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Vintage 7.25 Radius neck setup question...

Shellcaster

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I have what is likely a stupid question bbbbuuutttt I have learned the hard way the truly stupid thing is to not ask for help when needed...I've got that American standard strat I'm fixing up and sharing progress on in another thread but I have a specific question I wanted to ask separate so it would be me noticable. Feel free to delete this thread in m if necessary... Statement qualified so here it goes... It's a long one so thank you for your patience and help in advance

When I got the neck I gave the truss rod a tiny tweak, probably a 32nd of a turn counter clockwise before putting it on due to the difficulty adjusting it. Now it's on I currently do not have a set of radius gauges so I redid the action the "old fashioned" way by wrapping a piece of tape on a metal ruler at 3mm and went to with adjusting. I've had to set the bottom 3 strings somewhat higher (haven't measured because) as all 3 were buzzing so for now I just raised them till it stopped. It seems I have "permanently misplaced" my feeler gauges and Amazon is being kind enough to bring me a new set till tomorrow and I'm not doing anything till I can confirm measurements.

The neck has 6105 stainless steel frets and I don't mind higher action so much on a strat as much as I prefer the 7.25 to the 9.5 but I'm not used to having all 3 strings buzz like that. When I use my fret rocker I really don't feel any rocking and the really weird thing is if I press down harder on the string the buzzing "lessens" as the note "pitches out" digging into the fingerboard.

Is my instinct thinking the neck just needs a "settled in tweak adjustment" or am I just not paying close enough attention looking for some teeny tiny height discrepancy and the frets need to leveled/polished? The other 2 necks I've got from Warmoth have nickel frets and even the solid maple vintage neck with the same 7.25 radius and a hard gloss finish done by then the frets were perfect out of the old box... Or is there something I'm totally missing here?

No one ever accused me of being smart and any wisdom and insight is appreciated and thank you in advance! 🐢
 
How low are you setting your strings?
You need a tiny bit of forward bow in the neck. Hold the low E string down at the first fret and the 17th fret, and tap the string at the 8th fret, there should be just a slight bit of space between the top of the fret and the bottom of the string. When you tap it there, you can hear and feel a "clicking". No real need for gauges and whatnot.
Once you get that adjusted properly with the truss rod, adjust each string saddle for a string height of about 5/64" @ the 12th fret.
 
How low are you setting your strings?
You need a tiny bit of forward bow in the neck. Hold the low E string down at the first fret and the 17th fret, and tap the string at the 8th fret, there should be just a slight bit of space between the top of the fret and the bottom of the string. When you tap it there, you can hear and feel a "clicking". No real need for gauges and whatnot.
Once you get that adjusted properly with the truss rod, adjust each string saddle for a string height of about 5/64" @ the 12th fret.
On that particular guitar I have the action higher than my others, call it an "almost' SRV setup. Tuned to E flat with Power Slinkies (11's). I have the gnat's hair gap when I measure my action and with 7.25 2 gnat hairs helps. I need the feeler gauge because my one eye is getting old and even with my contact to clear the astigmatism things that small I have to do by feel. Getting old is awesome! Lol 😎

Just like even though I'm American it's become easier to see the mm side of my little metal rulers. I adjust the height at the bridge but eventually the current screws/saddles are being replaced because the ones on the guitar are rusted out... This is basically turned into a rescue project. I want them to sit between 3-3.5mm height wise which is higher than 5/64s... Aaaaannndddd in likely going to have to take it apart and adjust the neck anyways but because I've never had stainless frets before I wanted to see if there was anything else I wasn't thinking of before I pull out the old micro mesh and shine the frets...

Thank you, I'm trying to cover all the things and trying to make sure I'm not forgetting it missing something 😊
 
The thing that threw me was the harder I dig into the fretboard the buzzing lessens that was making me think I need a little more relief and go from there I should say. Sorry, folding laundry and not good at multi-taking either...

If I remember my non -American right a 5/64th setup is fun high to low E-string somewhere between 1.75-2 to 2-2.5mm in European 😁

It's been over 13 years since my last stint across the pond ... My foreign math-speak is a little rusty and mostly in German 🐢
 
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