Universe Neck issue.

[Clayvai]

Good day fellows,
I have a little "neck bow, freting-out" issue. I have a UV777 bk of the 2001 vintage, great guitar all of these years, my main girl.

Just a bit more background I live in south Georgia, which means brutal hot to high twenties.
I noticed probably a couple of days ago that when I was playing scalular lines which went from the (high) B to the (high) E, my E string was badly out of tune.

Eventually last night I said alright it is intonation as attempted to correct by sighting the position since I don't have an intonation tool. Well after meddling with that for a while, when nothing was getting better I discovered that I was actually freting out ( from appr. 7 on up, and no fret looks particularly taller then any other).

When I came to this conclusion I set about to try truss rod adjustment, however when I got to the truss rod I realized that it was loose, i.e. not under tension. I then tightened the rod, ever so slightly to put it under tension, at the same time thinking, this is going the wrong way to correct my problem.

So my questions are as follows, 1. is this a neck curvature fix, 2. Was I indeed turning in truss rod the wrong way to fix my problem, 3. If the answer to question 2 is positive, what can I do?

Thanks,

Clay

[Clayvai]

Just a quick ps, my action is not that low.

[GilkyBear]

Clay, it sounds to me like you just need a fret leveling, crown, and polish. Especially if everything is good everywhere else except on the high E (assuming I read that right). With the wider fretboard there is more of a chance of just the edge (high E) of the fretboard in the upper register warping a little but not enough to affect the other strings. If it was really bad you would need a refret and a board leveling, but it doesn't sound like that is the case. A good fret level should take up the difference the warping is causing.

[Clayvai]

Gilky,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I will see if there are any repair people with experience, in my area, with fret leveling, etc. Thank you for your help,

Clay

[Lefty Robb]

Theres this awesome tool from Stewmac called a fret rocker to check for high frets, I would get that first to see if you really do need a level or new frets, most of the time things like this can be solved with a fresh setup from the ground up (follow Rich's setup), without having to spend the $150+ for fretwork.