Truss Rod Woes!!

[Smitty]

You may have seen my recent thread about my Schecter's truss rod. But I'll tell the story again:
I have a Custom Shop Schecter that I bought in January. The lower frets were buzzing, and it got to the point where my first fret was literally making zero noise. So I went and got it professionally set up. It was great.
Now, about a month after the set up, my lower frets have started to buzz again. I believe this could be attributed to temperature change; the season changed pretty rapidly. But this doesn't make complete sense because I haven't taken my guitar outside, like, at all. If it's been outside, it's been in its SKB case. I doubt that problems would arise there.
So my lower frets are buzzing again. Today, I made a slight adjustment--I made an approximately 1/8 turn counter-clockwise. No, my truss rod didn't break or anything. But I made the problem worse.
I am severely confused. I understand that little to no neck relief=buzzing on lower frets, right? The headstock is coming towards the strings--a frontward bow? Yes. That is what I understand the case to be. The remedy, I'm told, is to adjust the truss rod counterclockwise, which I did, and hey! My strings are buzzing even worse, and the problem is afflicting frets as high as the 11th and 12th frets; before, it only went up to about the 8th.
Now, I'm really confused. When I look at the neck, I see a sort of backward bend, and now I'm thinking that either that's the way it's been or, I'm seeing things because the neck has a backwards neck arch like a Les Paul (it is a set-neck mahogany neck, by the way).
I would post pics, but my parents have my digi cam for their sailing adventure in Florida.
I am 100% sure that my truss rod isn't one of those "backwards" ones, where tightening it does the opposite of what you expect. I've heard of that. But my guitar tech did a superb set up, and he didn't tell me anything like that, and he probably would have snapped the neck or something if it were backwards.
SO! I think I'll just blow $50 and have the guitar tech redo the setup.
Final question though...will the new setup "hold," or will I have to get it done again?
Smitty

[shrediqette]

Smitty, I am by no means a pro in terms of truss rod adjustment. I fact I just recetly started setting up all my guitars myself and thus far is has worked out pretty well. My advice to you is that in order to do any truss rod tinkering you'll need to buy a feeler gauge. It costs like $5 at the hardware store. It is so useful when making truss adjustments because you really can't measure the changes you're making by eye. It should help you out and definitively show you what effect your adjustments will have on your neck, string height, bow/relief etc.

I hope this helps.

[Jaden]

are you saying that the headstock moved away from the pickups ?
thats the wrong way for normal CCW adjustment.
like I said in the other thread, you wont break your guitar by adjusting the rod, give it a tweak in the other direction + making up the adjustment you already made.

[Smitty]

I decided I'm just gonna send it to the tech. I loosened it a bit, and that helped a little, but I really don't feel comfortable with it. She's goin to the tech about Monday.
Smitty

[jb4674]

Smitty, How low did you set the action on that guitar? A lot of guitars are prone to buzzing when the action is fairly low.

Investing in a truss rod tool to help you see the bow is imperative of you're going to venture into setting up your own guitars. This would be a good investment for you:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Sp...Setup_Kit.html

Jimmy

[Smitty]

I've got a tool.

I talked to my tech earlier today. When he set it up, the action was pretty damn low, and I think I may have him set it up with 11's and/or slightly higher action (I just can't "grip" it, if you get what I mean.)
He said that the sudden rise in temperatures and humidity could have caused a small fluctuation in the guitar's stability--probably meaning truss rod--and that caused the buzz. That makes sense.
I'm going to adjust the action a little bit, because I slightly fixed the buzz. The neck is a bit straighter now, so risen action might just cure it.
Smitty

[DarthLamer]

Originally Posted by jb4674

Smitty,
Investing in a truss rod tool to help you see the bow is imperative of you're going to venture into setting up your own guitars. This would be a good investment for you:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Sp...Setup_Kit.html

Jimmy

Still more ill advice. You don't require *any* additional purchase to setup your own guitar. Recommending that someone pay $83+ when they can just utilize their low E' string is insane. Into the box with the rest of the pseudo-intellectuals you go.

[jb4674]

Originally Posted by DarthLamer

Still more ill advice. You don't require *any* additional purchase to setup your own guitar. Recommending that someone pay $83+ when they can just utilize their low E' string is insane. Into the box with the rest of the pseudo-intellectuals you go.

I'd like to read your explanation as to how a low E string can be used to properly measure the straightness of a guitar neck.

Do you ever post something useful in this forum or is it just the pink emanating from you that makes you post such genius comments?????



Jimmy

[nlinny]

To check neck straightness and relief using the E (or any other string), all you need to do is fret/capo the first fret, fret the last fret and check the gap between the top of the 8th or 9th fret and the bottom of the string. There are slight variations to this method, but this is about as basic as it gets. Obviously with no gap, the neck would be dead straight. No need to blow 83+ bucks...