Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hi, firstly my apolgies for starting a topic thats probably been done to death.
I read on here somewhere before that the ideal for neck relief is to have the neck as straight as possible(Using the Binding as a guage etc etc).Well, I restring my 04 4003 three days ago with a heavier guage of string cos the last set I put on where way too light and buzzed a lot even with a higher action and a fair bit of bow and I didnt like it, well now I have a heavier and much better set on that have great tension(same make, just heavier)and intonate perfectly, but, if I set the neck up as was advised over here I get terrible fretbuzz even with the action set high, if I press down on the 1st and 21st frets on the E string it just about touches at the 12th fret, so I have a slight amount of bow on the E side and slightly less on the G side and the action set as desired and its pretty spot on, any better and I'll have to either raise the action too high or give more Bow which I dont want to do.
Now my concern is, I was told and I've read that Ric necks need not have ANY bend in them, so is something wrong with my neck or am I misinformed???
It plays great and sounds awsome and theres no buzz so am I just being paranoid that my Baby is getting a warped neck or is my set up normal? Do you have a bend in yours??
Thanks for your time and patience, and I really love all your knowledge, I might not post much but I read all the time.
Steve

As long as the fret buzz isn't coming through your amp I'd say it's fine. I hate audible fret buzz but it's seems to be a charactoristic of round wound strings.

When you press down on the E string at 1st and 20th frets, you should be able to insert a business card under the string at frets 7-8. If the string touches the frets, then you have a slight under-bow, which is probably why you have fret buzz.

Ilan, that would be an over bow when the strings fret out.