Forum VI Setup-likes-questions

[nbs2005]

Hi all,

Thought I'd start this thread to talk about living with our new Forum VIs. I do feel very humbled to have gotten in on this as a fairly new convert to Larrivee (I've owned my first Larrivee not quite 2 years).

I started playing mine on Monday and let it sit for a bit before doing any setup stuff. It had the typical stiff action that I've come to expect from the factory; I get it, that allows full set-up flexibility. Action at the fist fret was about halfway between the 0.25-0.5 mm mark so pretty spot on for my tastes (numbers are for 6th sting, 1st was a bit lower). 12th fret was just north of 2.5 mm, so there was room for improvement. And there was plenty of neck relief. I got out the truss rod wrench (glad to see these don't have the silly no hole brace that requires the hooked wrench) and found that the rod was pretty much fully backed off. I probably added about 3/4 to a full turn of adjustment in 1/4 increments. Dip is now measuring 0.20 mm at the 6 and 7 fret. Action is down to just above 2 mm at the 12th. I'm going to let it sit at that for awhile and see what I think. I am considering taking 0.5 mm off the saddle to get the action closer to 1.75 mm as I'm pretty much a fingerstyle/lighter player but I may just keep it where it is.

Really loving this guitar. It compliments the SD-40 really well and I like the playability over my 14 fret OM-40 which moved on to a new home last week.

Cheers,

Jeff

[nbs2005]

After playing for a few days, I'm now thinking the nut slots need to come down just a tad. With capo at the first fret the action on the 6th string at the 12th fret falls right into the perfect for me just under 2mm. The play-ability also jumps up quite a bit with the capo in place. I've ordered a few more nut files to fill out my set. When they arrive, I'll get to work. 

[Mikeymac]

After playing for a few days, I'm now thinking the nut slots need to come down just a tad. With capo at the first fret the action on the 6th string at the 12th fret falls right into the perfect for me just under 2mm. The play-ability also jumps up quite a bit with the capo in place. I've ordered a few more nut files to fill out my set. When they arrive, I'll get to work. 

Yep. The "Capo at the 1st fret" test is very revealing. Works every time it's tried.

[B0WIE]

FWIW, I've found the nut slots on the vast majority of acoustics I've owned benefited from coming down just slightly. I get why the makers play it conservative. That slight dissonance in intonation on open chords dives me nuts though so I file them as needed.

Don't expect perfection as it's not possible without lateral compensation and you can easily end up with buzzing if you just go by pitch. My advice to anyone doing it is to go slow and find that compromise between pitch and action.

[nbs2005]

My plan is to go painfully slow in filing the slots. I'm going to use the stacked feeler gauge trick with a fair amount of buffer between the first fret height and what I cut down to.

[nbs2005]

My files are here, time to get busy. I'm going to do one more practice on one of my Tele partscaster nuts first.

BTW, here's a quick one take of the Forum VI. No charge for mistakes (as Guthrie Trapp says).

https://youtu.be/f6b9Xrrng7I

[mike in lytle]

My files are here, time to get busy. I'm going to do one more practice on one of my Tele partscaster nuts first.

BTW, here's a quick one take of the Forum VI. No charge for mistakes (as Guthrie Trapp says).

https://youtu.be/f6b9Xrrng7I

Pretty d@mn nice!
One can really see how high the low E string is at the nut when you fret it.
Good luck!
Mike

[markj]

My files are here, time to get busy. I'm going to do one more practice on one of my Tele partscaster nuts first.

BTW, here's a quick one take of the Forum VI. No charge for mistakes (as Guthrie Trapp says).

https://youtu.be/f6b9Xrrng7I

Very nice!