Essential Tools to Maintain a Headless Bass or Guitar Regularly

Have you recently bought a new headless guitar? You should not only learn to play it properly but also learn guitar setup & its regular maintenance. For this, you must get the appropriate set of tools. Good quality tools may help you to fix your headless bass guitar in no time.

Tools for Guitar Setup and Maintenance

Folding Set of Hex Keys

Changing guitar strings, adjustment of the action, setting of the intonation, or adjustment of the truss rod require a set of hex keys. Even though you get enough hex keys with your headless guitar, you cannot track them easily. In particular, if you have many guitars, you require hex keys of different shapes and sizes. Luckily, you may get a set of many folding keys to use in guitar setup of your favorite guitars. 

Guitar String Cutter 

Once you change the strings of your headless guitar, you must cut them. Here comes the role of a guitar string cutter or wire of good quality. However, string cutters may vary largely. If you are using a headless instrument, you must cut the string close to its exit to avoid sticking out of any sharp point. In this situation, you should get the respective type of string cutter. A few string cutters have side cutter designs to cut the bass string closely as possible. Guitar string cutters feature compact and ergonomic designs to fit in your case or gig bag. 

Neck Relief Gauge via Truss Rod

If you have set up a new guitar or the climate has changed suddenly, you should check that the guitar neck has enough relief and an appropriate amount. If the guitar neck has excessive relief, it causes too high actions while going up the frets regardless of the high or low setting of the saddle. 

In contrast, excessive low relief may lead to fret buzz as the guitarist reaches its 12th fret. Luckily, you can get a neck relief gauge via a truss rod to identify the right relief level for the neck of your headless bass or guitar.

The question is how one can identify whether a guitarist needs less or more relief to the guitar neck. For this, one should insert the pick capo by keeping it on the D and E strings below the A string and sliding it to the first fret. After this, sit in the playing position by keeping your guitar in your hand. Now, hold down its E string on the fret 12 while using the gauge of 0.006 to insert between the E string and the 6^th fret.

If you find heavy contact between the gauge tool and the string, your guitar neck will get more relief. You may accomplish it by turning the hex key in a counterclockwise direction. If you find a gap between the gauge and the string tool, your neck requires less relief. In this situation, the hex key will follow a clockwise direction. The main objective is to maintain a light contact between the gauge tool and the string, which is possible only when the guitar neck gets relief properly. 

Action Gauge 

Once you set the neck with the right relief, you may adjust the headless guitar action according to your preference. For this, you should use an action gauge to avoid any guesswork related to your current action. Action gauge helps you a lot if you have to set the action on multiple guitars by following the same methods. 

A few action gauges also provide a list or a chart to show the ranges of an action gauge. The heights are high, medium, and low so that you can identify the right action immediately and get the one that works the best for you.  

If you want to measure the string action, you must place the action gauge on its fret-12 and hold down the guitar string on its fret-1. You get a precise measurement only when the bottom of the guitar string meets with the top of its white line. The tool includes both SAE measurements and metrics. 

Conclusion

The success of your music band depends solely on the quality of your guitar instrument. Hence, get the right tools today for your guitar setup and to maintain your headless bass or guitar in working condition for a lifetime.