Mobilae

Well... I fixed it! Sort of... Leveling the frets with the neck under tension did the trick. The frets are now definitely dead flat with the strings on. I do think there’s something weird going on with this neck. For example, I can not set it to ‘factory’ neck relief (0.010” for 9.5” radius). As soon as I reach about 0.008” relief the truss rod is already completely loose. I now have it set to 0.004” relief and I achieved an action of 4/64” on the bass side and 3/64” on the treble side with no buzz at all. I would have liked it just a little bit lower (I usually aim for 3/64” and 2/64”) but for some reason this neck just won’t allow it. Also, I think Curtisa brought up a good point about the S shaped deformation. It might not be exactly what’s going on here, but I definitely think this neck suffers from at least some kind of deformation issue. And it seems to manifest itself significantly more when the neck is under tension. This could have been addressed during the refret, but unfortunately the person who did that did not take it into account. I have now been able to correct it somewhat with the fret level but maybe I’ll refret it properly sometime in the future.

It’s a 90’s USA Strat. No visible damage. Overall in good shape. I don’t think it has seen any abuse. I don’t know, it just seems to behave strangely. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Could be an internal issue. It’s definitely not a nut slot issue. I’ll try leveling it under tension to see if that does the job.

Thanks for your reply! Already tried that though... Also I know for a fact that the frets are perfectly level when the neck is not under tension. However they are NOT level when I put strings on the guitar! I’m not talking about relief created by string tension here. The neck actually becomes somewhat of a rollercoaster (of course highly exaggerated) when under tension. Hence my intention to level the frets again with the strings on.

Hi, I’ve been working on my guitars for many years and have performed many fret level jobs with great results (to be clear, not profesionally). However, I’ve recently come across a Strat that just won’t stop buzzing! Here’s the story: - This Strat had undergone a poor refret (by someone else) and was having terrible fret buzz from fret 14 and up. - The truss rod works fine and the setup overall was allright (factory action, not ridiculously low or anything). The neck is not warped in any way. - I removed the strings and straightened out the neck, then levelled, crowned and polished all the frets using my 24” levelling beam. - The frets are now perfectly level over the entire length of the neck... - And now it still buzzes terribly, but this time on the lower frets (1-6)! I’ve always levelled frets with the strings off, but when I tension this neck by putting strings on something weird seems to happen. When I straighten out the neck with the strings on, the frets show some relief around the 15th fret. So basically this neck behaves strangely with the strings on... I have therefore decided I will level the frets with the strings on. I purchased the Stewmac under string fretbar and will attempt to level them again. However, I’m not sure if I should do this with a straight neck or with some relief? This situation is quite new to me so I hope some of you can help me out. Maybe I should use a different approach altogether? Any other things I could check? Oh and yes, I’m sure it’s fret buzz (not something else buzzing). Thanks!