Greetings all, I'm brand new to the board and I'm looking forward to learning a lot from all of you.
I did some searching for this specific topic but I wasn't able to come up with anything--if this has been discussed previously please direct me there.
I have an issue with a very inexpensive guitar I bought from a pawn shop yesterday for $80. It's an Austin Les Paul copy, check it out here: http://www.austingtr.com/products.php?CatID=1&PageID=9
After giving it a thorough polish and a pretty decent setup (I've only done a few setups, I'm still learning!), I'm having a problem with the neck. After making truss rod adjustments, the side of the neck with the low strings is dead straight. However, the high side of the neck still has a bow and causes some severe buzzing on some of the higher notes on the higher strings, right around the 15th fret or so.
Still a very playable piece, and cosmetically I was pretty blown away of the quality of this guitar from a company that I had never heard of until yesterday.
Anything I can do that would help with that neck?
Thanks!
Mike
Can it be adjusted so the bow comes out on the "high" side?
I'm thinking, back off on the truss rod tension, might have to put on heavier strings. Higher strings on the bass side are generally OK.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Unfortunately, no. Or I should say, I don't know how to do that.
Right now it's dead straight on the low side and bowed on the high side--if I allow it to bow on the low side, it bows EVEN MORE in the high side!
Thanks for your response--any further ideas would be great!!!
Mike
The truss rod will affect the neck relief (bow) from the second fret through about 14th (close to heel and body). Your problem is not likely a truss rod issue. It simply could be a high (elevated) fret, but sounds more like a "hump" or curve in the fingerboard over the body section. Unfortunately, this is common in Les Pauls, though not usually to the degree you describe. I cannot say for sure without seeing the guitar, but this may require either a neck reset or pulling the higher frets near and over the body, leveling the fingerboard and refretting those pulled frets. You may be able to get away with a simple leveling and recrowning of the high frets. But only if the height to be removed for leveling is very little.
But before getting too worried, you should check for a high fret.
-=tension & release=-
