Acoustic Guitar Construction

Thank you all for your help.

From Brian Kimsey's website:

"To set the neck relief, first place a capo on the first fret. Next, with one finger, press the sixth string (lower E) down onto the fourteenth fret. The lower E string should now touch the first and fourteenth frets. Because of the enormous tension of the string, the string gives you a perfectly straight line between the cusps of the first and fourteenth fret.
The neck relief (forward curvature of the neck) that you're after can now be measured with a feeler gauge as a gap between the string and the cusp of the seventh fret. What most guitar manufacturers and luthiers recommend as a rule of thumb is a .010'' gap between the string and the seventh fret. I have yet to see a guitar and a playing style for which a .010'' neck relief did not work very well. I would recommend that you just go for that value and be done with it.
It is true that in rare cases, you can get away with a little less than .010'' of neck relief, and this will result in slightly better playability overall. However, unless you really want to become an expert at all this, I doubt that it is worth your time exploring different neck reliefs. If you really want to go there, you'll find some advice at the end of this page. For now, there is just one important thing to bear in mind: once you have chosen a neck relief and have completed the entire setup, you do not want to go back and decrease the neck relief. The reason is that decreasing the neck relief will lower

I consistently get between .003 and .006" on my setups. In theory, if everything is dead flat you can go to 0.0"

PM sent to Tim 3/8/20