doommachine Posted July 16, 2006 Report Share Posted July 16, 2006 (edited) As mentioned in a previous post, I have an 85 Ibanez roadstar II, (RS530bk 24 frets, push pots that still work after 20 years, and sweet sweet red binding) with a kahler pro tremolo installed. Basically, my problem is that I cannot lower the action any further without the bass strings coming out of the rollers, and on the higher strings, the screw to adjust intonation is higher than the roller. At their lowest setting, my action at the 24th fret is about 5mm, and at the 12th I have about 3 mm. The only thing I can think of doing to fix it is somehow shimming the neck to be higher. The neck is nice and straight, slight inward bow (when I had a fixed bridge on the guitar I had really low action, about 1.6 mm at the 12th fret, and I like a slight bow to keep the low frets from buzzing). Any suggestions? Is shimming the neck the best option or is there some other way (short of recessing the bridge into the body) that I can fix it? Thanks in advance Edited July 16, 2006 by doommachine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
al heeley Posted July 17, 2006 Report Share Posted July 17, 2006 A neck shim is your best option. Snip a piece of tin from a coke can or similar, maybe 2 pieces together to raise the neck up a little. You can always take it out again, no harm done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marksound Posted July 17, 2006 Report Share Posted July 17, 2006 I use guitar picks for neck shims. They're acccessible, come in various thicknesses and materials, they don't compress, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radrobgray Posted July 17, 2006 Report Share Posted July 17, 2006 you could angle your neck they may fix your problem. just shim it but only on the half of the neck pocket closest tot eh neck pup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spazzyone Posted July 17, 2006 Report Share Posted July 17, 2006 if you make a shim then make it full size just shimming one end of the pocket can be bad news Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickguard Posted July 17, 2006 Report Share Posted July 17, 2006 I'm not clear what you're saying--- am I right in thinking that you started with a guitar with a hardtail bridge, then installed the Kahler trem, and now you've got action problems? Or are you saying that you've always had the trem and all of a sudden you're having action trouble? If it's the first, then the answer seems to have more to do with either the Kahler not being installed correctly, or that it's simply not properly matched to your neck or neck height or neck angle. And if it's the second, maybe you ought to figure out what caused the neck to go out of whack like that. Seems to me that shimming the neck is not the most attractive alternative (I mean, what's all this fuss about getting a tight neck pocket, and the whole arguement around setneck vs bolton, if you can just shove a piece of paper or a pick or tin can into the guitar and it still sounds great?) As long as you've already chopped up the guitar to install the trem, why not recess it a bit further into the body (I don't know if that's possible with this kind of trem)? Just wondering... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doommachine Posted July 18, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2006 OK, heres the full story - the RS530 originally comes with a "rock pro" tremolo, a sort of floyd rose imitation. Someone replaced that with a hardtail bridge. I decided that a tremolo would be a nice idea, so I got a kahler and had it installed. It has been installed correctly, it's just the guitar was never designed for such a tremolo. The guitar hasn't been chopped at all, as the kahler is pretty much flush mount and there is already a hole for the original tremolo. I am tempted to get it flush mounted, but then I have to keep the trem with the guitar permanently, and if I ever decide to sell the guitar it has to go with the kahler... can someone please explain to me how angling the neck back further will alleviate my problem? Surely the relative height of the bridge will remain much the same, and I will have to bow the neck in further to avoid the strings buzzing at low frets? Sorry, I have never really messed with neck angles before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickguard Posted July 18, 2006 Report Share Posted July 18, 2006 can someone please explain to me how angling the neck back further will alleviate my problem? Surely the relative height of the bridge will remain much the same, and I will have to bow the neck in further to avoid the strings buzzing at low frets? Sorry, I have never really messed with neck angles before. Okay, in that case, it's kind of surprising that whoever installed the kahler didn't at least warn you about this. If I understand correctly, what's happened is that the bridge now sits higher up off the body than the original bridge(s). So basically what you're dealing with is the same issue you get when you use a TOM-style bridge. These also sit pretty high off the body, so the neck is usually angled down (the heel points upward) to accommodate for that. Draw it out on a piece of paper, you'll see why it works. You don't have to angle the neck --the alternative is to set the neck in so that the whole thing rides up higher off the body now --doing it this way keeps the straight neck thing. This is the way Rickenbacker does it. You can achieve that with a full shim that fills the entire neck cavity. You might need to raise your pickups accordingly. Someone else here can help you with putting together a shim to get the neck in at the proper angle. If I were you, I'd take the guitar back to whoever installed the kahler and ask them to finish the job --they should have known they'd have to adjust the neck to suit the bridge. And if you did it yourself, well, you should have been prepared for that too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doommachine Posted July 19, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 19, 2006 Heh, I paid to get it installed before I was interested in messing with guitars myself.. actually when I restrung the kahler the first time, that's when I decided messing with guitars wasn't that hard. Anyway, the action felt fine when I was using really light strings, (38 ) and I have tens on my other guitar. It was about a year ago (eh, hopeless I know) so I doubt the guy will work on it now for free... Anyway you have answered my question in part, what I really want to know now is the difference between the two methods of fixing the problem. How will each of them affect the action? I would ultimately like to have ridiculous low action (about 1.5mm), with minimal fret buzzing. My way of thinking is that a flat neck will offer better playability, but as I said I am new to neck adjustment so I could be wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickguard Posted July 19, 2006 Report Share Posted July 19, 2006 Anyway you have answered my question in part, what I really want to know now is the difference between the two methods of fixing the problem. How will each of them affect the action? I would ultimately like to have ridiculous low action (about 1.5mm), with minimal fret buzzing. My way of thinking is that a flat neck will offer better playability, but as I said I am new to neck adjustment so I could be wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doommachine Posted July 20, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 20, 2006 Ah, I don't mind the wood contact thing, honestly I'm not that precious about tone. (yet hehehe) So, angling the neck back is OK? I thought about it in my mind, and if I keep the neck straight with the body of the guitar, then my action is pretty limited to my nut height, right? So, angling the neck back gives me more options as far as truss rod adjustment, etc. I think I know what I'll do now. Someone mentioned guitar picks as a shim, which sounds good to me as they're nice and hard and cheap , but on another forum someone mentioned that my guitar is basswood, and a shim will just compress into the wood. Do you think that's an issue I should worry about, or just shim the neck and be done with it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickguard Posted July 20, 2006 Report Share Posted July 20, 2006 , but on another forum someone mentioned that my guitar is basswood, and a shim will just compress into the wood. Do you think that's an issue I should worry about, or just shim the neck and be done with it? Couldn't tell you. Maybe someone else knows more about basswood. Seems kind of farfetched to me --if the wood was that soft, it'd be totally useless. I say as long as you're going to use a shim, you might as well take the time to shape one that will fit exactly the way you need it to. And with a wider shim (that spans the entire width of the pocket), you'll be less likely to have issue with things compressing into the wood. I believe there was a discussion here some months back about how people make their angled shims... Here's Soapbarstrat's way. (scroll down--his is post #6) You can use this tutorial to help you figure out exactly the angle and height of the shim you'll need. Really, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doommachine Posted July 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2006 Thank you so much for all your trouble, I really appreciate it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badsnap Posted July 21, 2006 Report Share Posted July 21, 2006 I know this is a lot to wrap your head around, but Mickguard has some great points. So...to further your options, if you can measure the difference in the height of the 2 bridges then you could make a WOOD shim of the correct thickness and then you would have wood to wood contact. I've never done it but it seems to be logical. If you use a shim to change the neck angle you are still shimming, so what's the point of the angle. It seems as though you want to keep your options open on this guitar (not make any irreversible changes) so the flat shim seems best to me. However, if you want to make some changes to the axe and keep it that way I would suggest either recess the bridge or (if you are ambitious) route the proper angle into the neck cavity or shave the bottom of the tenon of the neck to the correct angle. Melvyn Hiscocks book describes how to do the calculation, from a drawing, very well. Then the guitar would be set up to allow that insanely low action you are talking about. Any of the methods suggested in this post will work. Now you get to choose your poison!!! ...Rog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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