Not enough relief
Q: I recently bought a new 05' Babicz acoustic guitar. I found out
why the price was so good.
I have slight buzzes in many places on the neck but mostly in
the 5-7th fret area.
Even with the truss rod loosened all the way the most relief I
can get is 005" at the 7th fret. I took it to a local reputable
luthier who said he would "mill" the neck and set the
action. The results were only modest improvements. He admitted
there should be more relief. I thought he would mill in relief
since it's so close but I think he just made everything flat.
I've heard of heated jigs that bend the neck but he said sometime
the necks bend back.
My idea was to first determine how much more relief I need, in
my case probably less than 007" I'm hoping. First remove the
strings, add tension to the truss rod to add more arch at center,
007" in my case. Then mill the neck flat and dress the frets
as usual. My idea is that when you release the truss rod the relief
would fall into a usable and adjustable range. This would probably
only be practical on a neck that is already pretty close.
Am I way off on my thinking? What would you do?
I don't know if you're familiar with the Babicz "continually
adjustable neck". It allows you to raise and lower the finger
board with an allen key. I don't think that is a factor though.
Here's a link to their explanation at their website;
http://www.babiczguitars.com/how_neck.shtml
Martin is now building a model with the Babicz neck. http://www.babiczguitars.com/martin.shtml
I really like this guitar and want to make it more playable.
Thank you Steve,
Kit
A: Adjustable neck set is cool. Adjustable truss rod is cool. They
replace the $400 neck reset and the $250 plane and refret. But
at the end of the day your
frets must be perfectly level and perfectly rounded to get a perfect action.
I set acoustic guitar necks with no relief. Relief functionally raises the
action from the first to about the eighth or tenth fret. If you blow a fret
dressing you can make the guitar stop buzzing by raising the action. My guess
is that you need to take it to a luthier who has a reputation for setting good
actions. Someone who has done hundreds of action sets. Your problems all sound
like things that an experienced luthier would make short work of.
If you are getting a buzz at the eighth fret the ninth fret is too high or
the eighth fret is too low. Novice fret filers over estimate the stiffness
of guitar necks and use various neck support blocks to hold the neck while
they file. This gives you low frets above the block and high frets where the
neck sagged between the supports. It would be possible to make a block that
supported every inch of the neck. I just use my hand behind the neck.
If your frets are perfect and your action is too low the strings should buzz
evenly all the way up the neck. If you then loosen the truss rod to bow the
neck up it will stop buzzing up to about the eighth or ninth fret and buzz
evenly the rest of the way up. The solution to your problem could be to raise
the saddle (Loosen the Continually Adjustable Neck), set the neck perfectly
straight (with the truss rod), and lower the nut. If your guitar plays more
comfortably with a capo on it, your nut is higher than it needs to be. You
have lots of leverage on the strings up the neck. They can be a little higher
or a little lower and you won't notice. But if your nut is too high, it's like
playing a cheese cutter.
Steve Mason
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