Remove all strings- YES or NO?

You were warned: Do not remove all strings from your guitar, this would damage the neck. So who was it who gave you this warning?

I was often asked if it's safe to remove all strings when one re-strings one's guitar so that there's access to the fingerboard for cleaning- you do clean yours, don't you? Yes, the guitar neck is a tension laden part of your instrument, when it's strung up at the factory, the neck was adjusted to accommodate the string tension. The general concern here is whether the release of this tension (upon un-stringing) would detriment the neck.

Over the years, I observe guitars equipped with a .009/ .010 string set manifest no adversity when subject to a complete string removal. I did so & left some of my guitars stringless for some days in the midst of re-moisturizing the rosewood fingerboard. If you employ a thicker string set, say .012 or thicker, & still stay with standard tuning, you can still remove all strings to access your fingerboard then proceed to re-string as usual. Sight your neck for any warping. You can then rectify any anomalies via truss rod adjustments- that's what it's there for.

Guitar set up: Simple instructions (maybe) Part 3

If your neck's relief is rather excessive (giving rise to a bowl-shaped neck instead of being straight), you need to turn your truss rod clockwise upon facing it i.e. when you look at the nut from the headstock end. How much to turn? The recommendation here is for you to exercise a quarter turn. However, since my neck isn't too adversely warped, I did a 45-degree turn only.

Let the neck breathe for a little while (say after a song's worth of wait) before you check further. The understanding here is that the neck has been straightened, therefore, the standard tuning would have gone sharp. Plug in your tuner to check this out; as evident above, my KORG Pitch Black registered just that. If no such reaction is registered, it means the truss rod adjustment was not effective. Repeat the instructions in Parts 2 & 3 until your neck is straightened or made less concave to your liking.

In my case, I needed to tweak the truss rod a little bit more to achieve a flatter profile. My observation here is (after many personal set-ups), guitar necks with a bigger radius value perform better with a flatter neck profile.

CAUTION
After 2 or 3 attempts, should you find no reactions to your adjustments, please STOP the tampering & leave it to the pros to diagnose the problem.

...to be continued.