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Post subject: How low is your action?
Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 11:11 am
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I've been wanting to set the action a bit lower on my Strat but I'm having trouble making that happen.

With a Capo on the first fret it's currently 4/64" on the 12th fret. My guitar neck, which is beautiful in most respects has a kink of some sort in the tongue area. Perhaps this is the dreaded tongue hump???

Looking closely at the neck it seems that the tongue area of the fingerboard, and nut area, is a bit thicker than the middle area of the board - although it's hard to tell because of the fingerboard edge rounding. Is there a reason why the Custom Shop would build a guitar this way? It is easy to see that the tongue doesn't have a fall off but instead has a rise. This is on a 1996 "60s Strat" with a rosewood slab board.

Has anyone else seen tongue humps on their Strats? How low can you set your action?

These folks explain the kind of thing I'm talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8woZ8StvGuc


Last edited by Johnjay on Wed Oct 26, 2016 6:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: How low is your action?
Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 3:11 pm
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Perhaps it's time for a truss-rod adjustment. Insufficient relief might be responsible for your guitar's symptoms.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: How low is your action?
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2016 6:12 am
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Retroverbial wrote:
Perhaps it's time for a truss-rod adjustment. Insufficient relief might be responsible for your guitar's symptoms.

Arjay


Well I've gotten so good at adjusting body end truss rods this week that I'm no longer wishing I bought a guitar with a headstock truss rod adjustment. :wink:

At this point the guitar seems balanced at a point where if I add relief the high end frets buzz and if I take away relief the low end frets buzz. If it was most other guitars, and I really wanted the action lower, I would level the frets at this point, although that might make the high end frets very low.

The guitar may have what people describe as a "tongue hump" although most of what I've read about that on the internet seems like nonsense to me. And since this is a fancy neck that was originally stamped to go to a fancy dealer in Japan I suspect the person who made it did it with intention. I'm wondering if there is a reason to leave the slab board a tad thicker at the body end. It's almost as if the relief was added to the fingerboard and a straight neck would set the relief.


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Post subject: Re: How low is your action?
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2016 7:52 am
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Johnjay wrote:
The guitar may have what people describe as a "tongue hump" although most of what I've read about that on the internet seems like nonsense to me. And since this is a fancy neck that was originally stamped to go to a fancy dealer in Japan I suspect the person who made it did it with intention. I'm wondering if there is a reason to leave the slab board a tad thicker at the body end. It's almost as if the relief was added to the fingerboard and a straight neck would set the relief.


Or what some call a "ski jump" or "hockey stick". The part of the fretboard from where the neck thickens down to the lip is too thick to be affected by the truss rod or string pull, which is part of why this effect can occur - moisture being absorbed through the end of the neck being the other significant factor.

You may have to put a shim in the neck pocket (or use the micro-tilt if available) to get the lower part straight, and then adjust the truss rod for the upper part. If the angle after shimming is severe, it may then take a rather large truss rod adjustment, which is best done in several small stages with time for the wood to settle in-between. After this, the bridge height and possibly nut should be adjusted too.


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Post subject: Re: How low is your action?
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2016 12:26 pm
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arth1 wrote:
Johnjay wrote:
The guitar may have what people describe as a "tongue hump" although most of what I've read about that on the internet seems like nonsense to me. And since this is a fancy neck that was originally stamped to go to a fancy dealer in Japan I suspect the person who made it did it with intention. I'm wondering if there is a reason to leave the slab board a tad thicker at the body end. It's almost as if the relief was added to the fingerboard and a straight neck would set the relief.


Or what some call a "ski jump" or "hockey stick". The part of the fretboard from where the neck thickens down to the lip is too thick to be affected by the truss rod or string pull, which is part of why this effect can occur - moisture being absorbed through the end of the neck being the other significant factor.


Yes, that's what I'm trying to describe - "the ski jump". I heard the moisture theory and I've heard that too tight neck screws can cause this. Does Fender have a position on this? Now this particuliar guitar has been banished to the basement by my wife so it gets it share of moisture but it looks to me like a "ski jump" was designed into the fingerboard. It's hard to be sure because of the fingerboard roll, but it looks like the top of the frets from the line where the neck meets the bottom of the fingerboard is higher at the higher frets. Is this a Fender Custom Shop tweak? Like I mentioned earlier, it looks intentional.

Quote:

You may have to put a shim in the neck pocket (or use the micro-tilt if available) to get the lower part straight, and then adjust the truss rod for the upper part. If the angle after shimming is severe, it may then take a rather large truss rod adjustment, which is best done in several small stages with time for the wood to settle in-between. After this, the bridge height and possibly nut should be adjusted too.


I'm not following this. I understand how the angle of the neck to the body effects saddle height setting. And I understand why you might need to shim if you have problems with getting the saddle low enough or high enough. But I don't see how the neck angle effects the "ski jump" in relation to the rest of the fret board.


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Post subject: Re: How low is your action?
Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2016 10:36 am
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Johnjay wrote:
arth1 wrote:
You may have to put a shim in the neck pocket (or use the micro-tilt if available) to get the lower part straight, and then adjust the truss rod for the upper part. If the angle after shimming is severe, it may then take a rather large truss rod adjustment, which is best done in several small stages with time for the wood to settle in-between. After this, the bridge height and possibly nut should be adjusted too.


I'm not following this. I understand how the angle of the neck to the body effects saddle height setting. And I understand why you might need to shim if you have problems with getting the saddle low enough or high enough. But I don't see how the neck angle effects the "ski jump" in relation to the rest of the fret board.

It doesn't - the reverse shim only corrects for the ski jump angle, moving the lip further from the strings. After that, a stronger relief can pull back the rest of the neck to compensate the other way. The truss rod only bends the part of the neck above the thick part, not the thick part itself. You may end up with less relief than you had, but get less of a ski jump.

If it's too warped for that to help, you might have to go to a luthier to get the neck either steam pressed, or shaved down and refretted near the lip.

As for preventative measures, since this is a rosewood fretboard, make sure you oil it every now and then. At least yearly, but more often won't hurt as long as you wipe off excess. The oil will help stop moisture expansion.


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