My guess (& it can be no more than that) is that they simply don't measure them & so quite possibly don't have a written spec like that. They don't need to. Grace has been working with Sticks since she was a child.

And, as I mentioned earlier the real 'measure' is "can I get it any lower without causing a buzz" on this Stick. Generally set the 'nut' heights first, then the bridge. With both when it gets so low there's a buzz, back off a half turn.

With an Ironwood there's the extra complication of no truss rod. I had an Ironwood for a while. In my very humid locale that instrument had a permanemt slight back bow which meant that the lowest possible settings were not as low as they would have been in an ideal case. That Stick has now moved to a drier place.

My (1978) #404 Angico Stick
has similar clearances on all strings (+/- .5mm)

Nut 0.5mm - Middle 1.25mm - Bridge 1.5mm

Looks like WerkSpace has measured off the frets. My photos were measuring off the wood between pickup and bridge. I don't know how much difference that would make for Bill Moore's adjustments.

Greetings!



New Railboard owner here. I’m new to Stick instruments, and I purchased this one from a seller on Reverb. It came quite complete with the various cables, a hard case, a nice stand, and a Lap Dawg. The only thing missing is any sort of documentation.

I found the document online for the R-Block, which is very helpful obviously. Jeff at SE sent me the tip sheet document and a link to the setup page on the site, but I thought I would ask here about the specific issue I'm looking to address.

The instrument came set up for 10-string Classic tuning, and the seller said that it had been set up by Emmett. I believe based on what he told me that it was hardly played and still has the original strings on it, so I think it is probably still set up as it was when new.

Here’s my question: on the bass side, the strings seem to be very low across the X fret, to the extent that they don’t sound very well when I play that fret on strings 6 and 7 (C and G on the bass side). Essentially, I think they’re so low that they barely move when tapped, so they don’t get a good enough "kick" to excite the string. The melody strings all sound nicely at the X fret, and the higher bass strings do as well. As soon as I move up to fret 1, they’re fine. It’s just the X fret.

So I’m wondering how best to adjust things so that those two strings will sound with comparable volume to the other strings when played at the X fret. The nut on the headstock end of the truss rod is loose — applying no pressure either way. Do I just need a bit of pressure towards the headstock to put a little bow into that end of the board? Or since this is only affecting those two strings, is this better addressed by raising the flap slightly on one side?

I did read Greg Howard’s (RIP) comment on this thread, which makes me think that the truss rod may be the answer, but given that all of the other strings seem okay, I wanted to double check.

I guess the good news is that since the nut is currently loose, if I try adjusting the truss rod I can easily undo what I did by just loosening it again.

I should mention that I have a string set in hand to convert the tuning to Dual Bass Reciprocal, as I’m a bass player and this seems more consistent with what I want to play and also what I can wrap my head around in terms of tuning. So I realize that I will have to make substantial adjustments for the new string gauges, and I’ve watched Greg’s video on converting a Stick to DBR a couple of times in anticipation. But I wanted to get it set up as well as I can first and maybe spend a little time playing with the Classic tuning before I dive into that project.

Thanks!

Mike, when I spent time setting up my Bass side, I noticed that there's a sweet spot where the Bass sounded really good. The string can be either too high or too low and not sound good. Sometimes, it's the string itself causing the issue and it might require replacement.

Your going to have to experiment a bit to find what works for you. Pay a lot of attention to which frets are buzzing and try to go as low as you can. You will eventually find that the instrument plays without too much effort when the strings are setup properly. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17263

Another thing that helps me, is to video the setup process, so that I can keep track of the sound changes before and after I make an adjustment. I narrate what I'm doing, so that when I playback the video over and over, I can clearly hear what effect each change in the setup is producing.

Thank you! Those are wonderful references, especially the one about the Divided Truss System. I also just watched Greg's video on adjusting the truss so I feel like I understand how to sight down the board.

And don't miss Werkspace's excellent run down on setup in this post: https://stickist.com/viewtopic.php?p=140763#p140763 (probably already mentioned in this topic, but worth mentioned again if so).