It was recommended that I put this to the collective wisdom of the forum: I've just finished a TL1 build, and we've been struggling with fret buzz higher than the 12th fret, at a number of frets.
So far, we've (myself and a local luthier):
- Re-seated all the frets. There were a few sitting high, but these have come down okay
- "planed" the frets off to make sure its all level with a large fretboard sanding block
- Checked all the individual frets in relations to adjacent frets and tidied up that as well
- Adjusted the truss rod, matched the bridge to the radius, set the action
- Checked intonation
After all that, we've picked up solid string buzz at a number of frets, as I mentioned. This is with a string action that's quite reasonable and not as low as I'd like.
So we've checked all the individual frets once again, and after sorting out some of these issues, other frets have arisen as problematic.
At this point, I'm a bit frustrated with it, so I've taken the neck off. Looking at the back of it now (from the heel), there looks to be a pretty prominent twist - left rear dropped down.
Any thoughts on this guys? Can't post photos up right now, but will if needed!
Cheers!
Hey Solo....you mentioned you have had a local luthier check it out for you. Not sure how he missed a twisted neck because that seems to me to be exactly what you have here. The sanding block will have sanded with the twist. Can you get the Luthier to grab a straight edge and run the straight edge along the edge (top and bottom) of the fretboard. This will expose the twisted neck if this is the case. A neck can twist like this if exposed to heat.
Yeah both of were working on it, and by the end (we probably proceeded too far assuming the best, think it was "pretty close" before checking it) it was pretty obvious. It hasn't seen any heat (unless it did in transport), so it looks like it might just be a dud one.
So, I sat the headstock on the flat of the table, and left the heel resting loose. It’s as good as I can do unfortunately.
I’ve included some reference dimensions and angles in the photos below. If they need some more explanation, I can post some more explanation. The table is sitting pretty much level, and I checked its consistency with the spirit level too. I tried to get as many reference points as I could to show that.
Last Fret, Low E string, height 24mm
Last Fret, Low E string, height 26mm
First Fret, Low E string, height 26mm – a touch under, maybe 25.8mm
First Fret, Low E string, height 26mm – a touch under, maybe 25.9mm
I think the last fret, low e string height is the most telling, being 2mm lower than the high side.
Placing the straight edge over the frets showed nothing really other than the normal tiny bit of back bow that you would expect, which was consistent from the high side to the low side, but given those dimensions, the twist is pretty consistent over the neck length.
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Gavmeister
