Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hi again Mark,

I had my frets done as you advised in an earlier post, dressed and recrowned, and everything appeared to be in order until i checked the intonation when I got home. the only string that is a problem is the g string. from what little I understand about setting up guitars, normally you check the open string against the 12th fret and 12th fret harmonic, correct? Well this is pretty darn close if not dead on correct, the problem seems to be on the lower frets. E and Em chords are not in tune with one another. When i check it against my tuner, when g is in tune, g# is a quarter tone sharp! this isn't nitpicking its a very noticable intonation issue. So, when I bring it back, what should i ask them to do now? the rest of the job seems to be spotless, the guitar is playing great and the neck and frets look great.

Thanks,

Nick

I have a 1956 Gretsch 6120 snd it has the same problem.It has a scale length of 25"

The Rick has a scale length of 24&3/4"

To fix the problem ,I used an old banjo trick.

Before I did that ,I recrowned ,leveled and polished the frets.Then the trick.

Using a Peterson 420 strobe tuner.I measured the exact amount (cents ) that the 2 notes were off by,and then because the fretted note was sharp ..I needed to flatten the note .

"How do you do that?"

Heres where the banjo trick comes in.

The scale is fine but it needs to be tempered at the nut as well as the bridge.All guitars compromise at both ends .The nut is rarely dalt with and I don't do this to anyones guitars unless thwey point out the G sharp problem to me.

After I figure out how many cents off the note is ,I know I must LENGTHEN the distance between the first fret and the nut.
(This is the error in the Buzz Feiten system.)

I take my Dremel tool with a Dental bit that is .028 wide and slowly remove material toward the nameplate.I start with about .015

This is then checked .You must have a new set of strings on to do this .

This is time consuming work and you can NOT do it with a digital tuner.I know ....I bought the best rack mounted one that was available and it was not as accurate as the Peterson.I returned it and bought another Peterson .I now have 3 !!!

This will solve the problem.

It takes nerves of steel to do this the first ime and it sounds like a fool has come up with another crazy idea .....but this ws how banjos got intonated before there was a Schubb saddle .
If you don't like it ,another stock nut can be made and it will look stock but you will have the same trouble all over again.

This is not limited to Rickenbackers.This is a universal problem.