Fret buzz not cured by truss rod adjustment

[Yeti]

Hello All

I recently got an Epiphone SG that was unplayable out of the box.  There was fret buzz from frets 1 to 5 across all 6 strings.  I guess the neck had an up-bow. 

I loosened the truss rod a few 1/8th turns over a few days and eventually most of the fret buzz had gone. 
But it still has a little buzz on the: 
- E string, frets 1 to 5,
- B string, frets 1 to 4,
- G string, frets 1 to 3. 
When I lean the guitar forward (strings down), the buzz goes away, and when I lean the guitar backwards (neck down) it gets worse.

The frets are not perfectly even, with a little wiggle from the fret rocker in various places, not just the frets that are buzzing. 
The nut slots are fine - no buzz from open strings.

As I've already adjusted the truss rod a few times, to about 1 whole turn by now, I'm a bit concerned about doing even more.  
The neck is now straight, with virtually no relief.  The string action is low (about 1.5 mm at the 12th fret, and about 2 mm at the 24th fret). 
If I raise the action on the lower side the problem goes away but the guitar is then less playable at the higher frets due to the angle of the set neck and bridge height.

I've set up, upgraded and repaired a few guitars, but this problem has me stumped for now.

What do you suggest I do next?

Thanks in advance for your help.

<a href="https://ibb.co/5xDycnN"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/5xDycnN/sg-action.jpg" alt="sg-action" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/zsQjR8W"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/zsQjR8W/sg-neck.jpg" alt="sg-neck" border="0"></a> <a href="https://ibb.co/s30sGhC"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/s30sGhC/sg-nut.jpg" alt="sg-nut" border="0"></a>

 

[Yeti]

[Yeti]

[Yeti]

[mistermikev]

well imo i think you answered your own question.  if your rocker is finding places that rock... then you need to level and crown.  there may be other issues... but unless the guitar is leveled and crowned you can't rule them out.  I think you just have to rule things out methodically.  

your instincts about truss rods are right... ime you do a quarter or a half turn and then it takes a day to fully change.  if by the end of that day you don't have the right relief you adjust again.  as long as the truss rod doesn't become really hard to turn... you are likely fine to turn it again.  if it starts giving real resistance well then you have to be very careful proceeding. 

this is an epi?  so I suppose we are talking about a compression rod?  ie... this only goes one way and that is to add MORE relief... is that what you need?  

get a straight edge and look down the neck... what is it doing? 

check your relief by holding down the string at the 1st fret and also where the neck meets the body... look halfway between... you should have just enough room between the string and the fret to slip a thin fender pick.  get that right first.  then you set action... you action looks fairly high... 1.75mm at 12 on low e?  that is generally at the higher end of the rec range.  1.5 would be pretty good.  1.25 would be above avg.  

if your neck isn't doing anything funny, and you've set your relief, and you've set your action... and it's buzzing in an area... that means you need to level and dress.

hope something there helps.

[Yeti]

17 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

if your neck isn't doing anything funny, and you've set your relief, and you've set your action... and it's buzzing in an area... that means you need to level and dress.

Thanks for your reply.
Yes, it looks as if I might need to level a few frets at that end.  
The truss rod is dual action and not hard to turn.
There's virtually no relief, when I hold down a string at 12th fret and also at body fret the middle fret is touching the string.
Re-checking the string gauge, the action is about 1 mm at 12th fret, 6th string.

[mistermikev]

Just now, Yeti said:

Thanks for your reply.
Yes, it looks as if I might need to level a few frets at that end.  
The truss rod is dual action and not hard to turn.
There's virtually no relief, when I hold down a string at 12th fret and also at body fret the middle fret is touching the string.
Re-checking the string gauge, the action is about 1 mm at 12th fret, 6th string.

imo... leveling a few frets is almost never worth it.  there are some cases where it would be... but that is typically if the frets that are problematic are really high up the neck.  if the problem frets are lower than most likely as you level them you just move the problem a couple of frets higher... then chase the problem all the way up the neck.  

so if there is no relief... just make sure you are going the right way with the truss (check relief, turn truss, check relief again) and eventually you should get there.  you should be adding relief which in most cases would mean loosening the truss rod.  with a dual action... it could be that it was adjusted so much that adjusting back... you eventually hit the 'middle point' on the truss where adjustment just doesn't do anything until the threaded block starts to pull the truss back in the other direction.  

1mm would be incredibly low action.  

[Yeti]

13 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

if the problem frets are lower than most likely as you level them you just move the problem a couple of frets higher... then chase the problem all the way up the neck. 

Yeah, that's what put me off starting this - hence this post to see what other people think.  I have levelled frets before but just the odd one here and there, and always higher up the neck from about the 9th fret onwards.  I could give them a little tap with the fret hammer to see if that's enough - the slight buzz is probably just 0.1/0.2 mm off.

[mistermikev]

11 minutes ago, Yeti said:

Yeah, that's what put me off starting this - hence this post to see what other people think.  I have levelled frets before but just the odd one here and there, and always higher up the neck from about the 9th fret onwards.  I could give them a little tap with the fret hammer to see if that's enough - the slight buzz is probably just 0.1/0.2 mm off.

well, only you know what tools you have and what is best with it right in front of you.  if it were me I'd take the strings off, flatten the neck perfectly, level the frets, and re-crown them.  it's just not that much more work and the only way I know to guarantee they will be perfect.  ymmv.

[Bizman62]

Adding to that, if you raise your bridge by a fraction of a millimetre, it shouldn't affect playability too much. Also bear in mind that the effect of raising the bridge is only half at the 12th fret - if you raise the bridge by, say, 0.5mm the raise is 0.25mm at the twelfth. That'd be two sheets of paper. It's measurable, but can you really feel the difference?

[Yeti]

2 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Adding to that, if you raise your bridge by a fraction of a millimetre, it shouldn't affect playability too much. Also bear in mind that the effect of raising the bridge is only half at the 12th fret - if you raise the bridge by, say, 0.5mm the raise is 0.25mm at the twelfth. That'd be two sheets of paper. It's measurable, but can you really feel the difference?

Thanks, I'll try that before embarking on a fret levelling journey.  I guess 1 mm at the bridge, will be about .025 at the 1st fret, which might be just enough...

[curtisa]

8 hours ago, Yeti said:

The truss rod is dual action and not hard to turn.
There's virtually no relief, when I hold down a string at 12th fret and also at body fret the middle fret is touching the string.

You need more relief. Just to clarify - relief is adding curvature to the neck, not straightening it, which is achieved by loosening the truss rod. This should allow the strings to pull the neck forward to add additional curvature in the neck, thereby adding clearance under the strings to minimise the chance of them striking the frets and buzzing when plucked.

Do not raise the bridge yet. Doing so before addressing the lack of curvature in the neck is only masking the initial problem.

[Yeti]

On 7/3/2022 at 11:25 PM, curtisa said:

You need more relief.

Thanks.  Yes - I had to loosen the truss rod 1/4 turn more.  Now the action is low (1.5mm at 12th, 2mm at 24th) and there's no fret buzz.  I've never had to adjust a truss rod this much before. :/

[Prostheta]

I personally decided that fret rockers don't mean very much to the built instrument since the neck is always going to be in some state of tension or relaxation. As part of the initial fretting process, they can tell you some things to dial out or problem areas to bear in mind prior to full fret levelling. I use mine as a tool for "hearing" loosely seated frets now.

Dialling out fret buzz using up-bow from string tension is a mixed bag. I would suspect that there's some issue with the fret levelling rather than a lack of action. A truss rod should ideally only prevent excessive up-bow from string tension rather than having to induce it. The ideal neck geometry under string tension for most is a slight amount of up-bow to provide room for vibrating string deflection.

If the instrument is under some sort of warranty, I would chase that or get the seller to do better initial setup work. The sort of work I would do to a guitar in this situation would negate that initial warranty; firstly I'd relax the truss rod and remove the strings and preferably the nut. Once the neck is straight and relaxed (overnight is more than enough, usually) tape the fingerboard up leaving the frets exposed, marking the fret tops with a Sharpie and lightly hitting the tops with a straight file will show any high or low spots. I'd guess that you're going to have weirdness in the first position.

Too many guitars leave factories with poorly levelled fretwork, and hiking up the action excessively to hide those faults isn't something that you should accept. If the action higher up becomes silly to make it playable down low, the problem is in the fretwork. Sometimes it doesn't seem obvious what the fault is, and the fix often causes another issue. Take it back to fundamentals and work the problem upwards. Like I say....if it's under warranty then use it. 

[Bizman62]

On 7/3/2022 at 4:00 PM, Yeti said:

unplayable out of the box.

What @Prostheta said, use the warranty. Didn't pop into my mind as I've only once bought a brand new guitar!

It's sad that well known brand guitars leave the factory in such a condition and it's equally sad that most vendors don't do the adjusting. Or,  maybe it's all because of us customers: we want everything as cheap as possible! Thus the shops mass order bulk guitars and send them to the end user without no-one to check if something has happened during the transport or storaging - and as wood is a living creature things most likely happen. I've seen a €1500 Gibson with a visibly narrowed fretboard! It's easily a hundred money extra if a guitar tech checks and adjusts the guitar before delivery. That's most likely a no-no for a 300 money guitar.

[Prostheta]

More often than not, the money doesn't exist within the margins to justify that work.

[Bizman62]

Sad but true.