Action on a Les Paul

[Suds]

Well I decided to make my Epiphone Les Paul into a slide only guitar. I have never really done any tech work on my guitars but I would like to give this one a shot.

So to make this guitar more suitable for slide I just have to raise the action?? I would like to raise it high. So there is no possible fret buzzing just the pure slide sound.

Where do I start!?


Thanks,

Suds:smile:

[Hamm Guitars]

I've never set up a dedicated slide guitar before, but my guess is that you can just raise the bridge and maybe replace the nut and/ or add shims to raise it.

[hollowbody]

You can get risers for your nut that sit on top of the existing nut, but these are a temporary solution, and apparently not easy to find, as I just googled it and didn't turn up much.

Raising the action alone won't get you all the way, but might be a temporary solution just to see if you like playing slide enough to go the whole 9 yards and raise the nut as well.

[guitarman2]

If it were me I'd raise it just enough that you could still play it relatively comfortable but high enough to get a nice slide tone. There isn't really a need for it to be so high you can't still finger it just to get a good slide tone. Both my Teles are pretty close action and I still get a pretty good slide tone. They could stand to be a little higher for perfection but not much.

[fraser]

double post

[fraser]

like guitarman2 said, if your just playing slide in a standard position, not on your lap, then youll probably be fine just raising the action at the bridge, and maybe adding a bit of relief at the truss rod. i play slide and regular fretting stuff on all my acoustics, and never need a higher nut- wouldnt want one, as i fret a lot of notes while sliding- so its basically a regular guitar with higher than normal action. id try just raising the action and see how it goes- you want it high enough that your slide isnt colliding with your fretwire is all. should be easy to reach a compromise point where you can both slide on it and fret on it cleanly-
for lap slide, you need to buy or make a tall nut for it tho, or buy or make a nut riser
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Nuts,_saddles/Resonator_nuts,_saddles/Slide_Guitar_Extension_Nut.html

[PaulS]

I would say the bridge also as others have pointed out. If you raise your nut height then you can run into intonantion problems when fingering in the low frets. If the nut slots are to high then you put to much pressure at the nut in the first 3 or 4 frets and this can make open chords sound out of tune. I am currently looking at setting up a guitar for slide and have been researching some setup tips. Dan Erlewine's book has a good write up in it about slide setup.

[Suds]

Thanks everybody......this is great advice.

I will get right to it.

Cheers,

Suds :smile: