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An over set neck. Can this only be caused by the initial neck set? Or is there something in the life of the guitar that may cause a neck to move in this way?

I have a grandpa's old Yamaha I'm fixing up for a young man. To get sufficient action on the guitar I've had to raise the adjustable bridge quite a bit. I'm currently at 5/54" on the low E, and 4/64" on the high E. Lower than I personally like on an acoustic, but the top of the saddles are about 9/16" off the top of the guitar which feels awfully high (it's a weird measurement on an acoustic I realize but this is effectively an electric guitar bridge, I don't really have the usual bridge/saddle relationship to gauge things). And the strings are now having to navigate their way around the bolts on the back edge of the bridge.

I don't see any way around this short of pulling the neck, and working with the angle. A non-starter for me, personally.

Generally an instrument will age the opposite way. High
humidity can overset a neck. I normally have my steel strings guitars at 14 mm just a touch lower than yours. What does it sound like with all that mass on the bridge. Were they sold like that at one time? I am not sure if it matters if the saddle with that bridge is higher than an acoustic.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

That's what I was thinking too John. There's no evidence the guitar has dried out, and its a pretty old plywood guitar, so I'm not sure how much humidity swings would change things at this point.

The guitar sounds okay. Hard to say what it is I'm actually hearing here as there are a bunch of variables that aren't what I would consider typical, but nothing seems amiss.

Yes, definitely a guitar built in a higher humidity environment and moved to lower humidity, the soundboard will go down and the saddle will need to be raised.

I wouldn't worry about it. That action does not sound too low. Why don't you like it? How it feels or buzzing? If it's buzzing level the frets.

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Pat

Connor if your measurements are at the 12th they are pretty good.

Dry guitars may go into back bow and that can look like an overset neck especially when the dome of the top reduces at the same time and for the same reason. Tops's don't always recover domes and that's what I suspect has happened here. Yams are tough, rarely crack unless completely provoked and I see them carried around here outside by homeless folks in the snow and winter. We've fixed up some and donated them to the homeless here and we do that from time to time.

Regarding the string height off the top in front of the bridge of 9/16th" that's only 1/16" higher than Martin shoots for. You're good with what you have me thinks.

Thanks guys. I was mostly concerned about how the strings are forced to sit on all that hardware behind the saddles, but with that weird "tune-o-matic" style bridge on there I was feeling a little unmoored as far as what to expect. I suppose if it sounds fine, the worst that could happen with those strings sitting on the bolts is that this guitar may break strings at the bridge more often than another guitar might.

If that was my personal guitar, I would convert the bridge to a bone saddle setup and shed all that weight. Might make a big difference.