Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello my friends

My name is Rui and I live in sunny Portugal.
I've found this board which seems to be very active. I decided to join because 2 years ago I decided to learn properly how to play guitar. As you know, parts of the musicians' job is to take care of the instrument. To do it, some technical knowledge is required, at least for the most basic maintenance jobs.
Anyway, I've learned a lot since I bought my guitar (US Gibson SG Faded). I had to call for the warranty due to a pickup issue that needed to be replaced. Apart from that, everything's great, restring, fretboard conditioning, etc.

This made me want to know more about more advanced maintenances (trussrod adjustments, etc).
The occasion is great because I have a cheap guitar, a Fender Strat Squire built somewhere in Asia that has a neck problem: it is bent backwards (in the opposite direction of the strings tension). I send it to a luthier but some advises in the Fender forums made me question what the luthier said to me: the trussrod is innoperative. I don't know if it is broken or not but he told me that the only solution would be to replace the neck. Even though, he wouldn't give me any warranties that the final result would be ok (mainly regarding intonation and related things).

So, I need your sugestions about how can I do the diagnosis myself. What shall I look for first? And how to do it?

Maybe this is an issue that requires a more complex answer. Anyway, please give me some pointers.

Thank you

Its tough to diagnose without actually seeing the guitar. Have you tried adjusting the truss rod? What happens when you try to adjust it? does it turn? More info would be good.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

most older or cheaper truss rods are "single action", meaning they only add backbow to counter the pull of the strings, and they can not bow the neck the other way(relief?). so in your case, with a single action truss rod, you may be out of luck, at least until the weather changes. it might help to adjust the tilt of the neck, with shims in the neck pocket, or by using the screw in the neckplate if it has one(i doubt it does, though more expensive Strat models do).
other than that, you could loosen off the truss rod, put on heavy gauge strings, and tension them up and maybe force the neck back into the right zone, but, that is a crude and probably temporary way of doing things
i have an old strat, and in summer when humidity comes, the neck absorbs water and straightens out, which lowers the action, and i get buzzing; and in the winter when it dries out, the bow returns to "normal" curvature.

Well, I don't know. I already asked in the Fender forums, waiting for an answer.



I own a Gibson SG Faded and it happens more or less the same. In winter time the action gets lowered, the opposite in the summer. I look at it as a normal behaviour as I don't get any buzzing and the action change iseems to be inside the Gibson's specs.

I've got a squier strat that a friend left with me. Last time I tuned it, it took about 12 times tuning it up till it got to the right pitch. Generally, I don't think they're worth working on but maybe... and a big maybe, if you put decent tuners on them it'd work properly.

And yes that sounds like a problem that is definitely not worth fixing because you'd have to remove the truss rod completely.

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http://www.tinyhouseandland.com

Umm.... tuners don't have anything to do with truss rod problems.
And, yes - it's worth fixing even if the truss rod has to be removed.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Special_tools_for_Truss_rods/Truss_Rod_Rescue_Kit.html


It may help you explain what type of truss-rod you have
and how you may determine what the problem is to ask about
corrective procedures, if any.

I was saying regardless of the truss rod, the tuners on squires are so bad, at least on the one I have. The reason I don't think it's worth fixing is you probably couldn't sell it for the amount it cost you to fix it. Just my opinion.

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http://www.tinyhouseandland.com

Oh, well - that may be true, but I'm not hip to prices of Fenders these days.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

There must be a lot of those necks floating around.
I bet they don't cost much either.
E-Bay?

I got these links from another forum:

http://www.stewmac.com/tsarchive/ts0083.html
http://www.stewmac.com/tsarchive/ts0033.html

My understanding of the problem was that I thought the neck has a back-bow. According the links, it needed a left turn in the truss rod. I've done that and, suprisingly, the thing got worse. So, I turned it right and it got better, but not completely because the original problem was still there: the 1st string pressed on the 10th fret was in contact with the 11th fret.
So, I checked the neck again and I noticed that the problem is a lump (low spot) in that area and it seems to be affecting only the 1st string.

Another thing that made me think is that in the Fender Squire guitar the truss rod is "single action", i.e., it just acts to solve up-bowed necks. Although I confirmed in the Fender forums, it seems this one is working in both ways.

I know it would be easier to find another neck but I would like to try to recover this one, if possible. Just for educational purposes.

Raise the action at the bridge,
and maybe make a taller nut.
You could also put a shim in the neck pocket,
at the end of the body,
to tilt the neck.
If it's too hard to play with the higher action,
use it for bottleneck playing.
Or, better yet,
make it into a lap steel!

if you want to get into building, this sounds like a perfect way: you can peform a re-radius/refret, and it would probably flatten out the trouble spot. but for the money spent on tools, you could buy a new Squire($120 USD). at minimum you would need a long radius block, fretwire, end cutters, a crowning file, a fret saw, and sandpaper...
for the money, those Squires are actually impressive, i think, but they do use pretty cheap knotty wood for the necks, at least the ones i have seen in USA. it doesn't look like maple.

I suspect (although I haven't confirmed with any gauge) that the problem might be a low spot in the neck.
First question: what can be the cause for this to happen? This is a very localized problem...

Second question: how can I check the neck bending? A video would be great.
And how can I confirm what is the effect of the truss rod operation? I mean in an objective way, with a gauge or similar. How do you guys do it?

I think the simplest way to check the 'relief' is to hold down a string at the first fret (use a capo to free up a hand) and at a fret near the neck to body joint, and measure the height somewhere in the middle.

As far as checking the truss rod, try turning it in either direction while performing the measurement above and see if it changes.

You can also use a straight edge if you don't have strings on the instrument, but I find this tedious compared to the string method.

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Jim Hansen

When dealing with normal forward bow the strings are very useful as a straight line, but with a back bow it's more difficult and you may want to get a hold of a large ruler or something similar.
It seems you have a pretty good idea where the problem is so the goal is to verify that.
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Fretting_su ... eo#details
this is the basic idea of what [i]may [i] fix your problem. If the back bow is too much the frets will be sanded down to nothing, and you will be back to buying a neck or playing slide.

Around which frets is your low spot located? I think this would be a nice project to learn on and in my opinion you wouldn't even need to buy a radius block.

What I would suggest is taking the neck off the body, remove all hardware including the nut and remove each fret. You can get special re-fretting tools if you need but I've done it with cheap pliers and had it work out just fine. The only thing is it's easier to chip the fretboard from the wire pulling out. If you're careful, it's not usually too bad, and if you keep the chip where it is you can just glue it back down with elmers or super glue.

Now, without seeing how bad the dip in your neck is, I'm not sure if you could get away with leaving the frets in or not, although with a fresh set you can get you more of what you want as there are big, wide, short and skinny frets and even different hardnesses. Fretwire is fairly inexpensive. I'd say don't use stainless steel unless you're really ambitious. Now whatever wire you do use, I still recommend getting decent pliers because they cut the frets much closer to the edge of the board and are easier to use.

So... whether or not you de-fret your neck, with all the hardware off, you should adjust the truss rod to have as little or no relief in either direction. If it is indeed a two-way rod, turn it until it turns freely (until it feels like the bolt is loose). If you do this and checking with a long ruler (straightedge), there is still a significant bow in either direction, more than a 1/4 inch difference from the ends to the middle, then your neck is firewood. I highly doubt it's that bad though. Ideally, it should be basically flat, except for your small dip.

If it's very slight, and you're fine with the frets that are in it and they aren't too small already, you can keep them in and just sand them down flat. If you remove the frets, you need to sand the fretboard down flat. You need either a very, very flat surface to work on, or a piece of square metal stock. Check either with a straightedge that is at least as long as your fretboard to make sure they are completely flat. Some tabletops can work or a smooth concrete floor. Flatter the better.

Whip out a no. 2 pencil or a black marker, and draw a squiggle line all over the neck, covering most if not all of the surface area. If you are keeping your frets in, just use a black sharpie and draw a line across the top of each fret. Get some 220 or 320 grit sandpaper and use either double sided tape or make loops with masking tape to secure it flat to your surface. Then you sand, in a slight rocking motion to work the whole radius of the board, until your lines are completely gone.

Then you would install your frets, clip them off and check for flatness. Chances are you'll have a few low spots so you mark the top of the frets as previously mentioned and do the same thing.

Then it's a good idea to get a fret-crowning file because you want the tops of the frets to be round, lined up with the fret slots for intonation purposes. Then after you file down the sides and all you can finish up with some steel wool and look up how to set up a guitar. I'm sure folks here will help you out. This post is already long so I'll stop here but good luck to ya.

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http://www.tinyhouseandland.com

Many thanks for the replies.
However I don't want to go into adventurous procedures (adventurous to me, obviously ).
I believe the best I have to do for now is to check fret heights in the problematic area. As far as I've seen, I can check them in groups of three and, lacking of a specific tool, it can be done using a metallic ruller, for example.

I will try to take some pictures and post them here.

That might help if your low frets are somewhere in the middle of your fretboard, but you really want the whole thing flat, which is why I think checking in threes is kind of pointless. You need to check the board for flatness across all frets, in my opinion, because otherwise, trussrod adjustment will probably just turn your C into an S if you know what I mean.

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http://www.tinyhouseandland.com