Problems with my first warmoth build...

[arispouncey]

Hi folks! Im new here! I was hoping some of you guys could share wisdom as how to get these things right! Some of the guitars ive seen on this forum are beautiful and imagine they play as great as they look.

Heres my dilema: I bought a solid ash tele body routed for a recessed wilkinson trem and mated it with a warmoth compound radius neck. The neck 6150 Stainless frets and tusq nut. My problem is that no matter how high i set the bridge and fiddle with truss rod. i get a nasty fret buzz all the way up the neck on the wound strings. Its killing me cause I love the way the guitar sounds i just cant for the life of me get the thing to play right. My first thoughts would be that the nut is cut to low or it needs a fret job, but id like to exhaust all alternatives to that stuff as im in college and broke

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[mark1178]

Welcome arispouncey and congrats on your build!

Okay, now to the problemo you are having. I do have a couple of suggestions.

You might want to try adding a small shim in the neck pocket (towards the outer part) to raise the back end of the neck.
I've had that problem before on an old 1950's Aria guitar, buzz past the 12th fret, raised the back end of the neck, adjusted truss rod, intonate, problem fixed. I used a little match box, you can also use an expired credit card, just one layer will make a difference. If that doesn't work, you might need to get the frets leveled, which you should in the future anyway.

 

[bob7point7]

Welcome to the forum! It sounds to me like you may have a high fret somewhere on the neck. If there was a problem with the nut it would only show up when you weren't fretting. As soon as press on the string the nut is pretty much out of the equation. It's also been my experience that Warmoth errs to the high side when cutting their nuts, leaving the fine tuning to the customer, so I doubt you're getting any buzz from the nut. The truss rod should only be used to adjust neck relief, not action. If you hold down the strings at the first and last fret you should have about .010" gap in the middle of the neck when the truss rod is set up properly. After this, the bridge should be adjusted for proper action height. If you still have the buzz take a short straight edge and lay it between the strings across the frets. Work up and down the neck trying to rock the straight edge. If it rocks back and forth somewhere you have found your high fret. A neck shim is only necessary if you can't get the action set up where you want it by adjusting the bridge (a very rare condition when using Warmoth parts). Good luck and don't give up until it plays the way you imagined!

 

[stratamania]

Take a look at this video for a demonstration of using a straight edge to find high frets.

http://youtu.be/Jt0P4U5XYx8

You could use anything that has a straight reliable edge, such as a plastic protractor etc.

 

[guitartom]

OK - I'll throw my 2 cents in here as well.  I have used 3 warmoth necks, so I am far from the expert that some on here are.  Two of those necks were bolted on without doing any work to the frets and they play very well.  Here's what I would check:

1) Take the neck back off of the body.  Check the neck pocket to make sure there are is no foreign material (paint, wood chip, or excess wood from where the wood screw goes through the body) in the pocket that is causing the neck to sit higher on the wound string side.

2) You didn't mention if you have a Warmoth Pro neck.  If you do, make sure you follow the directions and set the relief using the rear adjust prior to bolting the neck onto the body.  The side adjust is for fine tuning only once the neck is installed.  If you have a neck which adjusts from the top, you can adjust the relief after its bolted on.

3) Place the neck into the body.  I will set the neck in from above, and will not push it into the pocket straight on.  Now put a high e and low e through the bridge and onto the tuners.  Don't string these to pitch.  You want to use them to make sure the neck is aligned with the bridge and the string spacing up the neck is even on both sides.

4) Now bolt the neck to the body, but don't fully tighten it.  I'd say you want to bring the screws 95% of the way there.  Make sure the neck alignment is on and then tighten one screw.  Work your way through the others ensuring the neck stayed aligned.

5) String the neck up. Now check your string height.  I use about 3/16" as measured at the 12th fret with a capo at the 1st fret to eliminate the nut height.  If you can get this measurement without having your bridge (or saddles) all the way up or down, then you are good.  Think of it like this.  You should have spare adjustment left at the bridge.

6) Now set you neck relief.  Don't forget to loosen the strings before tightening the truss rod or you may strip the threads.

7) I would now use a stew-mac or similar fret rocker to check that you do not have a high fret.  If you find a high one then you will need to tap it in or file to level the high or high ones.  I like Ron's explanation (http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-technical/201556-fret-leveling-yer-tele-101-a.html)

8) If your bridge (or saddles) could not be adjust to get the correct string height then the pocket needs to be adjusted.  You can do this by shimming.  I will stay out of the arguments over whether this is good or bad here.  You can read more here (http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/19686-guitar-shop-101-how-to-shim-a-bolt-on-neck) if it interests you or you can search.  From how you described your problem, it appears to me that you may need to shim the neck at the front to give you enough angle to allow your strings to be adjusted.

9) The last thing I do is set the nut height.  You can watch this video for more info: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz9UKX2lcxw

Hope you get it sorted out.  This is my favorite part of the bolt together process.

Tom

 

[arispouncey]

Thank you all for the advice!!! Im gonna try all of this and see what happens. I'll let y'all know how it goes!!!