Neck shim ups and downs on a RG2620 Prestige

[rgChris]

About a month ago, a shop marred my RG2570 during a PU install that involved routing. They stuck their neck out and gave me a brand new RG2620... 2006 Model but mint.

I'm going to have to agree with what Rich implies on his website about Ibanez's consistency. Two different guitars can come in very different levels of setup from the factory.

On my RG2570 the way the neck angle and bridge worked resulted in the bridge out of the body enough to see about 1/2 of the knife edge where it mounts in the trem (EP). It was set up with fairly low action from the factory, I was content with it but not that impressed. I was newer to Ibanez at the time, had an experienced tech set it up, and it was fantastic. One of the things he did was remove 2 shims from the nut.

One of the things I noticed on my RG2620 right away was the trem is really sunk into the body low. Despite being way lower, the action was about the same. Additionally the neck angle resulted in a fairly nasty slope in the action from one end of the neck to the other. What I mean by this is, action 1-8 would be a lot lower that 12-24. Also the nut was set at a pretty much perfect level out of the box on this one (rare I guess).

I was unhappy with action being low down low, and high up high, and having done a lot more work with guitars lately, felt confident in taking the neck off and shimming it. I used a piece of a playing card about the thickness of a business card. I achieved the desired effect. Upon retuning, the bridge had to come up about 1 turn on the treble side and 1/4 turn on the bass side. The action is now way more consistent across the board, little to no buzz given my picking style. Victory...right?

I'm not a huge tremolo user, but I certainly use it regularly, every time I play. 99% of the time it's for dives. In the shimming guide on IbanezRules, it mentions you pretty much need a shim to get a certain amount of pull up range. I figured hey lets test this concept. When I pulled up, the strings fret out and choke on the 24th. I would say this occurs before I get even 1/4 of a step up in pitch. To kill the obvious answer, my trem angle is perfect. On the EP the strings do move downwards on a pullup.

So, anyone have any ideas what occurred here?

[ryanb]

How low is your action at the 24th?

[rgChris]

I don't have a ruler or anything around...but, I can't fit an ultex Jazz III in between the string and the fret without the string moving up. Nor can I do that with a canadian dime.

[brothersnowgone]

Your action is just too low. I've had the same problem before, you just need to adjust to slightly higher action, or accept the pit falls of such low action.

My action is just enough for the low E to drop a jazz 3 if you put it under the strings as you adjust the height, and the just enough to hold onto a jazz 3 with the high e. If you try out this setup it should make it so it starts to fret out at the limit of the bridges pull-up action.

Most guitarists want thier action too low anyway. Mostly because of lazy players who refuse to adjust to playing on moderate action because the affects it has on thier playing. I don't mean you of course, just an observation I've made about some guitarists. And some people really do need low low action for thier playing style.

I'm just saying give slightly higher action a shot, and it might grow on you. Plus bends become easier this way, and you will probably get a lot more sustain

[rgChris]

Haha I had a feeling that might have been the case! I actually played a highway 1 strat at the guitar store today with a rediculous amount of relief and high action and really enjoyed it. I'll admit I was sort of playing how low can you go. I'll bring it back up a bit. The real goal of the shim was more consistent action up the board anyway, which I've attained.

I'm going to set it up now using the Jazz 3 as a guideline like you mentioned, I'll probably love it.

Thanks for your input.


Edit***Raised it to your description. Plays great! Thanks!

[Foulacy]

I was about to say, you only raised it 1/4 turn after adding a shim? probably 2 turns would be about right.