Given the previous figures, what happens if you have .018" of neck relief and drop your action so that the guitar doesn’t feel so stiff in the mid-range? To look at this, I compared actions in a neck with relief of .018" and 5th fret action of .066 to a neck with relief of .008" and 5th fret action of .066". The latter figures are already given above, but I’ll repeat them here for comparison: (NOTE: the subscript "a" and "b" are to indicate a different set of data than previously given).
| Action | ||
| Fret | R = .018a | R = .008" |
1 |
0.030 |
0.025 |
3 |
0.056 |
0.050 |
5 |
0.066 |
0.066 |
7 |
0.076 |
0.080 |
9 |
0.084 |
0.088 |
12 |
0.088 |
0.096 |
You can see that you have lower the 12th fret action considerably to produce a mid-neck feel with greater relief that matches that of less relief. You can probably guess by now what’s going to happen to the next fret clearance:
| Low E | Next Fret | |
| Fret | R = .018a | R = .008" |
1 |
0.014 |
0.014 |
3 |
0.012 |
0.011 |
5 |
0.016 |
0.010 |
7 |
0.012 |
0.010 |
9 |
0.006 |
0.011 |
12 |
0.003 |
0.011 |
It’s pretty clear that the guitar with more relief is unplayable past the 9th fret. Let’s look at the midway action:
| Midway Action | ||
| Fret | R = .018a | R = .008" |
1 |
0.066 |
0.076 |
3 |
0.060 |
0.071 |
5 |
0.054 |
0.071 |
7 |
0.048 |
0.068 |
9 |
||
12 |
This is even more dismal. The lesser neck relief gives far greater mid-way action at every step of the way. We’ll skip the behind the fret figures.
Conclusion:
To achieve the same mid-neck action in a neck with greater relief, as compared to one with less relief, you’ll have to drop the saddle (as measured by the 12th fret action) quite a bit. Next fret clearance and mid-way action both suffer. The neck with less relief wins.