Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi, all!

I bought a Tele copy a while back for cheap because the neck was a little weird and I'm now, finally, trying to figure this out. It has fret buzz in the middle of the neck, which strikes me as odd:

[*]Low E has buzz on the 9/10/11 frets
[*]A has buzz on 3/5/9/11
[*]D has buzz on 5/9/10/11
[*]G has buzz on 5/9/10
[*]no buzz on B or high E

So, generally speaking, the 5th fret is a problem and the 9 to 11 area is a problem.
Any recommendations on how to approach this would be much appreciated!

Are you adjusting the truss rod and sighting down the neck? No offense intended but I don't know you yet so do you know how to adjust the truss rod?

Let me know I'm happy to help.

Welcome to the forum too, Teles are awesome!

PS: Where generally speaking are you located (climate concerns) and where did the guitar come from (also climate concerns). With nearly zero information it sounds like the neck is in slight back bow that could have happened from drying out. When you run your fingers on the fret ends do they feel like they are slightly sticking out and sharp?

Hesh:

No offense taken at all, of course!

Just quick background: playing experience: I'd say I'm past amateur but not good enough to free-form solo.

As for working on guitars (the point of this space): I started seriously tinkering with guitars a year or two ago - I've stripped bodies, refinished them w/ nitro, I can mount and wire pickups/electronics, shim a neck and mount a bridge. Haven't gotten so far as to building, from scratch, my own guitar (yet) and neck work is a bit of a black hole to me (apart from sanding the backs of them and refinishing w/ shellac).

Yes, I've sighted down the neck, as well as used a notched straightedge and it appears to be in good shape (with the caveat that I don't have a lot of experience w/ fretboard work, so it's tough to tell if I'm missing something!). I was figuring that the first place to start would be neck relief to get a more concave bow - I'm guessing that's where you're heading here?

Glad to be here and looking forward to learning new things!

Thanks Chris that tells me what I needed to know.

Try this for me please. With the strings on and tension on the neck and the guitar tuned to pitch (standard pitch not drop tunings) please sight down the left edge/treble side of the neck and tell me what you see. Follow the edge where the frets end/begin and do you see. You are at the headstock lifting it up to sight from the headstock down the left/treble edge of the neck all the way to the body and until the frets end.

1). Slight, or very slight forward bow in the neck.
2). Slight or very slight back bow in the neck
3). a lot of bow forward or back in the neck.
4). Dead straight.

Repeat on the bass/right side (for a right handed player) of the neck and tell us what you see in terms of the four choices above.

Where I am going with this is I want to adjust the relief correctly and then see if the fret noise goes away. I suspect that it will.

Let me know please?

I'll walk you though proper adjustments when I know where it's at right now.

Thanks.

So, interesting... trying my best to see anything other than straight, it looks like, on both sides of the neck, that it's straight from the nut to about the 12th fret. At that point there's a very slight upward bump and then straight the rest of the way up the neck.

Seems to me like the logical first step would be to adjust the tension to create a bit more of a concave curve under the strings...?

Yep you're right Chris or as we say in the trade add relief. Relief is a slight and gentle amount of forward bow. Between the nut and the 12th fret you want to see a very slight amount of that forward bow which I will refer to as relief from now on.

So adjust the truss rod with strings on the guitar and tuned to standard pitch turning the truss rod counter clockwise no more than 1/8th of a turn and then see if you can see any relief on either side of the neck. You want to eliminate the straightness or back bow on both sides but just barely so.

Also what kind of Tele is this and where is the truss rod adjuster on the head stock or at the heel of the neck in the body?

Thanks

Chris also check out the thread here currently active called "Fall Away" you will see more detailed descriptions of relief there.