My Jem and scarf joint-itis

[Paul Secondino]

Turns out that ther is a condition on guitars that have scarf joint connected headstocks.The joint becomes a weak point on the guitar after time and for lack of a better description,causes the headstock to not stay where it should.Even though there is constant tension pulling on it from the strings,the headstock and that small section of neck start to pull in the other direction.The result is buzzing on an open string or two.Perhaps some buzzing on the 1st or 2nd fret even though the whole rest of the guitar plays perfectly.

My tech explained all of this to me.He just looked at my BFP and said that the nut was fine.I was sure the nut was worn low but he said it wasn't.So the only way I can get rid of that little bit of buzzing is to make the action super high or level the frets in relation to the low clearance at the 1st fret.You guys have more insight into this syndrome and how you have dealt with it

[darren wilson]

I don't think this is unique to (or attributable to) scarf joints.

The truss rod on a guitar neck only dials in the desired amount of bow from about the third fret up. If your neck develops a slight backbow in the lower register, loosening the truss rod won't do anything but make your action really inconsistent from one end of the neck to another.

In some cases, you can compensate for it by doing a crown & polish on the frets, and a bit of tweaking of the nut height, if necessary. If it's really bad, you might have to yank the frets and have your fretboard planed to get it true again.

[Paul Secondino]

Right.the guitar has a decent fretboard as best as we can tell.BUt the frets need a leveling ot make the guitar totally perfect.I have it playing at about 90 to 95 percent so I am not dumping another $150.00 into it.You don't feel tha this is a scarf joint issue though.My tecdh feels that this is a commonly weak area in guitars with that design once they get old.Even though it could happen to any guitar I mean.

[jemsite]

the scarf here is really not a "problem". your tech sounds more competant in les pauls, or fixed bridge axes what you described is fixable by raising the nut, and leveling fret-1 & 2. I'm not sure how low of action you're expecting from a "superstrat" with floating trem, but another option is to clamp the neck near the nut to introduce proper relief (assuming the trussrod won't dial this in further). i don't see why you would need $150 fret leveling, exept that's the quick fix to make quick $$$ ....glen