Official Luthiers Forum!

well, I've strung up my experimental 7 string Cedar/Bubinga archtop. The
sound is beautiful, warm and surprisingly loud for an instrument without
normal f-holes. I'm sure with f-holes the volume would be far greater.
However, that is not the dilema now. I strung it up with a set of Ernie Ball
7 string "Power Slinky" strings with the following gauges runing from low
to high: .058 .048 .038 .028 .018 .014 .011 all on a 25" scale.

The low A string (.058) buzzes when strummed or plucked as an open
string. the action has NOT been setup yet. My concern is when the action
is setup proper, I imagine this buzz will be worse.

I've read where using a heavier gauge string will help correct this. For
example, on Bob Benedetto's Manhattan-7 model, he uses a 0.70 low A
string on a 25" scale. Does anyone have any advice, experience or
suggestions to help.

BTW, the tailpiece hinge snapped under the tension, so I have to rebuild
the hinge assembly. It was a wooden hinge.

Thanks
Chip

Chip,

the first thing I was going to say was to try a higher tension A-string. Higher tension doesn't always mean higher gauge either, depending what the string is made of. That will surely have an effect. One way to test this (although be very careful), would be to tighten up your current A-string a bit and see if that corrects it. If it doesn't buzz under the higher tension, maybe replacing that a-string will be all you need to do.

Another thought--does it only buzz when played open? I had a similar problem once and it ended up being the groove I filed in the nut. I didn't have the exact size nut file so I fudged it--and then went out and bought the correct file to fix the problem.

Good luck!

John