Official Luthiers Forum!

First post here...Hi!

I find the most difficult thing when building a guitar is getting all the elements aligned in a way that yeilds the lowest string height with virtually no buzz. Ive yet to build a guitar with a sixteenth of an inch height at the 12th fret (low E)...but I know its possible.

Its quite mysterious and I spend a lot of time comtemplating its arcane secrets.

Recently I was at a bookstore going through one of Erlewine's books, and he mentions briefly that some of the great classical builders like Ramirez and Hauser used a method of removing some wood from the neck on the bass side, in an incline - running downhill from the nut to the end of the fretboard???

Can anyone flesh out the reasoning and technique behind this method? Anyone tried any other ways of neck alternation to optimize their setup?

Thanks so much, -John.

Welcome to the OLF, John! I will let the experts offer their secrets as I have none other than a little relief in the neck.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

John,
Welcome to the OLF. The technique of sloping or tapering the fretboard on the bass side is a common practice among classical builders. The low E string has so much movement due to it's low tension that this almost becomes a necessity to keep it from banging around on the frets. If you didn't do this then you would have to have a higher saddle on that side.

1/16" under the 12th fret is probably unatainable without serious buzzing. It is considerably lower than I would want my action to be on any string. Good luck though.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

A common way of dealing with the bass string buzz problem is lowering the bass side of the fretboard between circa 12th fret and soundhole. This is what I do.

As already posted above, the action you are considering is very low for a classical.

[QUOTE=SteveCourtright] Welcome to the OLF, John! I will let the experts offer their secrets as I have none other than a little relief in the neck.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the welcome guys!

My theory at the moment is that the 'wrong' kind of relief can be the biggest problem.

If you consider an imaginary straight line across the top of the frets, absolutely parallel with the top of the body, its easy to see how a slight dip in the center of that line around the middle of the fretboard would cause buzzing on those central frets.

Erlewine suggests that relief should be ONLY be revealed closer to the nut along the first few frets...with the middle section perfectly flat.

Comments?

We're talking different animals here. Erlewine is probably talking about electrics, or steel string acoustics set up for very low action. In contrast, action on classical guitars is high - 3 - 3.5mm on high E at 12th, 4 mm on low E. That plus the arc of the fundamental mode shape and the large amplitude of the low E vibration means you want the bass relief to be more parallel to the string around the 12th fret (as opposed to falling away from it linearly), so you take extra material off from the 6th or 7th fret area and higher. It's subtle, but is felt to make a significant difference.

One of my favorite John Renbourn stories has to do with how low the action on his guitars is. Apparently, his setup guy can't play the guitar after he gets it to where John wants it - it just degenerates into a buzzing mess.
(This would be an OM style guitar with extra light strings)

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

I had a guy come around to trim back some trees on my property recently. When he saw my workshop he asked me to have a look at his Maton steel string and check some buzzes he was getting. First thing I got him to do was sit down and play the guitar while I watched. The thing buzzed occasionally but he was playing the thing really hard. I checked the relief and action and both were fine. No frets sitting high and saddle sitting firm and free of notches. I asked the guy to try playing a little less aggressively.....he did and there wasn't one buzz.

[QUOTE=kiwigeo] I had a guy come around to trim back some trees on my property recently. When he saw my workshop he asked me to have a look at his Maton steel string and check some buzzes he was getting. First thing I got him to do was sit down and play the guitar while I watched. The thing buzzed occasionally but he was playing the thing really hard. I checked the relief and action and both were fine. No frets sitting high and saddle sitting firm and free of notches. I asked the guy to try playing a little less aggressively.....he did and there wasn't one buzz.[/QUOTE]
Interesting, maybe he was also adamant about not raising his bridge, and wanted both - low action and aggressive playing.

I am with John .. show me a guitar with a perfect setup and 1/16 action on the low E and I guarantee you can only play it with a feather touch or it will buzz - moderate playing and it will buzz profusely. Steel string acoustics need at least 5-5.5 64ths to allow moderate attack.

And unless you are custom designing a truss rod to give you specific relief in a specific sopt, you will almost alwasy get the major relief point to be a the 6/7 fret.

Seeing as most classics dont have truss rods, you are at the mercy of the wood, as it relaxes over time to give you relief. your ability to control it is pretty much non existant.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

[QUOTE=TonyKarol]
Seeing as most classics dont have truss rods, you are at the mercy of the wood, as it relaxes over time to give you relief. your ability to control it is pretty much non existant.[/QUOTE]
Well the steel sting Im almost finished is an experiment.
It has a non-adjustible steel rod similiar to the T-bar rods used by Martin from 1930s-1967. They apparently used to use ordinary carbon steel snow sled rails???

I wonder though if these metal rods would eventually take on a 'set' and retain their bent shape after a few decades. Maybe it would be better to used 'spring' steel or carbon fiber.

On my next project however, Im definitely going to try planeing down the neck ever so slighty - running downhill from the nut to the heel.

Unfortuneatly, you have to make a whole guitar to experiment with just one element, most of the time.

I dont see the point in planing it downhill from the nut towards the bridge ?? Is the fretboard still going to be flat ??? If so, then there is no difference between it and any of mine, which I try to get flat in a given plane to ge the lowest action.

The main issue against using a non adjustable bar is that when they do need to be adjusted to fix the relief (after a few years whne the neck does settle in), you have to refret it with wider tanged wire whether it needs a refret or not. This is also a bit of hit and miss as most repairers would try one wire size, see what that does to the neck and evaluate whether or not that wire will work - if not, they pull it out and try again ... just put a real truss rod in and be done with it.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

[QUOTE=TonyKarol] I dont see the point in planing it downhill from the nut towards the bridge?? Is the fretboard still going to be flat???
[/QUOTE]Yes, Im not going to monkey with the fretboard, only the neck will be slightly tapered. Im also going to try using a stronger steel bar so the neck wont flex at all.

It may not work...we'll see. I have to get this experimental phase out of my system.

Thanks again for everyones commentary! -John.