Re: buzzing - truss rod, setup, or fret leveling?
Originally Posted by
jim19
I'm sure the setup I initially did wasn't very good.
Yeah but...
Between 1980 and now, the neck has been thru several dozen cycles of seasonal swelling and contraction; maybe not much in any one year, but cumulatively... Yikes!!
In my humble & highly amateur opinion, it's possible that the once nicely-seated frets are no longer quite so aligned; they may have moved and/or partially risen in their slots. So, while a straight-edge is an important tool, I also find that simply sighting along the tops of the frets while reflecting a light from the far end can help find areas of discontinuity in the reflection pattern. It's quite possible that some frets, maybe at just one end, need to be gently tapped back into place. (I aways protect the fret with a wood block, rather than tapping directly on the fret.)
That's a prudent step to take before a fret leveling, as you'd hate to file a fret's top off only to find later that the bottom should be lowered back down.
And, not to be alarmist but to complete the thought because nobody has said it: In the worst case, the neck has warped (over the past 40 years) and needs to be planned flat before a full re-fret, but hopefully not!
- Ed
"Then one day we weren't as young as before
Our mistakes weren't quite so easy to undo
But by all those roads, my friend, we've travelled down
I'm a better man for just the knowin' of you."
- Ian Tyson
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