help with a new neck

[slowist]

working on a gilmour black strat sort of project. Put new pickups and a new pickguard on my vantage strat copy, and got a tinted neck (plan on getting a sheet vinyl to make a custom headstock decal later on) but I've run into trouble with it. notes won't play anywhere above the fourth fret, and it's riddled with fret buzz all over, basically unplayable up until the 12th (no fret buzz up there) got an L allen wrench and I'm planning to use it on the truss rod as i'm writing this, any tips for fixing the truss?

 

[vetteman]

Sounds like maybe the truss rod is too tight and you have some back bow going on.  With a capo at the first fret and the sting held down at the highest fret you should have about .010 to .015 relief at the 8th fret.  Loosening the truss rod counter-clockwise will increase the relief, but you should probably only change it about an 1/8th to 1/4 turn before retuning and checking again (give it some time to settle once you make the changes.)  There are tons of YouTube videos on guitar set-up on the internet, the best are from the pro's at Fender and the Stewart-MacDonald guys (Dan Erlewine and Eric Coleman).  Also the Fender factory manual that comes with each new guitar has all the basics in there along with all the standard setup specs.  With that being said a few specialized tools are required, like feeler gauges and a small machinists ruler (and an optivisor magnifier in my case) so you have to weigh those costs vs. paying a luthier to set it up for you.  Worst case, you get into a fret leveling/re-crown which costs more (tools or $).  You will know which is right for you, but it is very much the give the man a fish/teach him how to fish thing.  Good luck, and even if the existing neck is bad it can easily be replaced!

 

[slowist]

I'll gonna look into that. I'm a newbie as far as setup, If I can't figure out the measurements, and the proper adjustments, I'll take it to the store to have it looked at. thanks!

 

[musicispeace]

There are several really helpful videos on youtube from a handful of posters who know what they are doing regarding truss rods and neck adjustment. it sure illustrates the point that a properly set up guitar makes all the difference in the world when nuanced things are working in harmony together as they should be. Good luck on your project, I always like the Gilmour starts people come up with although that is not my thing for me.

 

[slowist]

did some work with the truss rod and currently I'm down to just a little bit of buzzing on the 2nd string 2nd fret, I'm also considering the possibility that the nut was made too short as it looked that way to begin with but i'm not too sure, and taking the nut out seems like a big pain, I'll probably look into having a Pro look at it later on, maybe get a black tusq xl installed

 

[ghotiphry]

John Carruthers on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHHepmTX3So  I found him to be excellent.

 

[slowist]

It seems work fine now, however I put on a random vintage tuner to see how the guitar would work with all 6 strings, and now i've run into a completely different problem. I noticed that the high e string sort of veers off to the side of the fretboard. which led me to notice that the string don't line up with the pickups at all. I've also found a slight slit where the neck doesn't touch the side of the neck pocket, I've concluded that the holes that were drilled into the neck originally are off from where I need them to be, so I'm going to have to fill the holes and get them redrill, I'm thinking get dowels and use wood filler as glue, looks like I'll have to put the original neck back on until I can get some dowels.

 

[Wolf Follower]

There may be a little room to move if you loosen the screws and push the neck into alignment. If that gets you close it may be best to just slightly enlarge the holes going through the body to allow a bit more play. If you have to use dowels be very careful when you re-drill because the bit will want to track away from the end grain where it overlaps the dowels. In any case, I would wait for additional responses from more knowledgeable people before trying any drilling or filling. Good luck with it.

WF

 

[mayfly]

You don't need to dowel and re-drill.  Just loosen the strings, loosen the screws, move the neck to where it's centred, and tighten the screws. 
Even a guitar with a very tight and accurate neck pocket joint can have this happen.  It's not a big deal.

 

[Logrinn]

When I look at the image of the bridge it seems to me that there's something off. Normally the bridge saddles align up with the holes for the bridge that goes into the body, ie the screws that holds the bridge in place. But on the image it seems that this is not the case. The bridge saddles seem to go further off "south", towards the tremolo arm so to speak, making the strings pass not over the pole pieces but slightly lower/below. And therefore the high strings are also closer to the edge of the neck on the "treble side".

I might be wrong, but that's what it looks like to me. Maybe another bridge that fits in the existing holes with bridge saddles that line up would solve the problem without having to touch the neck.

Just my 2 cents ...  :dontknow:

 

[pabloman]

The picture was just taken at an angle :icon_thumright: