A friend at church brought me a 12 string guitar to restring. He wanted me to string as a 6 string guitar. I was wondering if it would be fine to restring as a 6-string or will that mess with the truss rod?
Twelve String Guitar
Just guessing, but as long as the 6-string tension seems reasonable I don’t see where it would create much of an issue, unless there is a “You break it, you buy it” issue.
The easiest solution is to hand the guitar back while muttering some like “In life you have to follow your own dreams, paddle your own canoe and re-string your own guitar.”
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I used to string my 12 as a 6. Never had any problems. The 6 missing strings will all be the lightest gauges.
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Thank you both! I never had thought about making a twelve-string guitar like a six string one, and wanted to make sure it was okay to do that.
Thankfully there is not one of those issues.
That is a good quote!
Either that or it will be one of those really high sounding guitar.
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You could also use only the high (or lightest) set from a 12 string set and get “Nashville tuning.” That is a neat sound for strumming.
One thing you might run into going from 12 to 6 is that there is not enough tension from the strings and the action might be too low. If you run into that, let us know: it is fixable.
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Now I want to try Nashville Tuning! That’s sounds so cool.
How can you tell if there is enough tension/ the action too low? Or will it be pretty obvious once I change it?
If the action is too low, the strings will buzz. It will be pretty obvious if it is way off. Some folks like their action a bit high or low, so there is a significant element of preference involved.
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Thank you! I’ll be changing the strings tomorrow night, so I’ll let you know how it turns out.
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I replaced the strings, but had one question. Does the E string usually fit in the slot or is it a special sized string? For some odd reason the nut slot seems to small. I can show a picture if you’d like.
I do notice the action is too low. There is a lot of buzzing on the D and A string.
Yes, it should fit in there. Sounds like the the slot is sized for a smaller gauge set. It can either be widened or you can get a smaller gauge. Sounds like @Mark_Rocka has been down this road and he might remember if he ran into that.
Regarding the low action, if it needs more relief, that alone might take care of the issue. If the saddle needs to come up, you can shim it or fit a new one. If these adjustments need more explanation, we can follow up in this thread, but a great resource is frets.com.
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Thank you so much! I will check that website out.
Which E string? The 2 high Es are the same size. The low E strings are an octave apart and the higher of the 2 is between the low E and the high E 1st strings.
If you’re using a standard gauge set, they should fit in the biggest slots unless it was cut for a light gauge and you went with heavy.
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Sorry, @Mark_Rocka. The low E string. I bought medium strings, but I can send a picture, so you can see what it looks like.
I just remembered to get a few pictures of the guitar. Hope it’s not too many.
This is the guitar I’m working on. In this picture you can kind of see how the low E string is not all the way in the slot.
You can kind of see that even the A and D string are also a little out of the slot.
This is a comparison between the string and nut.
Here is the top view of the low E string not all the way in the slot.
You are correct, the nut slots need to be opened a bit to use that gauge of strings. There are specific files for nut slots, but a small conical file works with a little more care. A luthier could knock it out for you in a few minutes. You have a zero fret, so the nut slot is only for locating the string left and right. The height of the action is determined by the zero fret. That means that the nut slot fitting is easier to do.
Also, since the A and D strings are not sitting on the zero fret, it would buzz on the zero fret when open. If your buzzing goes away when fretting on the first fret or higher, your action will probably be fine once you get the bottom three nut slots fitted.
I looked at a few 12 string sets, and they are typically lighter gauge, so I guess the nut slots were fitted for smaller gauge strings.
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I might just have to get a lighter gauge. I don’t know any luthiers near me and that is too risky for me to do that without knowing exactly how much to take off the nut or how to replace a nut. (I failed putting an acorn in the tree, let alone replacing a nut on the guitar!)
I will check on that.
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OK, I think I see your problem. You’re trying to use the top slots on the nut, but the top slots are for the smaller strings.
For the E through G string pairs, the higher tone (lighter gauge) goes on top. So, if you number the strings like you would a regular guitar (1-6, where 1 is the high E and 6 is the low E) you’d want to use the odd numbered slots. 1-3-5-7-9-11. In the pics it looks like you’re trying to use the even slots.
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I’ll try that way. I didn’t notice that before. This is a brand new experience for me, this is fun!
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Thank you so much! I restrung it, and now they all fit and no more buzzing. Isn’t it funny how much it matters where you put the strings?!!
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