General inspection:

Includes looking for wear on frets, in particular checking for grooves, which may lead to the frets needing to be dressed before a set up can take place. This kind of problem can cause buzzing & dead spots on various areas of the neck, in severe cases of fret wear, a partial or full re-fret may be necessary.
Other things to look for are neck twisting, excessive nut & bridge wear, loose frets, damage to fingerboard etc, these factors can prevent correct adjustment of the instrument & would need resolving before a set up could be carried out.

Thorough clean of all components:

The cleaning of the bridge, (tremolo system), electrical components, tuners, hardware & polishing of frets, is standard on our set ups.
Corrosion on certain components caused by neglect can make adjustments difficult & sometimes near impossible.
As any one knows, a guitar always plays better when it’s clean!

Rosewood fingerboards:

The bare wood nature of a rosewood fingerboard means it is exposed to the elements, unlike the lacquered finish on a maple neck for example.
Lemon oil can be applied during the set up (if required), to replace the natural moisture in the wood, lost due to amongst other things, good old central heating.
Over a period of time if neglected, the fingerboard can develop cracks.
Try & avoid applying lemon oil on a regular basis.

Restringing:

Without exception all set ups require new strings, every time you tune your guitar you are stretching your strings, this causes the string to weaken & eventually break.
Strings corrode after a while if not looked after, don't let them get to this stage! If you wipe your strings clean after playing, there will be less chance for dirt to build up & less chance of fret damage from worn-out corroded strings.

Adjusting neck relief:

Neck relief refers to the amount of "forward bow" along the length of the neck, this is adjusted using the truss rod & will have an effect on the height of the strings (action). Guitars & Basses may require adjustment of the truss rod during a set up, the exact amount of relief is usually dictated by how level the frets are, string gauge & personal preference, the less relief, the lower the action.
Too much relief & the action will be high, too little & the strings will buzz.

Adjusting the bridge / saddle height:

This is another major factor that determines the string height (action). There are various bridge styles on electric & bass guitars, for example on floating tremolo systems (Floyd Rose) the height is raised or lowered using the two pivot studs either side of the trem unit, on a Les Paul two thumbwheels are used to set the height. For the Strat individual saddles are adjusted to follow the radius of the fingerboard when adjusting the string height, this principle is generally applied to most bass guitars also.
Acoustic guitars can be more involved, especially if a transducer pickup is present under the saddle, the action is lowered by shaving small amounts from the saddle insert, the action can be raised by installing a shim, alternatively a new saddle insert is fitted.

Adjusting the nut height:

There is normally room for improvement when it comes to the action at the nut.
The most common procedure is lowering the strings by deepening the slots in the nut, on Floyd Rose locking nuts, shims are used to raise the action & careful shaving of the nut seat (removal of wood) is sometimes required to lower the action. Some nuts have adjuster screws to raise or lower the string height.

Adjusting the tremolo system:

If your guitar has a tremolo system, the action will be effected by the "float angle" whether its a Floyd Rose or a standard Strat tremolo, getting this part right is crucial to the whole feel of the instrument, the way these systems function will be directly effected by string gauge, tuning (Drop tuning), personal playing style etc.
Adjustment to the "float" is achieved by increasing or decreasing the tension on the springs in the back of the guitar.

Pickup height:

Setting the correct pickup height will aid better sustain, eliminate distortion when using a clean sound & balance the outputs between pickups. Some pickup grades use highly magnetic pole pieces, which can pull on the strings if adjusted too close causing lack of sustain, whilst others have less powerful pole pieces & volume can be lost if they are not close enough! Incorrect pickup height can also have a diverse effect on intonation in some cases.

Setting the intonation with a strobe:

Once all the other important adjustments have been carried out, the intonation can be set using a strobe tuner.
Setting the intonation means adjusting the bridge saddle (whenever adjustable) so that each string will play on each fret as accurately as possible.
When setting intonation, the task is to get a string to play the same note when fretted at the 12th fret as when played open, this is not always straight forward & factors like string compensation, (The sharpness caused when a string is pressed down) can make this process difficult.
During the intonation stage, all the other settings that have been carried out must be re-checked.

Test & clean:

Final test of the guitar consists of playing; this would be carried out through an amplifier if the instrument is an electric.
All the adjustments & measurements are then re-checked to make sure nothing has moved or changed.
Once satisfied with the playability & feel of the guitar, it will be tuned using the strobe & receive a thorough clean using professional cleaning materials.
It's now ready for the customer.