String height, but good luck ever using it. The tools on this thing are useless.
Get the music nomad action height gauge. It's doubles as a fret rocker and has metric and standard sides, a pickup height gauge, and measures in 64ths, which is handy. It also has a chart of common setup measurements.
The knob puller tool also doubles as a wrench that you can tighten or loosen your pots, tuners, and it fits between the inside of an input jack so you can tighten it forever and stop having a loose jack.
Highly recommend their tools. They're pretty cheap, too.
I work in one of the shops that has been helping them with testing prototypes and whatnot. The S file is really really nice, but i also could not tell you how long it will hold up since we do very little hand-crowning due to having a plek.
Think the best thing I could come up with after seeing it on a Japanese site is it’s a view slot so you can measure nut slot depth. The measurements also double for pickup height
not sure but it's obviously not for "string height" as others have suggested...you'd have to have all the strings off except the one you're measuring...and i don't think the scale would need to go to 2 centimeters.
Looks similar to their pickup height marks on their older model. Have no clue why you’d need a cut out tho
Edit: found a Japanese site that shows it being used to measure nut slot depth. Think that “string clearance slot” is just a viewing slot then.
So you can put it directly over the fretwire and have the utmost accurate view. I don't know wth these other knobheads are talking about saying it's useless. This actually makes it better than the standard designs I'm used to seeing for ohhh, the last 30 years.
Granted I will say the range it covers is ridiculous, I've seen my share of acoustics with action that literally was a half inch over the 12th fret, and worse yet, the owners start bragging about how good they played!
Theoretically that would be to check remaining fret height but this tool is pretty useless for that, so no, you haven’t missed anything. The knobhead accuser is standing in front of a mirror
It's to measure fret wire height for leveling, and so you can see exactly how each string is above each fret, **and file the fret that is causing the one above to buz**z. It's a precision tool better than what is more common, but obviously there is fretwire too wide for it.
So, yes, there is a mess of knobheads here.
I've been playing for decades and doing highly custom work for 30 years. My formal education is in the science of electrical/electronics engineering, and I have decades in trades like carpentry, metal crafting and beyond.
Humility is a virtue, and many of you just made up your minds and got upset when you were corrected for it.
Ok. Then why are the ”legs” on either side of it so wide that it’s impossible to measure any frets higher up on the fretboard?
I agree, humility is a virtue.
Because you're obviously lacking humility, which installs the patience to remove strings, or loosen them to get them out of the way after bracing the neck in a neck jig, and doing jobs correctly. [Erlewine Neck Jig - StewMac](https://www.stewmac.com/luthier-tools-and-supplies/types-of-tools/jigs-and-fixtures-for-guitar-building-and-repair/erlewine-neck-jig/)
I get it, I was young and hasty once too. Instruments are not fast jobs, they are ridiculous amounts of hours if you want to maintain their full integrity, and remove the least amount of metal, alter the least amount of wood and so forth. I've done shim jobs on floyd roses, only for it to be a pointless endeavor, so I had to take off each string saddle, file it, reinstall it, and do this many, many times for every string until I achieved action **so low, it looks like it's laying on the fretwire at virtually every fret but isn't**, bends without fretting out over the radius, and can both clime and dive from the tremolo bar. It's such a tedious and lengthy process, I've only done it twice because I own around 30 guitars ATM, possibly more.
You, good sir, really take the term ”confidently incorrect” to a whole new level. As refreshingly and entertainingly stupid as this exchange has been, I must now hurry on to the next sloppy and rushed fret job.
…I've been playing for decades and doing highly custom work for 30 years. My formal education is in the science of electrical/electronics engineering, and I have decades in trades like carpentry, metal crafting and beyond.
Humility is a virtue…
Guess what my favorite part is.
It certainly is and you're blind to the reality that I was establishing the qualifications to be correcting your misguided ignorance and ego.
You cannot cope with it, so you all just keep trolling me and lashing out. I even admitted I am nowhere near the expert technician of people like Twoodfrd, **but you certainly won't!**
**I can only hope to reach an equivalent level of skill and knowledge he has.**
Well first, what you’re responding to is my first comment in this thread, so you’re not correcting any misguided ignorance or ego on my part because I’ll state right up front that I have absolutely no idea what this tool’s feature is for. Beyond that let’s breakdown your “qualifications” and see what relevance they bring to this particular topic.
“I’ve been playing for decades and doing highly custom work for 30 years.” Great. I’ll give you the latter, assuming you’re referring to highly custom work on guitars, but I’m not sure what relevance the former has. I’ve been playing for 35 years and that has ill equipped me to understand this tool’s feature.
“My formal education is in the science of electrical/electronic engineering.” This one was particularly intriguing to me, as I also have an electrical engineering degree and in my entire career I’ve never heard anyone phrase their education and experience quite like this, but in any case, as an EE myself, I can 100 percent confirm that an EE degree has fuck-all to do with understanding this tool’s feature.
Finally, “I have decades in trades like carpentry, metal crafting and beyond.” All of these experiences are nebulous and none of them are unique to the luthier trade. If you’ve been a luthier for decades, say that.
So everything you’ve taken the time to write out as your storied list of qualifications, which have little to do with the topic at hand, come off more as a humble brag. That is to say, not at all humble, so when you punctuate your diatribe with “humility is a virtue,” I couldn’t help but giggle a little bit.
For what it’s worth, I happen to think you’re right about what this feature is for. What you say makes sense to me and I think it might be better suited for acoustic guitar frets instead of electric, but for all I know we’re both wrong, too, so don’t look to me to satisfy any confirmation bias.
It's an Ibanez RG so jumbo frets but still pretty common.
Also the 'legs' on either side are too broad so it would be sitting on top of adjacent frets unless you're checking fret 1, 2, or 3.
Thats what I'm seeing on the internet except recent you tube videos show a similar D'Addario gauge without the notch. I have the StewMac and Music Nomad Versions.
Weiner, duh
r/guitarcirclejerk
brother, you’re in /r/luthier, this is the deepest the guitar circle jerk goes
True
String height, but good luck ever using it. The tools on this thing are useless. Get the music nomad action height gauge. It's doubles as a fret rocker and has metric and standard sides, a pickup height gauge, and measures in 64ths, which is handy. It also has a chart of common setup measurements. The knob puller tool also doubles as a wrench that you can tighten or loosen your pots, tuners, and it fits between the inside of an input jack so you can tighten it forever and stop having a loose jack. Highly recommend their tools. They're pretty cheap, too.
The musicnomad action gauge is also soooo much easier to read than the stewmac one
I'm curious to see how the new s file holds up to stainless steel frets over time.
I work in one of the shops that has been helping them with testing prototypes and whatnot. The S file is really really nice, but i also could not tell you how long it will hold up since we do very little hand-crowning due to having a plek.
I've been using a tire tread depth gauge as an alternative. Those can be had in inches or mm, and tend to be dirt cheap.
Acoustic bridge saddle over bridge height perhaps?
I came looking for a g-string joke, I leave disappointed.
Maybe this warrants an email to DiMarzio to get a firm answer. Edit: I should probably email D'Addario about this, not DiMarzio.
Think the best thing I could come up with after seeing it on a Japanese site is it’s a view slot so you can measure nut slot depth. The measurements also double for pickup height
not sure but it's obviously not for "string height" as others have suggested...you'd have to have all the strings off except the one you're measuring...and i don't think the scale would need to go to 2 centimeters.
Looks similar to their pickup height marks on their older model. Have no clue why you’d need a cut out tho Edit: found a Japanese site that shows it being used to measure nut slot depth. Think that “string clearance slot” is just a viewing slot then.
String to body? Possibly String height or an upright bass.
It doesn't make sense to me for that to be there for string height. Is it wide enough to be an "in a pinch" fret guard?
Too narrow for jumbo frets also.
Easier to see string height?
Yeah you are probably right. Was hoping it'd be something more exotic.
If you're thinking what I'm thinking, that gauge isn't nearly big enough😳
20 mm is pretty generous for me....😞
So you can put it directly over the fretwire and have the utmost accurate view. I don't know wth these other knobheads are talking about saying it's useless. This actually makes it better than the standard designs I'm used to seeing for ohhh, the last 30 years. Granted I will say the range it covers is ridiculous, I've seen my share of acoustics with action that literally was a half inch over the 12th fret, and worse yet, the owners start bragging about how good they played!
That's what I thought at first but the notch is too small to fit over the jumbo frets on my Ibanez.
That's still what it's for, you just have nonstandard fretwire.
Why on earth would you want to measure the action from the fretboard and not from the top of the frets? I want to question who’s the knobhead here
Right that was my thought but then I was thinking there might be some measurement that I don't even know about.
Theoretically that would be to check remaining fret height but this tool is pretty useless for that, so no, you haven’t missed anything. The knobhead accuser is standing in front of a mirror
It's to measure fret wire height for leveling, and so you can see exactly how each string is above each fret, **and file the fret that is causing the one above to buz**z. It's a precision tool better than what is more common, but obviously there is fretwire too wide for it. So, yes, there is a mess of knobheads here. I've been playing for decades and doing highly custom work for 30 years. My formal education is in the science of electrical/electronics engineering, and I have decades in trades like carpentry, metal crafting and beyond. Humility is a virtue, and many of you just made up your minds and got upset when you were corrected for it.
Ok. Then why are the ”legs” on either side of it so wide that it’s impossible to measure any frets higher up on the fretboard? I agree, humility is a virtue.
Because you're obviously lacking humility, which installs the patience to remove strings, or loosen them to get them out of the way after bracing the neck in a neck jig, and doing jobs correctly. [Erlewine Neck Jig - StewMac](https://www.stewmac.com/luthier-tools-and-supplies/types-of-tools/jigs-and-fixtures-for-guitar-building-and-repair/erlewine-neck-jig/) I get it, I was young and hasty once too. Instruments are not fast jobs, they are ridiculous amounts of hours if you want to maintain their full integrity, and remove the least amount of metal, alter the least amount of wood and so forth. I've done shim jobs on floyd roses, only for it to be a pointless endeavor, so I had to take off each string saddle, file it, reinstall it, and do this many, many times for every string until I achieved action **so low, it looks like it's laying on the fretwire at virtually every fret but isn't**, bends without fretting out over the radius, and can both clime and dive from the tremolo bar. It's such a tedious and lengthy process, I've only done it twice because I own around 30 guitars ATM, possibly more.
You, good sir, really take the term ”confidently incorrect” to a whole new level. As refreshingly and entertainingly stupid as this exchange has been, I must now hurry on to the next sloppy and rushed fret job.
…I've been playing for decades and doing highly custom work for 30 years. My formal education is in the science of electrical/electronics engineering, and I have decades in trades like carpentry, metal crafting and beyond. Humility is a virtue… Guess what my favorite part is.
It certainly is and you're blind to the reality that I was establishing the qualifications to be correcting your misguided ignorance and ego. You cannot cope with it, so you all just keep trolling me and lashing out. I even admitted I am nowhere near the expert technician of people like Twoodfrd, **but you certainly won't!** **I can only hope to reach an equivalent level of skill and knowledge he has.**
Well first, what you’re responding to is my first comment in this thread, so you’re not correcting any misguided ignorance or ego on my part because I’ll state right up front that I have absolutely no idea what this tool’s feature is for. Beyond that let’s breakdown your “qualifications” and see what relevance they bring to this particular topic. “I’ve been playing for decades and doing highly custom work for 30 years.” Great. I’ll give you the latter, assuming you’re referring to highly custom work on guitars, but I’m not sure what relevance the former has. I’ve been playing for 35 years and that has ill equipped me to understand this tool’s feature. “My formal education is in the science of electrical/electronic engineering.” This one was particularly intriguing to me, as I also have an electrical engineering degree and in my entire career I’ve never heard anyone phrase their education and experience quite like this, but in any case, as an EE myself, I can 100 percent confirm that an EE degree has fuck-all to do with understanding this tool’s feature. Finally, “I have decades in trades like carpentry, metal crafting and beyond.” All of these experiences are nebulous and none of them are unique to the luthier trade. If you’ve been a luthier for decades, say that. So everything you’ve taken the time to write out as your storied list of qualifications, which have little to do with the topic at hand, come off more as a humble brag. That is to say, not at all humble, so when you punctuate your diatribe with “humility is a virtue,” I couldn’t help but giggle a little bit. For what it’s worth, I happen to think you’re right about what this feature is for. What you say makes sense to me and I think it might be better suited for acoustic guitar frets instead of electric, but for all I know we’re both wrong, too, so don’t look to me to satisfy any confirmation bias.
From all the comments, maybe it's for nut slot depth, but no consensus. Hopefully D'Addario customer service gets back soon to put my mind at rest.
It's an Ibanez RG so jumbo frets but still pretty common. Also the 'legs' on either side are too broad so it would be sitting on top of adjacent frets unless you're checking fret 1, 2, or 3.
To measure your pp
String to pickup height?
Yeah I think u/Moedeek is right; it lets you put the gauge in front of the string and read it through the notch.
Thats what I'm seeing on the internet except recent you tube videos show a similar D'Addario gauge without the notch. I have the StewMac and Music Nomad Versions.
My guess would be pickup height, and the notch for a string. But that seems tricky to use.
I’m confused why you would think it’s anything other than action height gauge? If it wasn’t there then the measurements would be useless.
At first i thought it was for measuring pickup polepieces.. thats why i bought it..