Re: 620 bridge problems
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 1:29 pm
Last things first: The EA buzz on 2 is a direct product of your backbow on the treble side.rickenrocker wrote:I just don't see how I can flatten this neck. I think I could loosen the g side rod completely and still have backbow with the d side barely flat. Is this normal?
The stethoscope showed up today, and even though it was only 7 bucks, I'm not sure it was worth the premium. Maybe it's just because I'm awkwardly trying to hold the guitar in the position required to recreate the buzz, while picking, maybe holding frets and still trying to hold the metal piece around different areas of the guitar...but when I can recreate the buzzing under these conditions, I still hear it everywhere.
It seems like every adjustment I make, creates a different subtle buzzing while maybe solving another. I'm pretty sure I can rule out fret buzz, and I think the nut is ok, though it looks cut wide, when the listener was on it, it was quieter here if anything.
The 6 string adjustments are tightened as much as possible with no springs, the bridge up high, and the 4 bridge crews I can tighten, and even though they loosen back up, while tight I still hear it.
Is buzzing unavoidable on these guitars? I can definitely hear it through the amp, and it isn't pretty. I really want the guitar I purchased back, and I'm willing to try just about anything short of pawning this guitar on an unsuspecting buyer so I can buy another one.
Right now, the worst buzz is when EA are both fretted at the 2nd fret and I play them together. Does this narrow anything down? They are fine open.
I don't recall if you said that this was a new guitar or you bought it used. If you go it from a dealer, I'd take it back and have a nice firm talk with him. If you bought it on Ebay, I'd exercise any option you have to get your money back, including contacting the seller and your credit card company, Paypal, or whoever was involved in this transaction. You were sold defective merchandise. We now know this for certain, and chances are that the previous seller knew it, too. In this sense, he perpetrated a fraud on you and it doesn't help matters that, though you were the unwitting victim of this due to your own ignorance of the fine points of a Rick appraisal, you are considering passing on the fraud to the next buyer. You have a couple of choices: You can have a luthier straighten the neck using heat and crossed fingers, or you can honestly sell the instrument.
Lessons cost us--in cash, in time, and in psychological terms. You can come out ahead by taking the approach that it's all a positive thing, and that you paid for a lesson and will hopefully not repeat again, the mistake of not educating yourself on a purchase before pulling the trigger.
Now, why was the neck twisted? Well, guitars are made from an organic substance that can be tamed (and 99.99% of the time, is tamed, and shaped into a thing of beauty, etc.). Wood is at its best a delightful substance, but even after it's cut and shaped, it's alive in the sense that it expands and contracts with temperature and humidity, and also may take some time to work out the internal stresses which remain when it's cut and shaped. A lot has to do with grain and density, and maple is one of the most consistent hardwoods out there in this respect. But the thinnest, longest part of the guitar--its neck--is also the part under the most stress (a Rick 12er will have a bit over 300 pounds of tension from the strings when tuned to concert pitch, and which the truss rods must counteract 100% of the time, with the neck itself, and its less that 2 square inches of cross-sectional area, acting as a compressive and torsional member. Ideally, this torsion can be compensated for by the truss rod adjustment, but in extreme and rare cases, the wood's tendency will be to take its own direction and the result is what you are seeing.
Although Rick necks are legendarily thin, the routing of the truss rod slots and subsequent capping with the fretboard wood, converts the wood member into a much stronger structure than a solid piece of the same dimension and shape--a tube. So everything is working in concert to make the neck strong, straight, and malleable so it can be adjusted to handle the stress of the strings.
A lot depends on the guitar's history. In very, very rare cases, a guitar or bass will leave the factory and a twist will show up within the warranty period. RIC is very specific on how to register a new instrument, and how it is treated by the original owner during the time that the warranty is in effect.
In other, very rare, cases, this type of problem or defect will only show up after the original owner has passed it on without having had it dealt with under warranty, or it might only begin to display this sort of defect long after the warranty period has lapsed. These are the cases that careful vetting before purchase will uncover.
I am really in the dark here regarding specifics at this time, so that's the limit of my comments. But, knowing how old the guitar was when you got it, and where it came from, helps a good deal in assessing your actions from this point forward.
