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I'm at my wits end about fret buzz... they seem to follow me everywhere.

I would do a setup on a guitar, and it's fine at first and then all of a sudden (when a customer tries it out) BUZZZZ BUZZZZ...

Now I have been preparing my #3 for a customer to try it out and I can't get the D and G string to stop buzzing at all... every other string is fine but these two just loves to buzz like there's a magnet on it or something.

What can I do?

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

What sort of guitar and which frets?

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

a OM style, happens on all frets from 1 to 12, getting worse at 13, then tailing off after 17 and disappear completely at the last few frets.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

You will have to go through the process of elimination. First put in a HIGH saddle, doesn't matter if it's made of wood. If that stops the buzz gradually lower it until you start getting the buzz. Don't forget that it's very easy to make a Guitar buzz, just pluck the strings harder!

Just chased one down like that. I checked all the bracing (pressing all around inside the box with the treble strings off and plucking the D), recut the saddle slot, made a new saddle, overhauled the nut, cranked the truss rod around..... Finally removed the neck (bolt on) to completely rework the mounting hardware. The culprit? A slightly loose Grover Sta-Tite tuner. Was picking up modtly on the D and G. Sadly, the fretboard removal has caused me some finish rework in the area now.

Just one more of many, many things it could be. It really is just a process of elimination.

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Wes McMillian
Santo, TX
http://www.wesmcmillian.com

It sounded like fret buzz, not other buzz (they sound different, fret buzz sounds very metallic compared to loose part buzz).

I might need to refret it...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

How thick is the fingerboard (particularly toward the soundhole end), and what is the string-height-at-bridge? Twice now I've messed that up, making low bridge height instruments but not thinning the fingerboard enough to match. The result is that when fretting strings, they don't angle back up away from the fingerboard surface sharply enough, and thus rattle against the higher frets. Higher saddle helps a little bit, but you have to angle the neck back to compensate in order to keep the action the same, and could end up over-torquing the soundboard anyway. So the answer is to thin the fingerboard (possibly tapering thickness, thicker at the nut end thinner at the soundhole). Of course that means refretting. And you still might need to tweak the neck angle afterward.

Or it could be something totally different. I assume you've already leveled the frets and don't have any backbow type situation?

I never thought about that, but I'm not seeing a backbow otherwise it would have happened with every string... It buzzes when I hit the string hard but to be honest with you it seems as though my customers have a way of making guitars buzz that I can't. It played real well with a very low action and all of a sudden those two strings buzzed like crazy. This is something I need to think about when accepting commissions, how to make something that won't go buzzy as soon as the customer takes delivery of it.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I had something similar and it ended up being the saddle. The strings were buzzing on the top. I could never get my first one right and it went away when I replaced it.

Do you slot your saddle for string spacing?

Agreed.

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George :-)

Assuming the fretwork is true, when the inside two strings buzz more than the outside strings it can be due to the saddle radius being flatter than the fingerboard radius... that yields a lower action on the inside strings making them more prone to buzz. If you need a little help with the inside strings, you can try increasing the saddle radius to give them a little more help without raising the whole saddle and affecting all strings.

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David Radlin
http://www.facebook.com/radlin.guitars

This makes sense.

I always measure string height individually and fine tune the saddle radius from the top, then blend it all in and compensate it.

Also, it sounds like you may also have a degree of falloff.

Check and make sure the neck is straight from frets 1-14, and then measure the heights individually.
The nut has to be adjusted first or you'll get a biased reading.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

I've had that trouble before. Try swapping out the strings. You can get a bad batch....

Have you tried the nut slot? I've had a buzz that was because the front of the slot was sloping down slightly, so there wasn't a well defined break point. The same can happen at the saddle.

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"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
Pablo Picasso

https://www.facebook.com/FenskeGuitars

This was what I was thinking too. What is your fretboard radius? the tighter your radius the more prominent this problem would be if your saddle radius does not correlate.
Or maybe when you leveled your frets you favored the edges and left the middle higher in enough spots to be a problem. I've done that before.

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PMoMC

He said it goes up the neck. Shouldn't be the nut in that case. My guess is either the saddle is too low in the middle (larger radius than fretboard) or like someone else said, could be a bad string.

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http://www.tinyhouseandland.com

You need to increase CURVATURE (decrease radius) to get the strings higher in the middle.

Because the G and D have the thinnest cores, they are the most flexible in bending, so sustain higher order harmonics. Hence the envelope of vibration tends more to the elliptical (heading towards rectangular in the extreme, on classical D strings) rather than parabolic and it is this that causes fret rattle (if that is truly what you have). It can come and go depending on the player, because it firstly, obviously, depends on how hard you pluck and secondly it depends on where and how you pluck. If you pluck more toward the mid length of the (fretted) string, and play more tirando than apoyando you get less of a problem.

I'm assuming, of course, that you have all the usual stuff under control...

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Yes, that is what I intended. Thanks for your clarification.

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David Radlin
http://www.facebook.com/radlin.guitars

And stick a shim under there to raise the strings back up to the right height, unless you just make a new saddle with the correct curvature and height, making sure all other factors are also correct.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

It's not the nut... it buzzes with a capo in place.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

My bet is on the saddle.

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Gwaltney Guitars

For my own guitar the buzzing somehow disappeared... action measure about 3/32" at the 12th.

For the 12 string I am refretting following the instruction of using titebond glue in the slot (I tested with hide and found the hide glue did nothing to keep the fret in, but Titebond helped). It's a lot slower but so far the frets stay put. Will update on that situation.

By the way a customer's Martin has higher action than my guitar and it buzzes just as bad. There are some high frets in the upper register (I found it with that fret rocker thing)

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

This does not really make the grade as an action measurement.

The term "about" should not feature and measuring to the nearest 1/32" is useless
You also do not state which string is measured , or what the relief is.

The Stewmac card type action gauge is cheap and easy to use.