balance an Electric Guitar

When you buy a brand new electric guitar, you cannot take for granted that it will be ready to play right out of the box. And buying a used instrument is as big a crapshoot as buying a used car. If the guitar has not been properly stored, or was exposed to extremes in humidity and temperature, it will probably need to have some adjustments made to bring it back into "balance".

Balancing a guitar is not a job you go into nonchalantly, but with the right tools, patience, and a little common sense, you can easily do the job yourself. You will need the following tools: A soft terry towel to use as a work surface, a small pillow or pad to support the neck, assorted Allen wrenches (an inexpensive set can be purchased almost anywhere), a medium-sized Philips screwdriver, a small Philips screwdriver, a medium slotted screwdriver, a small slotted screwdriver, and a special truss-rod adjustment wrench if your instrument has a truss rod with anything other than an Allen bolt adjustment nut.

There are three elements to balancing an electric guitar: Truss Rod Adjustment, Action, and Intonation. Truss Rod Adjustment straightens the neck, Action is the overall height of the strings from the fingerboard, and Intonation is the act of making sure the strings are in tune with themselves. The three tasks at hand have to be performed in a specific order. First, you must check the straightness of the neck.

CHECKING THE NECK

Before you open anything up and start twisting, first visually inspect the neck. Hold the end of the body near the tailpiece up to your eye and look down the neck towards the headstock. If there are no extreme irregularities in the fret spacing and they look pretty uniform, then verify the trueness of the neck by using a METAL (not wood or plastic) straightedge at least 18 inches long.

Sit with the guitar in the playing position, and make sure it is in tune. Lay the straightedge between the 3rd and 4th strings, keeping the straightedge perpendicular to the neck with one end sitting on the first fret. Look at the sixth fret, and see if there is any space between it and the straightedge. You do not actually want every fret to touch the straightedge, but rather have a very small space (less than 1/64 inch) between the straightedge and the sixth fret. Sliding a piece of paper between the sixth fret and the straightedge will reveal any gap that the eye cannot see.

If you own a capo, here's a cool trick that will eliminate the need for the straightedge. First, capo the strings at the first fret. Next, fret the sixth string at the 14th fret, and look at the sixth fret; you are using the string as a straightedge to check the relief (curve) of the neck. Using this technique, you can gently tap the string at the sixth fret to feel for any hard-to-see gaps. Too little bow can cause the strings to fret out when played, and too much of a bow can make the strings harder to fret.

You can use this technique with all the strings. This will help you find out if the neck is warped, by revealing differences in the gaps at the sixth fret on all strings. Neck warpage is a serious problem that, if even correctable, can only be corrected by an experienced luthier.

STRAIGHTENING THE NECK

If the neck is straight, then skip this step and go straight to setting the action. If the neck has too much or too little relief, then you must adjust the truss rod to make the neck true again. In its basic form, the mechanism is a steel rod with an anchor at one end and an adjustment nut at the other. It is inlaid (usually in a curve) into the center of a neck.

In Fender Stratocaster style necks, the truss rod adjustment nut access hole right above the nut (figure 1). In most other necks, there is a plate covering the truss rod nut called the "bell plate", which must be removed to access the truss rod adjustment nut (figure 2). The bell plate is held in place by 3 or 4 very small screws, usually Philips-headed. Remove these carefully, as the crosses in the head can strip very easily. Take the same care when reinstalling the bell plate, making sure not to over-tighten the screws.

Ninety percent of truss rod adjustment nuts are Allen bolts, and the proper wrenches can be purchased at any major department or hardware store. Sometimes, older electric guitars like classic Gibsons have a giant cone-shaped nut that is used to adjust the truss rod. You will need a special tool for these. If there is anything but an Allen bolt on your guitar's truss rod, see your music store for the right tool before doing any adjustment.

ADJUSTING THE TRUSS ROD

Tightening the adjustment nut (clockwise) pulls the rod straight, thus straightening the neck. Loosening it allows the neck to move with the influence of the strings, consequently allowing the neck bow. Before you adjust the nut, make a mark on it that corresponds to a fixed point below it on the access channel to the nut; red nail polish works great for this. This will help you gauge how much you have turned and may help you get back to "0" if for some reason you get too far off.

The first movement of an unfamiliar rod is always to loosen (counter-clockwise). This accomplishes two things: it gives you an idea of how tight the rod is already and tells you how smoothly it moves. If the rod seems sticky, back it out for removal while counting the turns. Clean it, oil it, and then return it to the original position. Q-tips and WD-40 or 3-in-1 oil are good for this.

Having a straight neck makes for a better playing instrument, but not all guitars and playing styles allow for a completely straight neck. Therefore, some relief is acceptable, and often necessary. Due to the elliptical vibration of a string, a little relief may prevent buzzing in the first and second positions. If you have a strong picking hand and tend to be an aggressive player, you can exaggerate the movement of the string and may need some relief, and higher action.

Now that you have straightened the neck out to a reasonable degree, retune the instrument and play the thing. Are there any buzzing frets anywhere? If so, you move on to the next step:

ADJUSTING THE ACTION

The height of the strings above the fingerboard is called the "Action". The idea is to get your strings as close to the fretboard as possible without causing them to buzz or "fret out" (where a note is completely dead). The proper action makes for maximum note response, and overall ease and speed of playing.

Action is adjusted at the bridge. In Gibson-style "Tune-o-matic" bridges (Figure 3), the entire bridge is raised or lowered one side at a time by two thumb wheels at each end (yellow arrows). Turn them clockwise to lower the bridge, and counter-clockwise to raise it (you may have to slack the strings to lessen their tension to do this).

Generally speaking, the treble string (first) side usually sits lower than the bass string (sixth) side, because of both the thicker gauge and the wider vibration pattern of the sixth string. A good target height for action is 4/64 for the treble string and 6/64 for the bass string at the twelfth fret on most electrics.

Raise the action on these bridges very slowly, turning the thumb wheels only about a quarter turn at a time, playing each string where the notes buzz or fret out after each adjustment. Repeat this process until every note on the neck rings clear and strong. Lowering action that is too high is done the same way, only in reverse. Turn each wheel about a quarter turn until the notes just begin to buzz. Afterwards, immediately raise the bridge just enough to stop them.

Using a Fender-style bridge (Figure 4), each string is seated in its own "saddle". On the end of each saddle are two very small screws (usually Allen screws). Raise and lower these screws accordingly to eliminate string buzz. This style bridge is found on many aftermarket vibrato tailpieces, like Floyd Rose and Kahler. I prefer this bridge because you can tweak each string individually, rather than all six at once. Once the action has been set to where you like it, retune the instrument and proceed to the next step:

CHECKING THE INTONATION

Intonation happens when a string is in tune with itself. The only way a guitar can play chords properly, or register every note in tune with other instruments is to be properly intoned. To see if the intonation is true, first you must pluck any string while fretting it at the twelfth fret. Carefully listen to the note, then pluck the string again, this time with your finger barely touching the string DIRECTLY over the twelfth fret. You are making a sound called a "Natural Harmonic", and if it sounds different than the fretted note, then the intonation is off.

Actually, you might benefit more from a quality electronic tuner to accomplish this task rather than relying on your own ears if you don't have very much experience at this. On a string that has correct intonation, both the harmonic and the fretted note should read exactly the same on an electronic tuner. If they are even the slightest degree different, then the string saddles must be adjusted.

On the Gibson Tune-o-matic bridge, the saddles are adjusted by turning the slotted screws under the strings towards the pickups (Figure 3/red arrow). On Fender-style bridges (Figure 4), the intonation screws are located behind each saddle, and are usually Phillips heads. They are on the bottom of the bridge, opposite from the pickups.

If the 12th fret harmonic note is LOWER than the fretted note (the harmonic is FLAT compared to the note), move the saddle BACK, towards the TAILPIECE. If the 12th fret harmonic pitch sounds HIGHER than the fretted note (the harmonic is SHARP compared to the note), move the saddle FORWARD, towards the PICKUPS. Make sure every string's 12th note harmonic and fretted 12th note agree completely, then retune your instrument, and you now have a well-balanced electric guitar that should handle like a champ!

Don't worry if you don't get it right the first time. Balancing an electric guitar takes patience and practice. Just be very careful not to force any fitting that is reluctant to move, and don't over tighten anything. You can save some serious money by balancing your own instruments, but if you run into any real trouble or are in doubt in any way, take it to a music store with a qualified luthier. I hope this guide is helpful to all those guitarists who want to do more to their beloved instrument than just merely PLAY it. Good Luck!