order of things, neck angle and shim, saddle shims, action height???

[simon1138]

Hello,

I have had a few problems with my guitar. i have finished the build and it seems to work fine so onto setup. 

i did the following

straigthen neck

fit new strings

shimmed neck to lower action, i fitted two pieces of card that cover half the neck pocket closest to the bridge, this may give a slight angle to the neck. it lowered the action and caused some string and fret buzz. 

i then noticed that the strings were different height and learnt that the saddles were numbered. i had one (1) three (2) and two (3). the (1) was the heightest but i measured them and they were all slightly different in height. the difference was less than half a mm in most cases. so i decided to use paper and shim a number (2) to make another (1). anyway i shimmed most of them to get them closer to height and fitted them in order. there is now an arc on the bridge as required. should i give some forward bend to the neck or is there something else that i should do. 

its like setup is straight forward, follow the path, what happens when the path has a fork??

thanks

all the best, 

simon

[mistermikev]

18 minutes ago, simon1138 said:

Hello,

I have had a few problems with my guitar. i have finished the build and it seems to work fine so onto setup. 

i did the following

straigthen neck

fit new strings

shimmed neck to lower action, i fitted two pieces of card that cover half the neck pocket closest to the bridge, this may give a slight angle to the neck. it lowered the action and caused some string and fret buzz. 

i then noticed that the strings were different height and learnt that the saddles were numbered. i had one (1) three (2) and two (3). the (1) was the heightest but i measured them and they were all slightly different in height. the difference was less than half a mm in most cases. so i decided to use paper and shim a number (2) to make another (1). anyway i shimmed most of them to get them closer to height and fitted them in order. there is now an arc on the bridge as required. should i give some forward bend to the neck or is there something else that i should do. 

its like setup is straight forward, follow the path, what happens when the path has a fork??

thanks

all the best, 

simon

right on... well I'm gonna assume perhaps you are using a floyd then? 

on a floyd there is really not much of up/down adjustment other than the two studs.  I would cut out a piece of paper or card stock with the correct radius and just ensure the bottom of the strings are following it, and that it matches the fretboard radius. 

then, I'd check the neck relief.  hold down the string at the 1st fret and the fret where the neck meets the body.  check halfway between those and you should have just enough space to fit a fender thin pick. 

then I'd lower the bridge until I got buzzing, then raise it back up until I don't get buzz when playing a note soft.  be sure to check all over the fretboard to see if you are getting buzz only in a certain area (high fret, bad relief, etc). 

this is all assuming that you've cut your nut and similarly, there is just a hair of space between the string and the frets at the first fret w/o holding anything down and on both sides. 

hope some of that rambling helped!!

cheers

[Bizman62]

46 minutes ago, simon1138 said:

should i give some forward bend to the neck or is there something else that i should do. 

A little relief is usually recommended especially if the action is low at the nut. That is to provide some extra space for the first harmonics.

You see, the strings vibrate in several patterns at the same time. The actual note is shaped like an American football. Within that there's a number of smaller similar football patterns in a row, the tips joining at the spots where you can play a harmonic. Two footballs joining at the 12th fret, four at the 5th, 12th and 22th fret etc. Now you may think that when you play, say, an A pentatonic scale on the 5th fret the tips change positions. That's true. But you're also playing higher notes with a smaller pattern so the extra space isn't needed there.

Plus everything that @mistermikev said.