When you have no strings on a guitar and you put one on it's normal for the first few strings to be too close to the fretboard, right?

also, i restringed my guitar and can't remember whether this one part of the guitar is supposed to go one way or the other. It's the part the strings hit at the bridge, I need to know if it should be hitting closer or furthur. Here are pictures:




or

?

The bridge looks right to me, but how close is "too close to the fretboard"? There shouldn't be too much of a change in action as you put new strings on, but the smaller gauge strings should be closer to the fretboard. Do any of the frets buzz?

they buzz like hell. There's actually a difference in the two pictures because that white part fell out and i didn't remember which one is right.

then again i only have one string on.

for future reference, you shouldn't take all the strings off at one time.
it's too much of a pressure change for the neck, just change the strings one at a time.

True. I still do it all the time, though.
Anyway, unless you want to screw around with adjusting the truss rod yourself, I would recommend just taking it to a guitar tech. Usually for about $50 they'll set up your guitar like a dream. Pretty expensive, but you won't have to do it again for a long time. There's also a book called Guitar Player Repair Guide or something similar I have that has every problem/solution you can imagine.

no no no no no. Ok, the answers:

The neck is only in perfect alignment when it has all the strings on it, so when you don't have every string on it, it gets its way a little more than it should, bending back towards you (if it's on your lap). The strings put a ton of stress on the neck in the other direction, so the more that are missing, the more the neck will "relaxe" and bend back the way it's been wanting to this whole time (but the tension of the strings wouldn't let it).

Only mess with the truss rod if you've changed what guage of strings you're using. It's an accoustic, so the range of possibilites is Extra Light up to Heavy or so (frustrating that they don't use the actual guage, like electrics, but it's printed on the packaging). If you used to use extra lights (most popular guage) and you went to mediums, you're now putting a decent amount more tension on the neck, so your action would be higher than it was before, or vice versa.

Put all 6 strings on, and if it's the same guage, you'll be fine when it's done.

The saddle (the white thing that fell out) goes the way you have it in the bottom picture above. Careful with that.

I broke like 3 of them, and had some other stuff I needed to do to it, so I just took the other three off.

Yep, don't sweat taking them all off and then putting all on. Keep the same string guage and the math will all work out in the end, and the movement on the neck won't damage anything. Plus when they're all off, you can wipe down the fretboard and the top, which is nice.

You get it all sorted out?

it's not a criminal thing to do to your guitar, and it will be fine. but it's a good habbit to not do it (or so i've been told.)

yeah, except for the motivation to put all the strings on that i had this morning.

compensated bridge, compensates for the b string.