Lower String Height on Ovation Celebrity

Lower String Height on Ovation Celebrity

Saddle after removing about 10lbs of material

My previous Ovation

Yes I know, this series of Ovations doesn’t have a big fan club,. and I get it but I used to have a CC 247 Sunburst that was one of the best acoustics I’ve ever owned. When I found out my daughter was going to learn  to play guitar I gave it to her. I did that because the Ovation had the easiest playing neck of any acoustic out there and I figured if she was going to learn that was the guitar to do it on. So a few weeks ago I decided to find another one but that turned out to be impossible. I did find a Celebrity but it has no model number it just says “Celebrity”. It doesn’t have the “grape cluster” sound holes and it’s not a burst. No, this one has the usual center sound hole and it’s jet black. Kinda pretty though. The worst was the action. About a mile high and hard to play, but I got a smokin’ deal on it and I knew I could fix the action. But I didn’t realize how extreme I would have to get to fix that action. Started out by straightening the neck because it had too much relief. When that was done the action was a little better. It was down to 9 10ths of a mile high. Everything else looked good so I just took that saddle and started sanding it down. It took 5 tries to get it low enough for my taste and there ain’t much left of it, but I got the damn action down to where I wanted it and it plays great now. There is only about 1/8th of an inch of saddle sticking up above the bridge and I’m sure a luthier would have a stroke if he saw how little is left of it, but damn I love the way it plays. If it had been a more expensive guitar I probably wouldn’t have gone to such extremes but it isn’t a more expensive guitar so what the hell it worked. The intonation is spot on, no fret buzz at all and it has sustain for days. If given a choice I prefer the tone of a Hummingbird and this guitar doesn’t have that kind of tone at all. It’s more focused in the upper mids and highs, obviously due to the Lyracord back. But it’s unique in its own way. So for a few bucks and a little elbow grease I came up with a decent guitar that plays great, so no regrets on this one. I guess the moral is, sometimes, to get what you want, you just gotta say WTF and go for it.

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