Heres the deal folks. For a friends birthday, I'm fixing up one of her guitars, as well as giving her a Clapton Cd. It's in 2 days or so. When I say fixing, all I mean is putting on new strings ( the strings on it were around 12 years old, haha) and polishing it, that sort of stuff.
Well heres the deal. I know nothing about acoustic guitars. I went to guitar center, got 10 gauge d'addario acoustic strings. I just put them on, and the first string wouldnt play. Buzzed everywher,e except after the 11th fret, but anything else didn't sound. I thought, well I probably need to put on the rest of the strings...After much struggling, they are all on. They are all buzzing the same way. The open strings have a tad of buzzing, but you can hear them. Any fretting under the 11th fret doesnt make any noise at all.
Its a Hohnermodel HAG 294, made in Taiwan. It appears to be a minirature guitar to me, although I can't say by how much. I'm thinking maybe I should have put 9's on instead? Have I messed up the guitar? Should I detune it to take the tension of the neck?
I need help quick, because I need to go back to guitar center and get a different guage if thats the problem.
Thanks mucho Guitarnoise Team.
Tasocles the Embarrassed
Taso
10s may be the problem. If it is close to set up it is more than likely for 12s and 10s won't put enough tension on the neck so it throws the relief off.
I am not familiar with the guitar but it should have some kind of truss rod adjustment so check the neck relief and adjust it if necessary.
Check my link below on the guitar setup page for some instructions on how to check the neck relief.
I see nothing taht would allow me to adjust the relief. Nothing in the sound hole or on the headstock. I believe this is a very cheap guitar. It would probably be easier for me to go get 12s. Any other ideas before I make the trip to guitar center?
Er, I checked the Hohner website, the only HAG model I see is a nylon..., and all the steel strings claim to have a truss rod... :?:
Perhaps you could try emailing them?
"Things may get a whole lot worse/ Before suddenly falling apart"
Steely Dan
"Look at me coyote, don't let a little road dust put you off" Knopfler
AHA! I took it to my guitar teacher, he looked at it for 2 seconds, and then informed me that the saddle was missing. What do ya know about that!
Apparently, when I took off all the strings to polish the whole thing, the saddle fell out. I didn't know that could happen. So I put it back in, and problem solved. ...
Almost.
The 11th fret doesn't seem to be working on any of the strings but the Low E. I've raised the action up (adjustable by screw) and that helped to get the Low E one to work, but I don't really want to raise it up more. My guitar teacher said that the he couldn't adjust the relief, there was no way. Is there any thing I can do, other than raising the action more? (It's not THAT high, but I prefer it to be extremly low.)
Thanks again everyone.
If your guitar teacher said the relief is OK and you trust him/her then you have no choice but to raise the action a little more. I would just raise it a little at a time until you are happy. A little higher action than you like is a lot better than it not being playable.
I trust him 100%. One of the most credible guitar teachers in the state. However, he didn't say the relief was fine. He wanted to adjust it, but there was no way to adjust it.
I'm gonna raise the action up a tad. I'll get back to you.
It's a good thing you can't find a truss rod, actually - even if neck relief is the cause, if you're getting it all the way to the 11th fret, you might break the rod by the time you fixed it.
It sounds to me like the cheap fix would be a nut replacement... and the right fix might be a nut replacement or a neck reset.
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
