Truss rod resistance

[Gottaplay]

My Larrivee L03 has a bit of fret buzz when capo’d up high and driven moderately hard with light strings. Attempting to flatten out the neck reveals there’s resistance when tightening the truss rod just before the fingerboard is dead flat. Obviously I don’t want to push it but would’nt a healthy truss rod have suffice to thread remaining to adjust beyond flat to the point of back bow?

[JayBee1404]

When you attempted to tighten the adjuster, did you support the neck in the middle and apply gentle back-pressure at the nut? I’ve found that taking a little tension off that way helps when tightening the rod to remove relief.

If there’s still a lot of resistance, don’t swing too hard on the wrench, you could break something in the rod which would need an expensive repair - don’t ask how I know this!

[Gottaplay]

Hi JB,

Yup I always do rod adjustments on my workbench with a neck support in place but I have yet to “help” the truss rod with some added downward pressure applied to the nut. I am aware of the better practise of always backing off the rod a tad to loosen it up before doing any tightening.

I’ll give that a go and see if it makes for easier tightening but to my touch it feels like it’s at the end of the threads... dunno? Hope I’m proved wrong.

[maxtheaxe]

Originally Posted by Gottaplay

My Larrivee L03 has a bit of fret buzz when capo’d up high and driven moderately hard with light strings. Attempting to flatten out the neck reveals there’s resistance when tightening the truss rod just before the fingerboard is dead flat. Obviously I don’t want to push it but would’nt a healthy truss rod have suffice to thread remaining to adjust beyond flat to the point of back bow?

It seems to me that if you were trying to reduce a minor buzz, the cause of which was improper relief, you would want to increase the neck relief slightly rather than make it flatter...am I missing something here?

[JayBee1404]

Buzzing on the first few frets is often due to too flat a fingerboard and, as you say, adding relief may cure it.

But buzzing in the higher frets can be caused by excessive relief, and flattening the neck can correct that. The OP said that the buzzing he’s getting is from frets higher up the neck, so reducing relief might be the answer.

From the Maintenance & Repair section of the Lowden Guitars website - ”For most playing styles relief should be between 0.15mm and 0.25mm. If the relief is too large the action may be too high and/or buzzing may occur when playing around the 5th to 10th frets. If the neck is too straight, the action may be too low and buzzing may occur when playing 1st to 4th frets.”

The usual disclaimers apply......IMHO, YMMV etc.

[Gottaplay]

I was wondering if my frets are uneven so... I figured that flattening the fingerboard in advance of using a fret rocker gauge to check for uneven frets would be the next move. I’m prepared to do a fret levelling if required but first things first.

My relief when last measured was about .004 and action was E 5.5/64 and e 4/64. Backing off the rod tension didn’t improve the buzz and like I said I didn’t want to push it in trying to flatten it beyond .004.

I capo a lot probably close to as much as playing open so I need to keep the action fairly low.

Gonna be a few days before the workbench is free so bare with me and thanks for the input.

[Peter Wilcox]

If you think you're out of threads you could take off the nut and put in a washer (a lock washer might fit over the rod but be small enough to fit in the hole.) I don't know how the rod is set up on this guitar if that would be possible.

[Gottaplay]

OK with the strings slack and assisting the peg neck with a bit of downforce the rod did tighten up albeit somewhat reluctantly which I expect is as was mentioned above probably caused by the need to grease the nut. I’m unaware as to whether or not the truss rod nut is accessible with the string nut removed but that is where I’m headed right now.

Thanks for your he input gang. I’ve got another thread on the go entitled “Leveling beam flatness” so this will be my last entry on this thread so if this hasn’t yet put you to sleep catch up with the action on the other channel... thanks.