After assembling the neck, our collapsible wood guitars are usually less than a semitone off pitch. We recommend pulling on the strings before tuning to pitch to help them settle. Here's a good video to show the assembly process:
However, here are a few things to clarify:
If you've recently removed the neck, then assembled it, it's usually much closer to being in tune than if you've removed it a month ago and just assembled the guitar. Our carbon fiber guitars are VERY close to being in tune after assembly, while our wood guitars may take 5-15 minutes of playing to settle fully after assembly. This is because carbon fiber is very consistent in all temperatures and humidities and is more precise material. For all collapsible guitars, usually after you've played a guitar for a bit, the strings have settled and intonation should not change significantly. Remember, you're removing the neck of a guitar - so the strings go slack. When you re-assemble the neck, the strings loose some tension around the tuning posts, which is the main reason for the pitch to go down after they have been played for a while. Some of our newer models have locking tuners - these really help minimize the amount you need to retune after assembly. This is because part of the reason the guitar is out of tune is because the strings become loose around the tuner posts when removing the neck. Since a locking tuner requires less than a single wrap around a post the string is tight around the post and the tone doesn't change much. If you're playing live, we recommend you play for 15 minutes and adjust the tuners before playing live to prevent any need for retuning during your performance. If there are big swings in temperature or humidity, you can expect the action to change, so you may need to retune or re-tighten the neck joint. Note - all wood guitars will experience changes in neck relief under large variances of temperature or humidity. Our necks are also adjustable - you can use the knob on the back of the guitar to adjust the neck angle to raise or lower string height. However, keep in mind that this will slightly affect your intonation as it would with any neck adjustment.