Hi,
I've read about the Splattercaster of Crack-N-Jam and it twisted neck.
Obviously I went to check my Tele for the same problem... and began to worry...
I have to say that the guitar is ok, when I was using the 09 strings it had a buzz when picking hard the low E string for the lowest frets; I changed to 10 and the buzz disappeared, the action is raised a bit but the guitar is still very playable.
I tried to look at the neck to see if the frets were parallel, from the head to the body and from the body to the neck, it seemed ok... just a little bit lower on the high E and B side. Then I tried to verify if the planes of the headstock and the guitar body where parallel, and I verified that the headstock seems to be rotated so that the high E and B strings are lower than the low E and A.
It seems anyway that the whole neck is rotated and not twisted. I hope I explained myself.
Now some questions for you :-) !
Is there a method to check for twisted necks?
When should I begin to worry? Maybe when it is not possible to avoid string buzzes?
Thanks in advance!
Do you mean, if you look at the guitar from the front, face-on, that the neck is not exactly straight up and down? Parallel to the direction of the body?
Or do you mean that if you're looking down the length of the neck from the headstock, down toward the body, that the whole neck is rotated slightly so that it's not even to the flat plane of the body?
If in the first case you're looking at the guitar from the front (sitting in a guitar stand) and the neck is either slightly off to the left or to the right, this happens sometimes with bolt-on necks, like a Telecaster. Usually it's not very much, but you'll notice that the outside strings, the high E or the low E (1st or 6th) are closer to the edge of the frets around the 12th fret area. When you play, the string sometimes slips off over the edge of the frets even if you're not bending notes. To fix this, if the angle isn't too great, loosen the strings and loosen the neck bolts slightly and physically tug the neck (gently) either left or right. You might hear a little noise of the tightly compressed neck joint moving. Then tighten the neck bolts again. It would be the same kind of movement as opening the blade of a pocket knife - that swiveling motion along the flat plane of the guitar.
If it's the second case and the neck seems rotated as you're looking down the length of the neck toward the body, then perhaps the neck or fretboard wasn't correctly planed to lay flat in the neck pocket. This would be really rare since almost all electrics nowadays are made with computer controlled machines. This kind of twist, if the whole neck is turned that way, can usually be adjusted for by raising or lowering the bridge saddles. It's really unlikely, like I said, that this is the case, but if all the frets are along the sam plane, then there should be no problem.
I have a 70s Gibson Les Paul with an 'S' twist in the neck toward where the neck joins the body. You can usually see that sort of twist when you have all the strings on and then push down on the outer strings one at a time and see if the frets line up. On mine, on the 1st, 2nd string side, there's a 'dip'; on the 6th, 5th string side it's level, so there's a twist right there. The only way to fix it, because the neck can't be easily taken off, is to have the frets removed, have the fretboard planed level again, and then have new frets put in. It's not something I want to do to an old guitar like that so I just live with the slight buzz I get on those few high notes.
It seems like your guitar is just slightly out of adjustment somewhere. You might take it to a luthier/repair person, and have them look at it.
Hope this helps.
Thank you, that really helps a lot.
I am really surprised for the time you spent on writing all that. Thank you very much, I hope I will be of some help to you or somone else, this way, some day.
Now, coming to the topic, it's the second case, the plane of the neck is not parallel to the plane of the guitar.
That surprised me as well, for the same reason as you.
The head stock is in a plane parallel to the fretboard plane. It seems like the neck was cutted from a wedge shaped piece of wood.
Anyway, this doesn't seem to affect my playing very much at the moment, but I'll follow your suggestion and bring the guitar for a setup, as soon as I decide which string gauge to use.
Thanks again
Luca
