Set-up question

**Jonathan Peck** · Oct-11-2007, 2:39pm

What are your feelings between the set-up that is done by measuring with tapes, rules, callipers etc.. -vs- the set-up that is done by eye, ear, and touch with only the use of a tuner to assist in intonation?

**Antlurz** · Oct-11-2007, 3:03pm

The latter seems much more natural to me.

Ron

**otterly2k** · Oct-11-2007, 3:07pm

I think a good set-up person should be able to do either, or a combination of both. If the person doing the set-up goes only by feel, then who's to say that his/her feel is going to meet the requirements of the player, whose feel is different.

**Antlurz** · Oct-11-2007, 3:10pm

....and whose "numbers" does one utilize?

Ron

**sunburst** · Oct-11-2007, 3:43pm

Both. First you measure, then you "tweek".

**Jonathan Peck** · Oct-12-2007, 8:50am

Originally Posted by (sunburst @ Oct. 11 2007, 16:43)

Both. First you measure, then you "tweek".

This makes perfect sense to me...to have a standard point at which to start. OTOH, it seems logical for someone who performs these repetitive tasks day in and day out, year after year, that reaching for a tool might seem an un-necessary waste of time as you can get to that starting point without having to measure to the .01th degree. From there, wouldn't tweeking more or less get you to the same place?

.....besides, those tools never seem to be where you left them on the bench anyway. I can even remember once finding a tool I knew I had put down on the bench in the refrigerator

**sunburst** · Oct-12-2007, 9:37am

Luthiers are just people, and people are different.
I worked for an instrument manufacturer for years. There was another guy who worked there (who is now a partner in a well known guitar company) who would "eyeball" most of his "measurements", especially centers, like laying out an inlay or something like that. He could just look, mark or scribe a center point or line, and keep on working.
I can't do that. It never looks centered to me. I'll tweek it this way and that, turning and looking from different directions, and on and on. It didn't take me long to figure out that it is much faster for me to grab a ruler, measure it, and move on (and put the ruler back in it's designated place where it can be reached easily and can always be found, don't move it if you're in my shop!).

So one luthier might be able to get to his/her starting point by eye, and another might prefer to just measure and quit agonizing.

**MikeB** · Oct-12-2007, 9:48am

(and put the ruler back in it's designated place where it can be reached easily and can always be found, don't move it if you're in my shop!)

Jeez, John I was just going to ask if I could borrow that ruler of yours for a minute!

**sunburst** · Oct-12-2007, 10:03am

Sure, just be sure to put it back!

Like I said, people are different. There was another guy who worked there, and apparently, it was completely beyond his ability to ever put a tool back where he found it! Especially pencils! I'd reach for my pencil and...oh ####! it's gone again! So I started buying silver or gold of any kind of flashy colored pencil I could find, so I could find my pencil wherever he left it, but I finally gave up on that, and I figured it out; every time I found my pencil missing, I'd go get another and sharpen it and put it in it's correct place. Eventually, the guy had left pencils all over the shop and mine started staying put. So, if you have trouble keeping up with your tools, just go buy a new one every time you can't find one. Sooner or later, there's one everywhere and you can always find one! Admittedly, it's much cheaper to learn to put your tools away. It's a lesson best learned early.

**buddyellis** · Oct-12-2007, 6:13pm

Well at least pencils are cheap! If the guy is like me, he could be standing there, and the pencil ends up magically 10 feet across the room, to a location he never remembers walking to, buried under a pile of wood or something he could have sworn he hadn't touched in a week.