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Hi all, I have been trying to finish up my #2 (classical) for a few weeks now and am at wits end. I am wondering if any of you know a repair expert in the SE Idaho area who could help me with frets on a classical.

I have re-fretted 3 times now, planing down the fretboard, re-sawing slots, re-leveling frets.. anyway I just can't seem to eliminate quite a lot of buzz along the A and D string.

I figured it would be easier at this point just to pay an expert to do it for me, since I apparently suck at it.

Is it uneven frets or just action that is too low?
The A and D strings should have 3-3.5mm at the 12th fret minimum to avoid buzzing.

Yeah what is your string height at the 12th fret? Measure from the top of the fret to the bottom of the string. I go for 5/32nds on my personal classical guitars down to 3/32 on the treble side.

I am at about 3.2mm at the 6th string on the 12th fret, and 3mm at the 4th and 5th string at the 12th fret. Maybe a little too low? It was worse than that before, but as I said I have removed the frets twice already and planed down some. Think I need to do that again? It kills me to think that. Re-sawing those fret slots by hand while the fingerboard is attached is a nightmare.

Matt,

If you are willing to bring your guitar to Bozeman I will be happy to help you set it up. No charge.

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https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephen-Boone-guitar-builder/488208541257210

Very kind of you Stephen.. its a four hour drive, but might be worth it if I can't get this figured out! Stephen don't you teach some classes sometimes? Could have sworn that was you..

I am beginning to think that if I ever get decent at making these things, there is a rather large vacancy in my area that I could fill.

I put a 1-1.5mm shim under the bass side of the saddle and got it to where the buzz was livable. Meaning that I could only hear buzz when playing quite firmly, and only on a few frets. Not ideal, but I could live with it I think.

The problem is, right now the bridge + saddle height is already at 12mm, with the saddle being 3mm above the bridge. If I keep cranking it up higher that's bad for the front of my saddle of course, and might lead to it breaking.

But, if a saddle height of 4mm is acceptable, maybe I should just get a new saddle.

Thoughts?

thanks all.

where are the buzzes?
open string ? fret 3/5/7/12?
what is the action now LoE 12th Hie 12th with the shims
what strings are on there?

Well, the buzzes are only on 4th and 5th strings, starting at the 4th fret, on up until about the 10th.... however, a few things.

I am unsure why I reported the previous string heights at the 12th fret. Maybe the strings weren't tight at the time, but I tuned them up, and the action at 12 is actually right around 4mm on the 6th, maybe 3.8mm for the 5th string, and 3.5mm for the 4th string. So that's plenty high.

I went back to the top and starting putting in new frets, since the first fret in particular has been ground down way too much. I put a fret in at 1, 2, and 3, and the buzzing on the 2nd and 3rd fret went away..... so maybe I just need to start putting in new frets until it starts to get worse instead of better.

I don't understand it though, I put in all new frets earlier today and had the same buzzing noises. I even leveled with a nice straight fret leveler..... gah this is making me insane!


While we are on the subject, is there any benefit to using the 12% nickle vs. the 18% nickle fretwire for a classical?

4mm for the 6th is considered the standard action by most. 12mm string height is at the top end but not exaggerated. I wouldn't worry about the bridge health yet. You should also be aware that a slight buzz is going to pop out no matter ho high, if you really smack those strings but of course these things can't be properly evaluated over the internet. Go visit Stephen, you should be able to learn other things too....

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The other thing to look at is relief, if your slot and tang size are not well matched you might be throwing negative (humped or convex) relief into the neck when it should have positive (very slightly bowed or hollow) relief.

The correct way to measure action is to fret the string at the first fret then measure the height at the 12th fret. If you do not do it this way you will get a false reading.

For classical guitar action I use 1st=0.110"; 2nd=0.115-0.118"; 3rd=0.125"+; 4th= 0.130"; 5th=0.135"; 6th=0.140-0.155"
These specs work fine although they are a little lower than most.

You also might want to check for back buzzing. The best way to do that is to play a diminished chord on string 5-2 at 9th or 10 position as in the Villa-Lobos Etude 1 and work it on down to the first possition. If you have any back buzz this will always find it. If you have back buzz you can raise the nut or step the frets.

Matt,
David's values translate to roughly 3.75mm low E to 2.75 mm High E which I think is an excellent height to shoot for.
I am finding however that clients like it a little lower than that but as a rule of thumb he's right on the money.

Best!

Thanks for the advice all. Didn't know about that checking action while fretting the first fret, will keep that in mind. And I have the complete works of villa-lobos, ill look up that chord. Any idea what bar it is in?

I am starting to wonder if some of it is indeed back buzz, as replacing those first few frets seems to have fixed at least some of it.

Open-string-height-check is fine too, provided the nut is properly set up. The nut should be done first. To check for back-buzz, insert a thin veneer strip under the nut and see how it goes.

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Well it looks like I have pretty much gotten everything to a pretty good place finally! Adding new frets on 1 2 and 3 sure helped a lot. I do get some buzz on 4 and 5 around the 6-9 frets if I do a fairly firm rest stroke, but I don't think I would normally be doing that.

I am so happy!!!

I have been wrestling with this for over two weeks! Hopefully I have learned a lot from this. Now I can go back and fix all the little dings and other problems I made on the top while doing all this extra work.

I do have one more question if anyone can answer this.... what is going on if you pluck an open string and you get a bit of a metallic sound, almost a buzz I guess. Its kind of a weeeoooooo sound, tight at first then opens up. Could this be buzz on the first fret? I am getting that to a small degree on the 4th string, but at various pitches, I have heard it a few times on other strings over the last few weeks of working on this. Seems like I can amplify the problem by tightening the string to certain pitches.

Matt,

I've had customers complain about the most insane things when it comes to fret buzz, are you one of those?

Just kidding but seriously I can make any guitar have fret buzz if I play it just right or in some cases just choose to hear it. Back buzz will happen if the nut is not true or you have neck issues. Typically that's easy to fix. Low action fret buzz can be due to a variety of reasons but usually if you are getting buzz along a whole range of frets then it probably means you are too low at the saddle.

FWIW I make my classical set ups on the high side so that they can be adjusted in the future. 12mm is fine that will give you plenty of room years from now to adjust. I do my best to convince people that higher action on classical guitars will give you the best tone but it's hard to convince players who have a fast low action demanding style that the value of tone versus the number of notes you can play in a second is a compromise.



Yup and unless your nut is way way out of tune then the difference at the 12th fret is minimal. But, having said that, it's indeed true that to get it perfect, and I mean perfect, using a capo on the first is a good idea in theory. I don't, but...

This is something I need more experience with I guess. I have been playing for 7 years now but have only played 3 guitars up to now (one being my first build). I have never had access to lots and lots of classicals to play and see the differences, particularly regarding how they are built. If I ever get a chance to play lots of guitars, this fret buzz thing will be one thing I will be wanting to check.

Ive heard this statement many times .
Not meaning to be a ,but does everybody agree with this ?

Could it be that this is the modern purist tradition after those historic guitars that
had frets inlayed in the top instead of an extended f/b

.... I mean How much tone would you loose with low action and a high saddle ?
I havn't noticed it much on my ply top

sorry if its a bit off topic
Tomas

Hm, what exactly do you mean by that? Just that the ability to pluck harder without fret buzz gives more dynamic possibilities? Or are you referring to the tonal effect of string height above the soundboard? If the latter, then why not alter the neck angle slightly (or perhaps thicken the fingerboard, if the change in string pull direction is detrimental) to achieve the same height with lower action?

Wolf let me clarify, some players will tolerate a bit of buzz to get the lowest action possible. Buzz is a tone killer. When ever the string even barely touches the fret in front of it and creates even minor buzz it sucks the life right out of the note. Saddle height has nothing to do with it in this case. It's a trade off, personally I like, for example, the strong Segovia technique over the nimble Eliot Fisk sound but to each their own and I will build differently according to players styles. The point being, that sometimes even gifted players don't understand why they have buzz and the answer is simple, your action is too dang low

Yes exact.

Matt, buzzy fuzzy annoying little noises on the open strings are caused by the nut. Polish the slots some more, even the slighest roughness can induce this. Also make sure the slots are a bit wider than the strings. It seems to be trendy these days to make the match perfect, but truth is various brands and tensions have different diameters. Change them and you get strangled strings and imperfect contact at the bottom resulting in noises.

If the noises show up on fretted positions too, check the saddle for roughness or knife edges. Wear grooves can make noise too.

Also, don't get freaked out by distorted sound coming from 3rd and 4th frets D string. These come from the string, sort of an internal resonance. Alan posted an explanation in an older Delcamp thread. One possible fix is to twist the string some, or simply change the brand. For my guitars, high tension strings do this more often. Savarez strings are the worst, D'ad best. But the best fix is to press the string correctly right behind the fret not just in the middle of the space.

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