Neck relief - What should it be ?.

[Ivan Kelsall]

I have 2 Weber Mandolins,a Fern & a Beartooth. The Fern plays superbly & frets as easily as could ever be required. The Beartooth plays easily up to the 8th fret,but then it gets a bit 'tight', that's the only word i can use to describe the way it frets. The Fern has a trad. Brekke bridge on it & i've got it as low as i need to give me the action & tone/volume that i want.
The Beartooth has a new style 'all wood' Brekke bridge on it,i've got that as low as i can get it & the action still feels 'tight'.The string height at the 12th fret is 1/8".
A Mandolin playing friend of mine came down to my home a couple of nights ago - he has a beautiful Summit F-5 Mandolin. He played my Beartooth & remarked on the high action. He checked it out & he remarked that the neck relief needed adjusting in order to lower the action.
Yesterday,i checked out the neck relief for myself as follows :-
Using a Banjo capo,i clamped the strings down at the 1st fret. I then pressed the strings down at the 15th fret & using a set of feeler gauges,measured the string height between the 8th fret & the bottom of the G & E strings. Using a watchmaker's eyeglass to get a 'close up',i got a measurement of
.010" (ten thousandths of an inch) on each side.
Now,although i have absolutely no experience of this type of thing,i can't see that adjusting the neck relief so that it's 'level' ie.no gap at all,is going to reduce the string action by much.
Weber seem to offer a 'custom build' Brekke bridge. If you provide them with the measurements,they can tailor-make a bridge for you,to give you the height required. Obviously,they recognise that the all -wood bridges don't have as much adjustment in them as the trad.style.
I think that i need to get the action down to around 1/16" to 3/32" at the 12th to give me a reasonable action.
Having explained what's going on with my Mandolin,what do you folk who have far more experience than me, think of the existing neck relief - is it ok, is it too much or what ?. Do you think that adjusting the truss rod to bring the strings level (touching) the frets would be of any use ,or do you think that it's down to bridge height ?. Personally i think that the bridge height is the problem ,although as i've said i don't have any prior experience in this.
Any advice on this would be very welcome. I have e-mailed Weber direct on this & i'm expecting a reply,but advice from any members on here may offer alternative solutions,
Saska :confused:

[sunburst]

A Mandolin playing friend of mine came down to my home a couple of nights ago - he has a beautiful Summit F-5 Mandolin. He played my Beartooth & remarked on the high action. He checked it out & he remarked that the neck relief needed adjusting in order to lower the action.


Well, there's that bit of misinformation being passed around again.

You're on the right track.
The truss rod is only to adjust neck relief. It does not adjust action height except indirectly when there is too much relief and the neck is adjusted to correct it.

The .010" or relief is probably about right, but the 1/8" action is high - real high. Weber will surely fix you up with a bridge in the correct height range if, as you say, they offer that.

When setting the action, the neck relief is established to the correct amount for the player and then the action is adjusted to the preference of the player. There can then be a little bit of tweeking back and forth to get the set up just right for the player, but basically, the truss rod adjust neck relief and the bridge adjusts action height. Action adjustments done while the relief isn't correct will be thrown off by relief adjustments done afterward.

You might want to measure the relief on your other mandolin, the one the you say plays just the way you want, and set the relief on this one so that both are about the same, if they aren't already about the same.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Hi John - Many thanks for your advice.You seem to confirm my thoughts on this,that the bridge height is the real issue. The relief on my Fern is exactly the same,but because of the the ability to be able to lower the trad, Brekke bridge,i did the obvious & lowered it to get the optimum tone/action etc. that suited me.
If you visit the Weber site,under their products section they include the attached diagram for folk wanting a 'customised' height bridge,
Many thanks again - Saska ;)