Fret Leveling

[Rocket]

I've been reading the Guitar Player Repair Guide and read the tutorial about leveling. How important do any of you feel "ramping" or "fallaway" -(as Erlewine calls it)- is? From around the 14th to the heel is how Erlewine explained it. I'm thinking I may need this on a couple of my guits as when I try to get the action lower those frets are the first to go dead.

[Brian]

This wouldn't be the angle the fret drop's off at both end's into the finger board would it?

[Rocket]

No ,I'm talking about when the 14th through 24th are somewhat lower than the rest of the frets. They are leveled gradually lower from the 14th->24th. I've also read where some guys use gradually shorter frets to create a "fallwaway". It's in Steve Kerstings tutorial, "Fret Level & Crown", in the paragraph underneath the first two photos. He calls it "ramping" but it's the same idea.

[Brian]

Ah ok now I understand, I can see the logic behind doing it and I can also see where it could be a good idea in some case's. Especially if your going after super low action.

"but" isn't there always a butt I think it would make future adjustments to leveling the entire neck should it bow for some reason just a bit harder since without the special tool they try to sell you at Stew Mac for guaging the actual finger board with fret's attached it would be near impossible.

Frustrating at best :o Still I like the idea, I'm just not sure it would be right for me. I'm so use to adding a small thin neck shim in the top of the neck pocket on bolt-on's for a simular effect but it changes the whole board, not just the upper register.

[Rocket]

I see your point. What is the difference between shimming the neck as you mentioned and just lowering the action via the saddles or trem posts?

Oh, you said "top of the pocket'. I guess that would make the neck angle upwards? Does this help low action? (inquisitive, aren't I?)

[LGM Guitars]

Brian, I fail to see how shimming the neck at the top of the pocket would do anything to help action, you are not changing your fretboard / string relationship in anyway. Assuming your neck is flat, and you have a 1mm action at the 12th, with your trem sitting at say (just for arguements sake) .25" high, if you shim the top of the neck cavity, all you are doing is moving a flat neck forward at the headstock, now you have higher action, so to get back to 1mm action, you lower the trem into the cavity more, you've changed nothing in the neck/string relationship, all you've done is change the angle of the neck and lowered the trem. The reason for shimming the bottom of the neck pocket, is to increase the back rack, which in the neck/string relationship, lowers the action. Now, again, to maintain a 1mm action, you must raise the bridge. The reason for doing that specifically on a floating trem guitar, is because you effectively increase the clearance in the trem route for divebomb's and pull ups. On my UV7BK, when I got it, the trem was so low in the route, I could not pull up at all, it was bottoming on the lip the studs fit into. To raise the trem and maintain the action, the neck had to be shimmed.

The reason for the fall away, is due to the fret spacing getting narrower in the upper frets, you have less clearance between a fretted string and the next fret and the likelyhood of buzzing is greater because of this. Your contact points are your frets. If we REALLY exagerate the angles, with simple trigonometry, it's easy to understand.

Lets assume, that, on fret number one, between the first and second fret, the distance is one inch, now, lets also assume that when we fret our string, it leaves that fret at a 45* angle.

If from the fret where the string is touching, to the fret next to it, is one inch, that means that directly above that fret, the string is one inch away. Now, at fret 14, if the next fret is only a half inch away, that means that the string is only a half inch above that fret.

With string vibration, and the tiny tolerances we're actually using in fret clearance, the string is closer to the adjacent fret in the upper register. By putting in fall away, you are in effect increasing that string clearance, without raising your action by much. I generally put a bit of a relief in the frets from about 18 to 24 just for that reason.

Not meaning to prove anything wrong, but adjusting (shimming) the neck, only changes the neck angle and allows you to set bridge height. Your relationship between the fretboard and strings (assuming the same action) remains the same. With a floyd type trem, it's easier to adjust your height, but on something like an acoustic, where you can only adjust a saddle so much, neck rake (or shim's) is much more critical. not enough rake, and your action is to high, to much, and you'll fret out.

Jeremy

[soapbarstrat]

When I was first starting out 15 years ago, I was using fretting info from Dan E and someone else who was very well sought after by the top guitarist, to have him re-fret their guitars ( not going to say who it is, coz then everyone will bug him with e-mails to find out what he taught me ). Anyway, This "other guy" wasn't using "fallaway" , "drop-off" etc, so that's why I starting doing re-frets without it. And I no longer use "fallaway" unless a customer swears by it and I don't argue with customers unless they're set on doing something REALLY stupid.( I better not say all the things I consider stupid , coz it would start a fight here).

Here's the deal : On a 10"-16" compound radius or even a constant radius of 12", I get 1/32" action at the 12th fret for the high E and 3/64" for the low E and I'm quite sure these "fall away" guys are not getting better action than that, so why go taking extra wood off the fret-board ? The action gradually gets a little higher as you go up the neck, so the proper string height and properly adjusted neck, create it's own slight "fall-away".

I'm not saying that my 1/32" and 3/64" is the lowest action one can get on a guitar, but it's the lowest I need and almost every player out there. I actually have been cranking mine slightly higher to keep myself from "shredding" (DIE 1980's, DIE !!!) and so I can get a little more aggressive with rhythm playing.

Maybe I shouldn't say this, but to be honest, I have wondered if "fall-away" is something that is done to compensate for a less than perfect fret-job. Doing fret-jobs for 15 years, and even using "fallaway" in the beginning (and now and then for the guy who just has to have it ), gives me the right to say it ,though.

Usually guys that like really low action, want the action as low as possible in the upper register and you don't get the lowest possible action in the upper register by including "fallaway".

Maybe the key is the neck relief. I like to keep it under .004", which is a damn straight neck. I was also using .002-.004 relief back when everyone was saying it should be around .012. My guitars were playing fantastic with .002-.004 relief and 1/32"/3/64" action at the 12th fret, so I didn't understand why everyone else's "specs" were so different than mine. But I wasn't playing guitars they had worked on, I was playing one's I had worked on, so who's specs were the best to go by ? It was simple. My guitars played like a dream and those other guy's guitars played like ? (nothing but crickets chirping)

[Rocket]

Great info, thanks!

[Brian]

Oh, you said "top of the pocket'. I guess that would make the neck angle upwards? Does this help low action? (inquisitive, aren't I?)

Yes it would angle the neck so that the strings would no longer be an equal distance from the fret board. The distance would become higher off the board the closer you get to the bridge.

It really wouldn't help the action and of course like I said it would have to be a thin shim (a standard shim is quite thick such as a business card folded over and cut to fit) starting out with something like one or two thicknesses of standard bond paper since your really not trying to angle the neck all that far.

Jeremy I can see how you would be confused about this since we both usually try to set a neck up so that the strings run an equal distance above the board from the 1st to the last fret. The first thing you did in your explination was to adjust the bridge to bring them back parellel along the board which of course would defeat the purpose of what were trying to do here, which is make the distance between the strings and the last fret just a fraction higher then that of the strings and the first fret. All without modifying the fret's to begin with.

Of course it wouldn't be a drop off from the 14th fret on as explained in the above mentioned reference, but it would lightly increase the distance all the way down the board without having to do any permanent modifications to the guitar.

A different way of achieving a simular effect which hasn't been metioned yet is to introduce just add a little bow into the neck, I know one player that swear's by this but for me I think I'll just stick with the old standard of making sure the strings are of equal distance up and down the board.

[soapbarstrat]

I guess I should clarify that I don't set-up a guitar neck so the strings are the same height all the way down the neck. When I give an example of a guitar I've set up with string heights at the 12th fret being 1/32" on the high E and 3/64" on the low E, I should also include that the string heights on that same guitar are about 1/64" higher at the 22nd fret (probably SLIGHTLY more than 1/64"). And at the first fret, they are around .008" for the high E and .015" for the low E. So, from the nut , up to the last fret by the body, the strings gradually get higher. I just assumed all guitars were like this, but some of you guys are saying you have the same height at all frets.

And I should also add, that with the low actions I'm able to get, it doesn't take real long for normal fret-wear to cause the need for a fret-dress to avoid buzzes or the strings to be jacked up a bit to avoid some fret-wear buzz. Depends how much the neck gets played and one usually plays a lot more when the neck is really easy to play. What's great about my fret-jobs is that you don't have to practice a lot, to be a good player. It's not like in the old days when the action had to be so high, that you had to build thick calluses on your fingers to be able to stand pressing those high strings all the way down. But, having an easy playing neck, which makes you play more often, does build up your hand and finger muscles, which does help quite a bit when you do pick up a guitar that's hard to play. I sometimes get a kick out of playing a guitar with really high action that the owner can't even play. Of course I know it's just temporary and I'll get to go back to my own guitar before the "in need of vise-grips to play it" action of someone elses guitar get's too boring ( or starts making my hands hurt ! )

[westhemann]

yeah believe it or not i prefer a slightly higher action.(just slightly)i just bought a jackson from a pawn shop and the neck is so straight i can set my action to about the thickness of a laminated card but i had to raise it cause i couldn't pull a bend without slipping off the strings.i also have those supper thick calluses.if i play for more than a couple of hours i have to pick of the bits of hanging skin so they don't interfere.but that's partially because i fret the notes harder than i have to.

[Rocket]

Like Brain said, about creating more bow for the same effect, that's what I've been doing all along. I rough it in with the trem posts and tighten the truss rod until it feels right. I'm kind of cro-magnon about it, I'm not a tech. I never measure it, it's all by feel. But the guitars in question, what I originally posted about, aren't working out with my method. Maybe because they are 7's. I don't know what that would have to do with it but they have that in common. The problem is at both ends really because not only do the upper frets go when I lower the action, the first fret strarts buzzing too. Maybe they all need a leveling.

[PaulNeeds]

A quicky - anyone think that shimming a neck has any effect on tone or sustain? I've done for years, for the reasons explained above, and find little or no difference that I can hear. If that's the case... why use fixed or straight through necks?