Stagg Update 4 - F$%KING NUTS
Work continued on the Ses Taul today. With the buzzing seeming to come from a nut too low, I was set on raising my new right nut.
I had decided against more TUSQ. With shimming material lying around, I figured I could cut and sand a piece down, saving me material and time.
In short, I'm an idiot.
I set my plan in motion, using the utility knife to cut the rough shape of the piece I would need. The idea was to use the thinnest end of the shim (the looked solid).
Unfortunately, it became apparent that even at it's thinnest, the shim was much too high. Sandpaper seemed to be the solution, right?
I went through the process again, but was finding myself frustrated by the time it was taking to get the shim down to the size I wanted. Taking a break, I put the shim in and tuned the guitar up. I wanted to see if there was an appreciable difference in vibration - since the action was sky high, fret buzz in open position had been taken out of the equation.
There wasn't ANY difference. Crap.
Clearly, I had misdiagnosed the issue. I checked neck relief again and concluded my attention should turn to the tune-o-matic bridge piece.
IT had to be the issue, but I'm still pretty amazed with how hard it can be to pluck a string and identify the exact place buzz is coming from.
Maybe that's just me.
I removed the bridge from the guitar and found that the G string saddle wasn't threading on the screw properly. Not sure how that happened, but no big deal.
Fixed, I put the bridge back on, removed the shim, tuned up with the nut in place, and...
Problems solved.
I've now noticed that the guitar is pretty loud acoustically (the nut material definitely improved things), and although the action is a little higher than ideal (because of the frets), it plays pretty well. It's also much lighter than my Epiphone LP, missing electronics accounted for.
Tomorrow the nut is glued in place. My plan is to let the string tension hold the nut in place while the glue cures, and then I can turn my attention to the electronics.
I had decided against more TUSQ. With shimming material lying around, I figured I could cut and sand a piece down, saving me material and time.
In short, I'm an idiot.
 |
| LET'S LEARN THE HARD WAY!!!! |
I set my plan in motion, using the utility knife to cut the rough shape of the piece I would need. The idea was to use the thinnest end of the shim (the looked solid).
 |
| Like tracing, but with a knife |
Unfortunately, it became apparent that even at it's thinnest, the shim was much too high. Sandpaper seemed to be the solution, right?
 |
| Even the slide player thinks this is too high |
Except not, because after 15 minutes of rubbing a tiny piece of wood on some scratchy paper (how's that for technical?), this happened:
 |
| Oh for F$%K sake. |
There wasn't ANY difference. Crap.
Clearly, I had misdiagnosed the issue. I checked neck relief again and concluded my attention should turn to the tune-o-matic bridge piece.
IT had to be the issue, but I'm still pretty amazed with how hard it can be to pluck a string and identify the exact place buzz is coming from.
Maybe that's just me.
I removed the bridge from the guitar and found that the G string saddle wasn't threading on the screw properly. Not sure how that happened, but no big deal.
Fixed, I put the bridge back on, removed the shim, tuned up with the nut in place, and...
Problems solved.
I've now noticed that the guitar is pretty loud acoustically (the nut material definitely improved things), and although the action is a little higher than ideal (because of the frets), it plays pretty well. It's also much lighter than my Epiphone LP, missing electronics accounted for.
Tomorrow the nut is glued in place. My plan is to let the string tension hold the nut in place while the glue cures, and then I can turn my attention to the electronics.
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