ptooly Posted February 2, 2013 Share Posted February 2, 2013 Hi, I have an early 1970's SG Custom "Fretless Wonder". I've had the guitar for about 25 years. I didn't play it much for most of that time and just kept it in the case stored in an upstairs bedroom. The guitar used to play great, but since I started playing it again I've noticed a lot of fret buzz that was not there before. Especially, when you play hard. The frets don't look any different, never had much wear. They are the very low, wide flat frets and the bridge is the low wide one that sits flat on the guitar body. I need to raise the bridge quite a bit to get rid of the buzzing. The buzzing is all over the fret board. I have a feeling that it requires a neck adj. and I know a couple of local guitar repair guys, one of them is supposed to be very good. I talked to him one time but he wanted to crown and dress frets on a guitar that seemed to play fine. So, I want to be an educated consumer before I bring it to him or anyone else. Should the neck be flat like a fretless bass or adjusted like a normal guitar or more of a curve than normal? Since these guitars are a little different, I'd like to know if there are any setup tricks that I should know about. I can't seem to find much on the net about how these guitars should be setup. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stein Posted February 2, 2013 Share Posted February 2, 2013 There isn't anything different about set-up or adjustment for a Gibby with those wide, low frets. One thing that obviously IS different, is you don't have much fret materiel to work with, so you can't just do a bunch of fret dressings on it before there isn't any fret left. If a guy is good, in doing a fret dress, he would take very little materiel off, perhaps only taking some off the high frets. Obviously, before you know if it NEEDS a fret dress, it needs to be set up good. At that point, it may be just ane fret or a couple that is causing a problem. If it's an old guitar that has been sitting and something has truly changed, the first things I would check is the truss rod adjustments, and then if a fret or two hasn't come a little loose, or if the fretboard at the neck-body hasn't changed any. If you get a slight hump there from the passage of time, dressing those frets down would be the fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptooly Posted February 2, 2013 Author Share Posted February 2, 2013 I've got a much better idea now of what should be looked at first. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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