Making sure i don't waste my money...

So I want to permanently tune a whole step down on my Carvin guitar. It has a fixed bridge, two graphite reinforcing bars in the neck, and it was recently professionally set up for 10's. I want to put on strings, that with the new setup, will give the feel of 11's (12's tuned down a whole step??). My plan was to take it to the shop to get set-up again...but if I can get away with doing it myself, I dont want to waste my money. I mean, I can make a simple truss rod adjustment,but I'm not familiar with setting up intonation (not having a decent tuner doesnt help that), feeler gauges, and setting the action and that sort of stuff. So what do you tech-gurus think?

You might need to have the nut slots filed a bit to accomodate the thicker strings. For that reason alone I'd take it to a tech.

If you're looking at tuning down a half step...... and your guitar is setup for .10's... I would say just go out and buy a set of .11's. Install them... you shouldn't need to file the nut if you're going up one gauge... But if the strings fit tightly... just take the string and move it back and forth in the nut a little bit. This works for the wound strings... The wound wire acts as a kind of tsudo sandpaper... it will give you the necessary clearance without having to file the slots down... If you have to remove nut material... it should be very minimal. You most likely won't have a problem with the gut strings... After you install them and get them fitting properly... Tune to 1/2 step down... Then play it and see where the trouble spots are. Look for buzz... or high action. Chances are... the action is going to be slightly higher. You can fixe that with a simple turn of the truss rod though. Do a small adjustment... play it to see the effects of the adjustment... Keep doing that until you get it where you need it.

Since you're planning on going from .10s to .11s there shouldn't be a lot of stuff that you need to do... The change between the two isn't significant... and the extra tension of the slightly heavier strings should be counteracted by the fact that you're tuning down a half step.. You might not even have to do any adjusting... it may cancle each other out... haha. good luck.

Well I'm looking to tuned down a whole step, not a half. I might have worded it weirdly before...what i want is essentially to tuned down a whole step, and ALSO be going to a higher gauge...So i wanna go lower, and add more tension...So is going to 12's and tuning a whole step down going to be about equivalent to the feel of 11's? Sorry im proabbaly still confusing lol

The key is that I want the guitar to sound and feel up to it's potential.

No... haha... you're not confusing I just didn't read the post right... But I see what you're trying to do and all that advice still stands... I suggest going and checking out a set of GHS Boomers in .12's that should give you a good amount of tension. If that still doesn't give you enough... you'll have to adjust the truss rod to lower the action. You may have to play around with it. Boomers may require some filing... depending on what guage you have on righ tnow... I say go grab two sets of the strings and try to put them on yourself if you're comfortable with that. If not... Take it to a tech and they'll be able to do it all in about 15 minutes or so.