Fret buzz: Truss rod Vs. Neck shims.

[gingataff]

I'm having a bit of buzzing at the moment. When I fret a string there is very little clearance on the next fret .
In terms of the action, there is just under 2mm at the 24th fret and that stays about the same until the 5th fret. When fretted at the 1st and 24th there's just under 1mm at the 7th-12th frets.

I had a fret dress to try and help but I'm not so sure that it hasn't made things worse, I have a feeling the guy who did it forgot that its a compund radius neck, does this make a difference? (unfortunately I've moved a long way from where I had it done so can't easily go back and get it checked).

I don't want to raise my action too high and I think there's enough bow in the neck so I'm wondering if shims under the neck are the answer, if so how thick should they be and do I put them under the body or nut end?

Andy

[Dakine]

In my limited experience fret buzz is usually best sorted by action first.
That being said, and if your neck has correct relief, then shims normally go between the neck and body.
Material is open to opinion but know some luthiers use a piece of copper/brass, this is normally a "shaving" type thickness. A thin sheet (meaning small square) may be available in a hobbyist store. I have also heard about matchbook covers and credit cards, but these compress over time. Another option would be buy a "feeler gauge" (for spark plugs) and cut a shim yourself.
Sorry could'nt be more specific/help.
Nick

[R/2e]

Shims can only affect the neck angle, so if the bridge is at its lowest point and the action too high, (or the action too low and the bridge at its highest) shims are the starting point. However a decent fret level and reprofile should have sorted out your problems, assuming the truss rod is properly set to give very small relief. However, every guitar is different and relief is a funny thing. I would try tightening the rod to give less relief and a slighly flatter board as it sounds as if the relief is too much. Do this very gradually and see if the situation improves. When it starts getting worse, you have reached the sweet spot, back off a little.

[Searcher]

What kinda guitar is it?  Do you notice buzzing everywhere or just in one area of the neck?

To eliminate buzzing I would go through these stages:  Can it be fixed by -

- adjusting the neck relief using the truss rod?
- raising the bridge?
- raising the nut?
- shimming the neck?

I used that order coz it goes from easiest to do to biggest pain (well, almost; removing the nut is probably the worst).

I wouldn't think a fret dress is necessary unless you have a lot of uneven wear or would rather have small frets and an extra-low action.  You can get a fairly low action and still retain big, chunky frets if everything else is cool.

[genocide98]

I'm having a bit of buzzing at the moment. When I fret a string there is very little clearance on the next fret .
In terms of the action, there is just under 2mm at the 24th fret and that stays about the same until the 5th fret. When fretted at the 1st and 24th there's just under 1mm at the 7th-12th frets.

I had a fret dress to try and help but I'm not so sure that it hasn't made things worse, I have a feeling the guy who did it forgot that its a compund radius neck, does this make a difference? (unfortunately I've moved a long way from where I had it done so can't easily go back and get it checked).

I don't want to raise my action too high and I think there's enough bow in the neck so I'm wondering if shims under the neck are the answer, if so how thick should they be and do I put them under the body or nut end?

Andy

Just to help out a few things-

To measure neck bow you want to fret the first fret and the fret where your neck meets the body, usually around the 17th fret. You measure I think at the middle point between the two. Why? because truss rods don't bend the whole neck, they usually just bow the top section of it.

Now nut shims are usually the last resort if you can't get buzz to go away with a proper setup.. You only should really need neck shims if you're getting buzzing at the first 5 or so frets. If you set it up properly.

Neck shims are if your action is too high and you need to raise your guitar's neck up or change its neck angle in order to alieveate buzz.

3/64th inch (2.5mm) is standard action. 1mm average action would be extremely low. This is probably why you're having so much trouble with fret buzz, because you simply can't play the guitar without hitting the strings.. thusly causing them to slap around on your fretboard... Unless you play very softly.

Shims UNDER the neck would lower your action, which would make even worse fret buzz. Shims under your nut would relieve fret buzz at the lower frets, but raise your overall action.

Basically the action you want is damn near unreasonable...You'd have to have one straight, perfect neck and a whole lot patience to get zero fret buzz at that height.

IF you really want to mess with it.. here is a site detailing the setup of an electric body guitar, including nut height, truss rod, action/bridge, and pickup height.

http://projectguitar.com/tut/nuthigh.htm

[hunter]

if you have 1mm between 7-12th fret when string is fretted on 1st and 20th, then your relief is definitely too big. It can indeed happen that too much relief causes buzz on middle/upper fret positions.

Usually I set the relief close to 0, just a little bit, rather low action on the nut but a bit higher on the bridge and thicker strings (10-46) as they "rotate" less.

Controlling right hand power is another method, but hard to achieve during those Townshend-moments   :roll:

[nadilicious]

I have fret buzz on the 5th fret only on the A string, any ideas or solutions as to what I need to do to fix it?  Other than that, every string, every fret, is perfect as far as I can tell...any help would be very appreciated

[Searcher]

If it's only in one place I would expect it to be a fret problem.  Might need to get 'em dressed--or at least to have the offending one(s) filed a bit.