Anyone find they need to raise the action on their new Taylor?

[KevinIndiana]

Hi ewalling,

I assume by now you've got your action issue resolved. I just read this thread, and for what it's worth, thought I'd comment. I just bought an 816ce last weekend. It buzzed a little and both the salesman and I thought the action was slightly too low and warranted a 1/4 turn or so of the truss rod, but I decided it made sense to just live with the guitar a bit and see if I wanted it adjusted or not. I certainly like low action!

But after 4 days with the guitar, I decided it really did need to be raised a little. Since the store is nearly a 3 hour round-trip drive for me, and I'm reading everywhere about how much guitars can change seasonally, or whenever you want to experiment with other strings, or tunings... I decided that it makes sense for me to learn how to adjust my own truss rod. It seems ridiculously simple to do, and I did some reading, and decided that I really didn't need to fear messing anything up, so I just did it. It was extremely easy. Just make sure you have a good quality small Phillips head screwdriver so you don't mess up your screws, or slip off and damage your truss rod cover. After removing the cover, the 1/4" socket driver is all you need. I couldn't find mine, but I have a cool screwdriver with 6 different slotted/Phillips "bits" that fit into a socket which, ta-dah, drum roll, is a 1/4" driver. So I just pulled out the screwdriver bit and used the main tool as a socket driver. It worked fantastically.

It's silly that something so simple feels so empowering. I know that at times saddles and nuts and frets may need adjusting, and when that day comes, I'll get an expert to do it. But for now I'm jazzed about being able to make simple truss rod adjustments on my own. Now if I want to try different strings, I know I'll easily be able to adjust the neck appropriately.

I feel like I just got past page one of "Guitar Adjustments For Dummies." (Hmmm...wonder if there is such a book...)

[Von Beerhofen]

Good to hear you've sorted it yourself. I've done this just once on my Ibanez and initially overdid it a bit, trying to lower the action. I then found that the 2nd position fret was a little higher then the rest (hadn't been tapped in properly), so after doing the job it resulted in a slight buzz when the string was played loud.
The strings I used were .010 to .048 I believe, so with the next set I changed that to .011 which solved the problem. Action is great now but my new Taylor feels a bit heavy to me, it's strings are .012 to .056 and I'm not used to it yet. The frets seem thinner as on the Ibanez and in the lowest positions I need more force to properly press the string against the fret. Having just started to play again after 10 years I'm not as precise as I was and the finger doesn't allways press down just in front of the fret but more in the centre of the position.
This occasionally results in a faint buzz too, but it's mainly my technique which is causing this.
I think my hand strength and precision will return pretty soon if I keep playing the way I do now and I'd expect the problem to go away.
I'm actually of thinking to get a set of .012 to .053 to make life a bit easier but it may cause more buzz because the low E string may vibrate more because of less tension and the neck curvature could also change.
Does anyone know what the effect of that will be? I should know because I've been there but it's more then 35 years ago since I last experimented with this and the knowledge has evapourated.

Von Beerhofen