Could I teach myself to setup a uke?

rvabdn

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I'm new to ukes but not to music. I've been reading a lot about setup and it seems pretty important, especially on cheaper ukes.

Living in the uk I don't have the luxury of ordering from MGM and knowing that I'll get a perfectly set up uke.

I was thinking about buying a Dolphin or similar with the intention of setting it up myself as a learning process.

I've heard you can buy spare saddles/nuts so I'll probably get a few and play around.

Does this sound feasible or am I wasting my time?
 
I'd say its feasible, since I have taken my Dolphin action up and down and back again, and even removed and replaced a fret to get it right. That said, its a pain to do it if you don't have to. Its best to go slow on whatever adjustment you are doing, even if makes you have to put restring more than you would like. I usually just loosen the strings and put them to the side rather than taking them all the way off.
 
Set-up are not real difficult. Adjusting nut and saddle heights are very simple.
It takes some patience and practice. Go slow make small adjustments and you should be ok.
Guitars have a truss rod and neck relief on the longer scaled intrument is tricky and critical.
My suggestion is to find an inexpensive uke to fool around with setting up. You can even buy some cheap plastic nuts and saddles to practice on.
Remember action is all subjective like sound.
GO SLOW.
 
Thanks guys. You've basically confirmed what I thought. I've found a shop on ebay selling nuts and saddles cheap so I guess I'll get a bag of each and a dolphin and have a play.
 
Thanks guys. You've basically confirmed what I thought. I've found a shop on ebay selling nuts and saddles cheap so I guess I'll get a bag of each and a dolphin and have a play.

With the Dolphin, I didn't bother with buying any new saddles or nuts. I just used super glue and baking soda, and paper shims where I needed to build things back up. On an expensive uke, its a good idea to keep the old ones to put back on, in case you screw up.
 
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