conversion neck initial setup

[dglady]

Hi Everyone.  I'm finally getting around to assembling my 2nd Warmoth guitar.  This one is a short-scale strat.  The neck is a gauncho / pau-ferro short scale conversion neck.

The neck has the side adjust and heel adjust.  I'm following 'before installing the neck" the instructions of adjusting the "A" (heel) slot until the neck is flat.  I haven't touched the side adjustment. 

I started with the A/Heel adjustment from the 'just snug' position.  I checked with a nice 24" straight edge (which I got from StewMac) and there was a lot of relief as expected.  Over a couple of days I gave it 1 1/2 turns from the snug point.  Neck was straight except .001 space over frets 5-7.  I didn't want to turn the truss any more.    I mounted the neck to the body and now there's a slight hump at the 12th fret.  It didn't do this before the neck was mounted. 
the whole neck is straight below the 12th  fret and straight above the 12th fret... does this mean the 12th fret is slightly high?  Or does it mean the relief is off?  Is this going to cause grief for setting low action?

 

[AutoBat]

It's probably a single fret high.  It sounds like you followed the initial setup instructions correctly.

 

[Cagey]

I agree with Autobat - at least one of your frets is high.

Warmoth only installs the frets and bevels them; they don't level/crown/dress/polish them. Since the fretboard itself is freshly ground, the frets are usually pretty level, but they're not perfect and the ends are a bit abrupt. Still, it's good enough that many folks are able to live with it the way it comes, which is often better than what you'd get from an OEM guitar. Others want some professional attention to make the thing perfect. You should be able to get that done for between $125-$250, depending on your local shop's fee schedule and the fret material. Or, you could send it to me and I'll do it more reasonably.

 

[dglady]

Thank you all for your responses.  I'm glad to hear you all think it's simply that the 12th fret needs to be dressed and not something I may have goofed up.     

--Is using the straight edge good enough or is there a better/additional way to diagnose a high fret?
--Any ideas as to why the high fret wouldn't show up until the neck is bolted to the body?

Do you know how much adjustment (relief, etc) the side adjust actually provides?  In otherwords,  if the neck is relatively/mostly flat when it's installed ... I'm assuming/hoping the side adjustment will allow for adjusting for a flat neck with just the right amount of relief.

Thanks again

 

[Cagey]

Ideally, you want a "fret rocker", which is an ambitious teenager with a simple little tool with machined edges for checking the relative height of 3 frets.

You pick the appropriate side to cover three frets, and see if it rocks. If not, they're all the same height. If so, then the middle of the three is tall. Mark it and move on until you've checked the whole neck.

Not all frets are evenly uneven, though, so I usually hit each triplet of frets three times - once toward the bass side of the neck, once in the center, and once toward the treble side. Catches frets that are only high at one point rather than across the entire fret.