Hello, all,

It's time for Tom's ignorant question of the week!!!!

I've been practicing scales, mainly on my electric guitar, and yesterday went to do a pentatonic on the 5th fret on my acoustic. Well, the strings felt like logs, but I expected that. What I didn't expect is that it seemed like I had to press them down a mile in order to hit the fret board. I haven't noticed that playing open chords, but even at the 5th fret, it felt like the strings were really high. I took out a ruler and measured, and found that at the 12th fret there is about a full 1/8 inch between the top of the fret and the bottom of the string. So, here is my bunch of questions based on this scenario:

1) Is this clearance within acceptable levels, and I need to say, "deal with it, and get stronger fingers," or do I need to adjust my truss rod?

2) If it doesn't need to be adjusted yet, what is the amount of acceptable clearance before I need to adjust it?

3) If I should adjust it, is that something I can do at home, or do I need to go to my friendly guitar store and have it done there?

4) If I can do it myself, is there a tutorial on the sight, or a resource you can give me, that will show me how to do it? I've never adjusted it myself before, and I'd really like not to break the neck of my guitar :-) ?

Thank you much for any responses or guidance you can offer to me on this one!!

Peace,
Tom