I wouldn't touch anything until you have played it for a few days. Just because you're going down to 9s doesn't necessarily mean you'll need to tweak the truss rod. If it was a guitar with a trem, you would likely need to adjust the trem claw to bring the bridge parallel again. But, since this is a two piece bridge, I'd leave it alone. I run 9s on all of mine, and the only one I ever had to tweak was on an SE.
Seconded. I don't think I've ever had to make a TR adjustment after going down a gauge. A few days will be indicative. Enjoy!
I agree that it might not make enough of a difference to absolutely require an adjustment, but depending on how sensitive you are to your setup and the feel of the guitar, you just might need a little tweak. I might be in the minority, but I do a complete setup with every string change. Most often, no truss rod adjustment is needed, but there have been times where a bit of coaxing was in order. I actually went heavier with my strings. It’s an SE, so it came with 9s, and I went to 10s. I’m a couple of years behind you and fully relate to the hand issues. I honestly didn’t see a lot of difference between the 9s and 10s when it came to playability. Yeah, it was a bit stiffer, but in a really good way. I felt more in control. And the tone had a touch more meat to it. I tried the measuring thing for a bunch of setups, but now I use more of a hands on approach. If it buzzes on the lower frets with a slightly strong pluck, I give it a touch more bow. If it buzzes on the higher frets, a little less bow; and I adjust string height along with the relief and bring them both in together.
I second this, but maybe because I don't entirely trust my own skill in adjustments. There are many times I've tweaked/changed something and thought "I think that's worse" and have wished I'd measured it first.
A set of feeler gauges might come in handy.
It doesn’t often happen, and might be more of an issue with bass strings, but I’ve run into instances where after resetting exact relief measurements, the different strings vibrated differently and needed a different relief.
Until they know better.
Thanks. That's what I was looking for, a ballpark initial guess if an adjustment is needed. I also agree that it's very helpful to take measurements and remember the starting point as well as giving it a few days to equilibrate. Since I like low action, getting it as close as possible matters.
Yeah, that's absolutely in the mix. 8's are on the Tele now & over the next few months all the guitars are going to get new string tryouts including 8.5's and 9.5's.
