Rohans ST-1

[Rohan]

Alright everyone, I have to admit I have been in an ounce of trouble and need some second opinions. Hopefully you can help!

Having cured the Wudtone, I bolted the neck in place and strung the guitar up. The first thing I did was look at setting a good neck relief by adjusting the truss rod. I used the technique where you a capo on the first fret, hold down the fret where the neck meets the body, and adjust the truss rod until there is a tiny gap (0.254mm) between the fret and the string. This seemed to straighten the neck out okay.

What I quickly found was that even with the saddles of the bridge raised to the absolute top for all positions the strings were way too low on the fretboard on the higher frets.

I became concerned that the neck was was not seated properly but I cleaned it all out and filed anything that looked suspicious but it all looked like it was seated as expected - nothing changed about the angle.

Days of research later, I tried putting a piece of business card as a shim at the headstock end of the neck slot. This wasn't enough to change the angle enough. After a while I ended up having three layers of business card as a shim. This achieved a couple of things to my eye - the strings seem to hold a better distance consistently off the fretboard all the way along and I was able to reduce the saddle heights down to about half way.

I have attached a picture below of a side view. The angle of the neck seems to be relatively extreme but I am not an expert in what the angle should be. I would love a second opinion. I am concerned that this is too much.

The strings are still a little bit high off the fretboard but once I am happy with the neck the next stage will be fret leveling with the Katana and then filing the nut/reducing the saddles down to where they need to be.

I keep thinking of the PGB videos where you guys say you rarely have problems with the necks. Has anyone experienced this amount of required correction before? Am I doing something completely wrong?

Cheers,
Rohan.

[WeirdBits]

That neck angle looks a bit funky, which suggests the problem lies elsewhere. Neck angle, neck relief, nut height and saddle height are all interrelated in set up, so you don't want an 'extreme' setting for any one element. Gav and DB will be your best source of info in this situation.

In the mean time, can you post some pics of the nut end of the neck and of the bridge, and maybe get some string height measurements (low and high E, top of fret to underside of string) at the 1st and 12th frets. Is the neck now straight or does it have some relief (use your Katana and its pyramids to check). Most importantly, how does it feel to play? Is there any fret buzz in a specific area, is the action too high or too low at different points on the neck?

It may be interesting to plug your guitar's measurements into this Neck Angle Calculator and see what it suggests (probably an angle close to 0).

[Rohan]

Yes, worryingly funky.

I took a few shots here. I totally realise that the strings are sitting a bit high but I want to only tweak those after levelling the frets.. which I want to do after getting the neck angle correct.

The Katana shot shows the small amount of relief currently set up.

It is possible taking a bit of the shim out might be required but I await some more thoughts first.

Cheers,
Rohan.

[Rohan]

Current bridge as well...

[WeirdBits]

To my eye... neck relief looks ok, saddles look a little low, 12th fret action is about 50% more than ideal, and 1st action is around double what it should be. Ideally, you'll want to get your string height/action close to what you want before you level your frets (that includes staggering the saddle heights to match the fretboard radius). Personally, I'd be trying again to get a more 'normal' action/string height with zero, or at most, one shim before using such an extreme neck angle. Remember that the saddles should follow the radius of the fretboard. StewMac's suggested heights when using their string action gauge are:

1st fret - Low E 0.6mm, High E 0.25mm
12th fret - Low E 2mm, High E 1.6m
Relief at 8th fret 0.025mm

With the extreme neck angle it's hard to tell from the photos if the nut is too high or if it is just the angle causing the high 1st fret action. I would take some shims out and try again, but you may want to wait for Gav or DB to provide an expert opinion.

[Rohan]

Thanks for your comments Scott.

It goes back to the original problem I had where I had

a) a different nut that was much closer to ideal (ie. lower)
b) all the saddles were height maxed out
c) no shim
d) same neck relief as now

I couldn't even get the saddles to look even close to the radius because there were all height maxed.

And at that point all the strings (especially the middle ones) were almost sitting on the end of the fretboard at the body end in normal position. Had fret buzz issues half way up the board.

This is why I put in shims because I had no adjustment left anywhere else - at least in my experience anyway.

[WeirdBits]

Rohan, have you made any progress? I don't recall anyone else having this type of issue with their ST kit, so we need to work out if it is an issue with the kit or the set up.

I just took some measurements on one of my ST-1 kits (untouched, no sanding/finishing) so you can compare (they'll be some variation between kits, but they should be close):
Neck pocket depth = 17.7mm (consistent across the pocket to the top of the body)
Neck in place, top of body to bottom of fretboard = 3mm (consistent around neck in body)
Top of body to peak of fretboard at end of neck = 9mm
Max fretboard thickness at each end = ~6mm (measured at top of radius)

If you can, check the depth of your neck pocket and your fretboard thickness... just to make sure the neck isn't sitting too high or that the fretboard is straight but angled to the neck itself. Have you tried the neck angle calculator I mentioned in my post above? It will allow you to check the specifc numbers for your kit and should show if something is fundamentally wrong.

If everything checks out, then I'd probably back off the truss rod a touch to add a little more relief then go back to one shim (at most) and see how close you can get the set up... if you still can't get it close then take some more pics so that we can get a better look at its geometry in a more 'normal' configuration. Just my thoughts.

Gav, DB suggestions?

[Rohan]

Hey Scott,

Actually I spent a bit of time on this today and I think I am in a bit of a better place.

I had this theory that perhaps I hadn't drilled deep enough into the neck so I took the neck off and made sure the holes were drilled deep enough. I also noticed that some of the neck screw drilling had roughed up the edges of the holes on the neck in between the neck and the pocket so I filed them back.

I also read somewhere that the shims should only be 12-20mm in length so I trimmed them back to 20mm as well.

After a couple of neck re-attachments where I tried 3, 2 and no shim at all, I ended up with 1 shim and it seems pretty good now. The bridge saddle heights are now a lot higher but are not hitting the max height. Hooray!

At this point I would say it was a combination of maybe all three of those issues that caused the bad angle - at least it is way better now.

Having set the saddle heights I was able to get to the point where I have started filing the nut down to correct heights and it is looking good so far. Crossing my fingers that leveling the frets shortly will go well too! Otherwise I will be pulling my guitar apart again and comparing numbers to yours!

Thanks so much for your comments and assistance, Scott. I knew building a guitar would be a challenging project but it would be impossible without people like you around!

The only thing that scares me now is that I have an SG with a set neck waiting for me next. And I won't be able to take the neck off to adjust then!

Cheers,
Rohan.

[wokkaboy]

well done Rohan, glad you tweaked the neck/bridge. A good tip DB gave me was drill the neck holes in the body slightly larger so the neck is pulling against the neck plate and not the body. A few burs in the holes could raise the neck 1-2mm which is critical.
With the SG set neck you have to do a dummy setup with low and high E, clamp the neck to the body and do similar checks string height, neck angle etc before you glue it, you must get this right BEFORE you glue it. The ST-1 kit setup should be good experience for you to tackle this - good luck !
Most the 5 or 6 ST kits I've built have needed a bit of tweaking but once setup correctly they play well