Official Luthiers Forum!

I’m writing this post to inform you of a salutation that happened to me in the hopes that others can avoid it.

I had just strung up a guitar I’d been building and was eager to hear how it sounded. In the process I discovered a very loud buzzing sound, almost like metal on metal coming from the 2nd string. This only occurred when the guitar was tuned to pitch on all strings. The first place I looked was the nut. It was still incomplete and only had starter grooves. I made the necessary adjustments but the buzz was still there. I even put in another temporary nut but there was no change.

The neck angle was good but the action seemed a bit low so I removed the saddle and placed a temporary wood shim in the bridge slot. No luck, the buzz was still there. I even checked over the bracing to make sure that everything was ok and that nothing had come unglued or cracked. Everything was fine. I checked the frets and they looked level but the neck was sitting around for a few months so perhaps things shifted a bit.

I decided to refret the neck. But even after all of that the buzz was still present. The guitar was scheduled for delivery in two weeks and I was beginning to think that wasn’t going to be possible. I carefully checked all the points where the neck mated to the body thinking that perhaps that could be the cause, but again everything looked fine.

I tapped the neck and I heard a rattle. The truss rod had a bit of play when at the neutral position, so it seemed that might be the cause but that meant removing the fingerboard on a completed neck. I really couldn’t think of anything else that could cause the buzz so I proceeded to remove the fingerboard.

With the fingerboard off (without damage thankfully) I placed a bead of silicon caulking in the trench and glued a maple veneer strip on top. I’m using the LMI truss rod and have never done these extra steps in the past and have never had any problems with rattles or buzzes. I reglued the fingerboard and let it dry overnight. The next day I reattached the neck (thank goodness it’s a bolt on!) and to my utter shock the buzz was still there. At this point I was really at a loss as to what could be causing the problem. Now I have a neck that I need to refret for a third time and also one I need to refinish. In retrospect, I would not have delivered this guitar with any rattles in the neck, even if they were not causing an audible problem I sure would have been happy if the buzz was corrected as well.

I removed the end pin jack and the bolts holding on the fingerboard extension thinking that maybe they were causing the buzz. I even swapped out the tuning machines. No luck. As a last ditch effort I decided to replace the bone saddle I made with a prebuilt one (the one with the compensated 2nd string). The buzz was gone! I put back my saddle back and the buzz came back. I made a new saddle exactly like the previous one and the buzz was remained gone. A close inspection of the saddle revealed a visible, but subtle defect in the bone, perhaps a hairline fracture that caused this entire problem.
So, shimming the original saddle was not enough to correct the problem but fooled me into thinking I had eliminated the saddle as the cause.

When I’m 95 years old I will still remember (vividly) this guitar and its buzzing saddle.

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Ric Hollander
Kings Park, NY
http://www.hollanderguitars.com

Yikes . Thats rough. Glad you eventually got it sorted out.

Makes me all the more glad I use tusq.

Thanks for posting this Ric! Gonna add it to my list of things to check regarding a buzz around the saddle end.
Glad ya got it all worked out!

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

I'm with you ed on the tusq saddles and nuts. I did a bone nut not to long ago on my mandolin and after I tuned to pitch a large chunk chipped right off. I like the quality of the tusq material.

Never the less,bone sounds better.

Have you ever used the tusq saddles and nuts. They sound equal if not better then bone in my opinion.

Yes. I use only bone or ivory on my guitars. Bone is a bit harder.

I am too inexperienced to make a judgment between the two but it seems a lot of people believe it to be just as good. If one thing is certain it is a more consistent material.

Thanks for this. I can now say I learned something today.
Chuck

[/quote]Have you ever used the tusq saddles and nuts. They sound equal if not better then bone in my opinion.[/code]

I have guitars with both bone and Tusq and I find no difference in the sound, though bone is harder. I use the string saver Tusq nuts and saddles as I do a lot of alternate tunings when I play, and the string breakage is reduced and there is less string hang up in the nut when lowering the tuning. I also think that the black looks good when buffed. My 4th guitar started out with bone and now has Tusq and I hear no difference.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

THAT

WAS

EPIC!!



Thanks for the tip

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The member formerly known as erikbojerik....

I did a saddle extension on a guitar because the slot was out of position. (Not my guitar, odd job) When there's a crack it can throw up quite a racket. A drop of CA took care of it!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Wow

I would have never considered to check for a small defect like that in the saddle ...but obviously one should.

Thanks for the tip!

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Jake

~Make a joyful noise unto the Lord~

I come across bizarre stuff like that doing repairs some times and I know how frustrating it can be. But just a couple of points to make. Things like lose truss rods, broken braces, lose tuners ect.. tend to only buzz on a certain frequency. It wouldn't be the nut if it still occurs when fretting so it would have to be forward of that, the frets, the fretboard, binding hmmm maybe the saddle?

Though that is bizarre I never heard of such a thing as a bad saddle causing buzz. It's enough to drive you mad

I had a guitar like that one time, couldn't for the life of me figure out where the buzz was coming from.....it turned out be the upper contact edge of the saddle, literally 10 easy swipes with sandpaper and all was well.

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Gwaltney Guitars