setup specs for compound neck?

[bpmorton777]

I have a Warmoth guitar that I built about 10 years ago that needs a setup. I"m having issues with fret buzz on the 5th and 6th strings. Adding relief to the truss rod doesn't help and cranking up the action seems wrong as it has to be set way to high to get the buzz out. It's an all rosewood modern tilt back neck with fender scale and SS frets and a warmoth installed black tusk nut and fatback contour. The body was a Warmoth body blank and has a standard narrow spaced flat mount bridge. I tried to set it up to  Fender specs (12thou relief and action set to 4/64s at 12th) for a Tele. The 5th and 6th (and a little of the 4th) strings buzz when fretted up to about the 12th fret. otherwise it plays great. I can't see any visible warping or twisting of the neck.

 

[AirCap]

Could be fret level time...

 

[Cagey]

I think Aircap's right. Time to level it out, re-crown, dress and polish the frets. Especially if it's never been done. Be better than new. I do that on all necks, even new out of the box. Properly done, with a set of 9s you can have your strings down to .010"-.012" at the 1st fret, ~.050" at the 12th with no buzzes or any of that kind of nastiness. That's a closer action than most players even want. Of course, if they're not stainless, it may not stay that way for terribly long, but you can always have it set up with a bit more clearance to compensate for the inevitable wear. Stainless basically doesn't wear in normal use. Although, I understand Mayfly has a worn stainless neck. Must be related to The Hulk, or have hydraulic hands or something :laughing7:

 

[Rick]

Fret dressing

 

[stratamania]

Fret dressing

You may be using the term dressing to mean something else as that does not help buzzing frets, levelling, crowning, beveling and dressing are different things.

 

[bpmorton777]

Yeah, I was afraid of that. Did not want it to need a fret leveling. As far as the setup goes, is that what folks around here would set up for on one of these compound radius necks? Like setting up a standard Fender hard tail?

 

[Rick]

I font treat a compound neck any differently than a plain neck.

 

[Strat Avenger]

The compound radius has nothing to do with it.