Relief Setting On An Acoustic

[Tim]

I dusted off my Seagull S6 acoustic guitar this weekend. Boy did I sound terrible. I guess I am use to playing the electric guitars. All I heard was fret buzz coming off the old dreadnought. I am suspecting that I should increase the relief on the neck. Presently it is sitting at .011. Does anybody know if an acoustic should have a higher amount of relief than the present setting? For some reason I remember reading something that acoustics should be around .013 or higher. I think this setting would make for hard playing guitar.

 

[monradon]

Depends on the player better ones like it low , blue grass likes the higher action more volume ??

 

[t_ross33]

Playing style (strumming vs. fingerpicking for instance) and string guage will also make a difference. Had the action on my old yamaha lowered and it plays great for cowboy chords, but I still have a heck of a time fretting bar cords past the 3rd fret (you can imagine what it was like before I had it lowered ) Still, I can hammer on 'er pretty hard, or flat pick with a set of medium or medium lights and she sounds awesome - no frett buzz whatsoever.

That said, I have no idea what the relief or action is set at

 

[ZoSo65]

Hell, I would set it the way you want it!
If seeting it higher equals more volume, like monradon mentioned, I don't know if that's true or not either, but if it is, you can gain volume, by coating the insides with wood glue, believe it or not, it works!
Granted I only seen one person do it, but he's done it on 6 acoustics, one of them was even a fiberglass body with a spruce top (Fender Telecoustic).
He took the strings off, usually when it was time to change the strings, got a rag full of glue and basically mopped the insides. He usually put 3 coats, waiting each coat to dry.
I'll tell ya what, It makes a huge difference! He just bought a Fender Starcaster at Wallmart for about a buck 59, did the little glue trick(plus a good set of strings), and it sounds almost like a good ole Ovation. I never looked in to it, but it does work. Don't know how well it would work with a really high end acoustic, but it does kind of makes sense to me knowing how wood breathes and how the glue would seal it, but the mass also plays a part in it too. Hmmm, I'm going to have to look in to it more now! LOL