Looking For Action Help

[Jera Woden]

i have a $170 dollar ibanez start thats around 6 years old. i really love the feel of this guitar. it has a wide neck (1 3/4) and a wide string base over the pick ups. the stock pickups are giveing me trouble but hey it was cheap. well its time for an up date. i took it out the other day and noticed my action is way high. so i took it to my local shop (i could have done it my self but i wanted to pro touch) to have them check out the truss rod. it was fine but i was getting way too much buzz on the middle frets. i had them adjust the saddles on the one way termolo. well my action was in orbit now. so i put on a very heave gauge string (13-52 ) and that killed the buzz, i redid the saddles my self and got the action to ok but still too high. if i go any lower it wont sound on any fret about 15.

so what should i do to get my action perfect?

do i put a shim or two under the neck and bolt it back on?

this guitar has the single action termolo (i forget what its called) with the string through the base of the term on the back.

is there any thing nbon termolo i can convert it too that will allow me to gewt the action back to where it should be?

would this axe accept a stop bar and tune o matic? is that even the right way to go?

ps its a ibanez gio strat with a few slight finish mods to it.

please help me obi wan kenobi your my only hope!

lol j/k about old ben

[doug]

Those necks have a problem with becoming sort of "S" shaped. I've a freind with a high volume music store that sends 1/2 of them back brand new. He won't even sell them.

$170 guitar...need I say more?

Without seeing the neck of course it's hard to diagnose. There is the possibility that a fret leveling may help. MAY helpto some extent.

What dod your "pro" say might fix it?

-Doug

[Jera Woden]

a$170 dollar guitar being crap i dont believe it a single bit. ive played on guitars selling for $1700 dollars that didnt feel this good but i will agree the pickups are garbage.

ive looked at the neck and the pro looked at the neck. it has a very light foward bow in it. i held down the g string between the 1st and 12th fret and there is about a millimeter of space. which is fine. he told me that raising the saddles would help some but didnt go on about it. i did chage the strings like i said. (i had either ghs low tunes xl gauge or erine ball super slinkys on it).

now my next question is if i put a new nut on it with a shallow string gouge cut it it will i be able to take the action lower in the higher frets?

[doug]

You could try the nut thing. It's possible that the one on there now is too low. They are related. There should be some relief anyway.

How high are the center two strings from the 12th fret? How far are they from the last? What height is high to you?

Now I can't account for why that expensive guitar had poor action. Obviously whoever was trying to sell it had no clue how to set one up beforehand. One can only hope that quality and price are related in some way. I can tell you for a certainty that the neck on the guitar you have is notorious.

-Doug

[Pr3Va1L]

maybe you need a fret crowning/polishing or even prehaps a refret?

that could be the problem(if its really old...)

[jmrentis]

Hey Jera,

I actually bought one of those guitars recently for a experimental project. I attempt everything I wanted to do to guitars on this one first so when I do them on my more expensive ones I won't screw them up. I took mine down to the local music shop to buy the allen wrench for the saddles, (I lost mine) and the guys working there were completely blown away. For the $149.99 I paid for it online, they felt that it was great the finish was fantastic, tha action was super low with only very minor buzz on the low E, the neck was right on the money all the way down. So I know how you feel that these guitar are not crap. But I do agree that after the 6 years you had it, it might be time for some replacements and/or upgrades. If the neck is ok then I would start at the nut. As far a replacing the bridge I would like to change to a fixed bridge as well. If you don't mind drilling a couple holes in your guitar, then maybe take a look at custom shop parts, the Drop Top Convertible. The pickups and tremelo are not so good on those guitars. BTW is the name a GRX20. Good Luck, let me know how it turns out. Jason

[Southpa]

I rebuilt an Ibanez Roadstar stratocopy (RS series) a few years back. Gave it to my father but I don't think he plays it much these days. Mybe he will give it back, . Anyway, I refurbished it with generic strat parts, eg. a prewired pickguard with stock single coils from Stewmac and other odds n' ends I had laying around. This guitar was basically just a body and neck to begin with. The solid maple neck was as good as those necks found on US made strats during the 70's. After stripping down the body I found 4 blocks of alder glued together. Ibanez did a good job of copying strats and making them affordable. I believe it was considered one of the "lawsuit" guitars despite the different shaped headstock.

If you are into looking at Ibanez models I found this.

Edited May 27, 2005 by Southpa