Low action: Set-necks have a big disadvantage

[Dave]

Edited

I missed a few of the posts above last night while I was sleeping.

 

The way I got 1/32 action on the two guitars was because I set the relief to zero. I found out that as soon as I gave it some relief (ie. nut moving up from the fretboard)' date=' the action became higher and I could not lower it by lowering the bridge without getting buzz. [b']I did not experiment with negative relief, mostly because I don't understand how it works. [/b]Anyhow, on the the Les Paul, setting the relief to zero gave the lowest possible action also, which was 2/32, or 1/16 for Generation Zero, lol.

 

I think maybe you temporarily backbowed the neck a little by loosening the strings and placing weight on it. Over time, it regained its natural curvature.

 

Most people like a neck adjusted so that the fret relief is 0 or just a few thousandths. If all the frets are dressed to the same height, the lowest action can be achieved with minimal neck relief. Not all guitars can live with a neck adjusted that way, usually due to the heavy playing styles of their owners, so the factory usually adjusts the truss rod to a happy medium, typically .015 or more.

 

Negative relief on a guitar doesn't work. If you look closely at the strings on a properly adjusted guitar with a "flat" neck, you'll notice that as you approach the bridge the clearance between the strings and the frets increases. There's more clearance at the 12th fret than there is at the 1st. That is caused by the angle of the neck where it is set into the body of the guitar and the height of the bridge. If you fret the 17th fret with your right thumb and the 1st fret with a finger on the left hand, and then press at the 8th fret with your right hand pointer finger, there will be a small amount of clearance on most guitars. This is called "neck relief". That is caused by engineered bow in the neck and is normal. Tightening the truss rod flattens the neck and loosening the truss rod allows the neck to relax to its normal, designed amount of bow. To achieve negative neck bow, you run the risk of over-tightening the truss rod to the point of stripping it or twisting it off. I've heard of fingerboards popping up, also. Don't overtighten it.

 

If the relief is negative, we call it "backbow". A backbowed neck will buzz if it plays at all because the strings will fret out and contact the fingerboard somewhere between the nut and the end of the fingerboard. So, you want some relief to prevent buzzing as the string oscillates and a proper angle to ensure that as you fret down the neck, there is some clearance between the string and the next few frets. A good check of neck setup is to fret each fret with one hand and press down on the next fret with with a finger. As you fret up the neck toward the bridge, there should be a small amount of clearance on the next fret past the one you are fretting. if you find one that has no clearance, you've found a high fret and the fret before it will buzz when fretted and played.

 

It sounds like your guitar would benefit from a fret dressing and setup by a luthier. 3/64 to 4/64 at the 12th fret is good action to most of us. Anything lower requires a great setup and leveled frets.

 

The link below is one of the best guitar setup photo sequences I've seen. It's not for the squeamish, though.

 

http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/epiphone-les-pauls/14714-complete-epi-custom-setup.html

[Dave]

I just can't imagine 1/64 either way making any difference whatsoever in terms of playability or feel. Surely all that matters is how it plays and whether it's set up to suit your technique. I've been playing gigs since 1976 and I've NEVER felt any need to measure string height. My guitars hang on walls' date=' get put in cars, cold or hot, taken to gigs, played under hot lights, put away again. Now and again one may feel a little low or high and I tweak the truss rod slightly. Then I get on with playing them. [/quote']

 

I like my action somewhat lower than the factory setup, but not much. I find that when I bend a string, I'm better off if the tip of my finger goes under the next one instead of pushing it along with the one I am bending. Lower action has you bending both and that gets a little tough past a 2nd. 3rds and 5ths get really difficult with a low setup and I have popped OVER the next one. That makes an ugly sound. (grin)

[Marcelo1281734115]

Guys, let's not criticize that I want ridiculous low action, because I am beginner and I really don't know what I want yet. All I want is the ability to make choces. The guitar I have is not a cheap guitar, and since it is not a cheap guitar, I expect it to give me as many options on the action as possible until I discover what action works for me. It is nice to know that you can drop the action for some weird experimental reason one day and you know that your guitar will take it. Why would you want a guitar, that say, does not let you go under 4/64 or so, then you are just setting yourself up for a constraint that you may regret later. A $100 dollar guitar tends to do this for you, they give you constraints, and the guitar I have goes for over $600 new, so I expect more.

 

But most of all, you guys missed my point. I think that one buys a case for their guitar to protect it, when it could be actually doing damage to it. I am now convinced that my Epi hardcase is what caused my guitar to bow outwards over the years. After 2 weeks of making sure that the neck "hangs in the air" inside the case, I could visibly see that from just looking at the neck binding that used to look like a banana before, now it is looking pretty much straight. I am thinking about cutting into the U-shaped neck support of the case and shaving it down about 1/8" so that there is no pressure on the neck when I store the guitar in the case.

 

The action now dropped from just storing the guitar in the case using the new method, and I am getting some fret buzz in some places. I think that it might be time to reset the neck and/or bridge and raise the action a bit. When I tried Dave's suggestion on fretting both the 1st and 17th fret, I get a very slight clearance at the 8th fret that is about the thickness of a high-E string, so I have a slight positive relief. I am just going to raise the bridge a bit until the buzz disappears.