Action questions.

[jerime]

So I've got some questions on the action of my guitar. First off it's a Cort Earth 200 Grand Concert and newly strung with Martin 10s. Here are some of the measurements I've done and so forth, all done strung to tension.

 

String height is about 1/8th of an inch at the 12 fret.

 

With a straight edge on the neck, height is about 1/16th (if that) above the bridge.

 

With the first fret fretted and also fretted on the 12th fret, string height on the 6th fret is about .009.

 

All measurements were done on the low E. I want fairly low action without much buzz. I have more than enough room to work with on the saddle, in fact there is a small shim in there now.

 

Right now it buzzes a little, mostly when I drop the low E to D. I am a fairly aggressive strummer. Here are the questions.

 

Should I be using heavier gauge stings? In other words would heavier gauge stings enable me to take the shim out to lower the action a little more and do away with some of the slight buzz in the process? I was planning on moving up to 11s maybe 12s.

 

Second question is should I just add a little relief to the neck?

[silmaneero]

Right now it buzzes a little, mostly when I drop the low E to D. I am a fairly aggressive strummer.

 

 

10s are pretty light for an acoustic guitar and dropping the low E to D will make this string even looser. Maybe this accounts for a small part of the buzz you're getting?

[Samilyn]

If you're a fairly aggressive strummer, 10s may be a tad light for you, especially with dropped tuning. I attribute the buzz to that combination. Does it buzz when you're tuned to concert?

 

My first impulse would be to consider mounting a slightly heavier string set and see how it behaves before messing too much with the action, the truss rod, or doing something irreversible, such as sanding down the saddle.

 

Naturally, I'll defer to our resident experts on that.

[jerime]

It buzzes slightly when in standard E tunning and that's when I'm strumming fairly hard.

[Samilyn]

It buzzes slightly when in standard E tunning and that's when I'm strumming fairly hard.

 

 

Something I should have mentioned this in my first post: The neck angle you describe disturbs me a bit. Ideally, the straightedge should just meet the top of the bridge. You say yours meets about 1/16 above the bridge. Sorry to say I don't know how to address issues concerning that particular neck angle.

 

It could be that your buzz problem is the result of a combination of things, each of which is minute in and of itself, but when combined, creates a problem. You may need to visit a good tech or luthier.

 

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

[DonK]

With that setup and appropriate gauge strings (more on the latter in a sec), you shouldn't have any significant buzzing. I follow Dan Erlewine's principle: steel strings and steel frets mean you'll probably hear some buzzing some of the time unless you play with really high action and flawless technique. Poor technique can contribute to buzzing: for example, fretting a string too far behind the fret. Certain chords that require a stretch can make this tough to avoid, but I see lots of people playing a sloppy open D chord where they finger the D well behind the fret, thus causing buzz.

 

8/64" string height at the 12th fret is on the high side. 009" of relief is reasonable. Like Samilyn, I think the neck angle indicated by your straight-edge being 1/16" above the bridge is worrisome: that's a LOT. Translating 1/16" to 64th's, you've got a gap of 4/64", roughly equal to the string height on a well-setup electric, to put it in perspective.

 

With all that said though, playing .010's on an acoustic is roughly like playing .008's on an electric - pretty much ultra light. If you strum aggressively, you're going to have some buzzing at times. Dropping the low E practically guarantees it. That's a fairly significant drop in tension on a relatively light string (.047 in a typical set of .010's for acoustic). Most bluegrass guys - some of the more aggressive players you'll find - play .013's, which constitute a stiff set compared to .010's.

 

I'd have the neck angle checked though. Going to heavier strings is only going to accelerate a problem with that, if there is one.

[Samilyn]

I'd have the neck angle checked though. Going to heavier strings is only going to accelerate a problem with that, if there is one.

 

 

Don, I'm thoroughly confused about the effect of extra string tension on a backwards-leaning neck. Can you help me straighten out my thinking here?

 

Seems to me that with that neck angle, the neck leaning "backwards" so to speak, more tension might bring it into a more acceptable line? If it were leaning forwards, then more tension would indeed bow it up even worse.

 

I do understand that more tension could possibly have adverse effects on the other structural components, such as the bridge, but where is the rest of my logic flawed?

[DonK]

 

Don, I'm thoroughly confused about the effect of extra string tension on a backwards-leaning neck. Can you help me straighten out my thinking here? Seems to me that with that neck angle, the neck leaning "backwards" so to speak, more tension might bring it into a more acceptable line? If it were leaning forwards, then more tension would indeed bow it up even worse. I do understand that more tension could possibly have adverse effects on the other structural components, such as the bridge, but where is the rest of my logic flawed?

 

 

I should have asked the length of the straight-edge he used. If it was a short ruler, such that it only rested on the fretboard above the 14th fret (presumably the body fret), then it suggests to me that the top is sinking a bit beneath the bridge or that the fretboard runout is too high. Neither is good. If it was a long straight-edge and it rested evenly on the frets along the length of the neck, then it suggests that the neck angle is simply bad.

 

String tension really isn't going to affect neck angle, it affects back bow, which is different. You might think about it this way. As you increase string tension, something has to give. The bridge could rise or belly, and usually does over time. Bridge bellying is what most often gives rise to the need for a neck reset. It's not always or even most of the time that the neck angle to the body that has changed (that would usually be easy to see, as the neck heel would pull away from the body): it's the neck angle to the bridge that changes, because the bridge has risen due to the prolonged pull of the strings.

 

If he truly had a neck that was angled back too steeply as a result of a bad neck attachment at the body, then the only way increased string tension could change that would be by pulling the neck heel away from the body (remember that the fingerboard extension above the body is pretty rigid since it's usually - though not always - glued to the top). That would be immediately noticeable. What would be much more likely would be that as he incremented the string tension, the neck would bow between the first and body frets - i.e., the additional string tension would induce added relief, which could be then countered by adjusting the truss rod if necessary - or the bridge would rise.

 

String tension does affect back bow, but that's measured from the nut to the body fret (which is usually all that's affected by the truss rod; in fact, the more you move away from the 7th fret in either direction, the less the effect of the truss rod in eliminating buzzing). Since he's got .009" of relief at the 6th fret, the neck isn't back-bowing: there'd be no relief if it was. Rather, a string depressed at the first and body frets would touch the 6th fret (I would have measured relief at the 7th fret though).

 

That said, I'd try testing the guitar by playing a note at each fret going from the nut to the end of the fretboard, one string at a time to see if I could identify the source of the buzzing. He could have a high fret, a loose fret...there are a lot of possibilities.

[Samilyn]

Thanks for that excellent explanation, Don. Clears up a lot of things for me.

 

I often get a bad case of "right track, wrong train."

[jerime]

OK, so I kinda eye balled the measurement from the bridge to straightedge, and of course I was off. Measuring with a straightedge from about the 3rd fret to the bridge it is about .020 above the bridge.

 

Just to clear things up we are talking from straightedge to bridge and nothing to do with the saddle right? I'm going by Freeman's "is my guitar sick" and I couldn't quite tell from the picture if the measurement had anything to do with the saddle, but I assumed it didn't.

 

I removed the shim and it dropped the action to just a little below an 1/8th. The action is about the same as my Masterbilt now, which doesn't have any buzz unless I'm really getting on it. The Masterbilt has heavier stings on it though. It still actually has the factory strings on it so they are either 12s or 13s I can't remember right now which they were.

 

Am I just being paranoid about this? If I played finger style or something there wouldn't be any buzzing on the guitar.

 

Thanks for the excellent words of wisdom Donk, and everyone else that has chipped in or will.

[jerime]

I just got my Masterbilt out an was doing some comparison and now it has a little buzz. Could humidity be some of my problem? I'm sure I don't humidify the guitars like I should and the temperature has dropped quite a bit in the last week or so.

[Samilyn]

Your assumption is correct - straightedge from the neck to the top of the bridge, not the saddle. The subsequent measurement you gave us is more within reason and would not cause me much concern unless I were striving for absolute perfection. Not something I do. If the git is playing well and sounds good, ever-so-slight variances are okay with me. Others will undoubtedly differ from me.

I might be off base here, but I don't think humidity really affects buzz one way or another unless the fretboard becomes exceedingly dry and cracked. In that extreme case, I can envision fret wires being affected. Temp obviously plays a role, too. When warm, things expand; when cold, they contract.

Just how much relatively minor temp fluctuations affect a git, I can't say, especially if it's allowed to acclimate slowly in its case. Obviously, none of us wants to subject our gits to extreme, rapid temp changes. That could indeed wreak havoc.

Humidity or lack thereof does affect tone, though, and the overall "health" of the wood. If the wood gets too dry, it's eventually going to crack. If the humidity is high, the git sounds like it's stuffed full of socks and the strings sound kind of dead because sound waves don't travel well in saturated air.

As to the buzz, what Don said. Steel frets + steel strings = buzz now and then. I can easily induce induce buzz on my Martin and sometimes lots of it by either strumming or flat-picking aggressively, though the Martie is normally a very well-behaved 12-er. The ultra-light strings (.010) I use also contribute to this.

Once your gits are set up as well as they can be, start looking at your technique and where you place your fingers when playing chords. You may simply have to play/fret your acoustics a bit differently than an electric, though your muscle memory tries to dictate otherwise.

Also, check out the "angle of attack" if you're using a flat pick. How the pick meets the string can make it vibrate more up-and-down, as opposed from side-to-side.

Again, just my non-expert .02 here. Best of luck.

[Markuster]

Wood expands and contracts with changes in humidity. If you don't have a stable RH and you're making adjustments, you're chasing a moving target. Freeman says at the top of the "Sick" thread (webpage?)

"Make sure your guitar is properly humidified before you start any of this. You