Capo'd on 2nd fret, upstoke buzzing

williamtk2018,

Well let assume you have sanded to much of the saddle.
This is what I would do.

Put capo on first fret.
Slacken all the strings good and proper.
Pull the strings at the saddle end.
Lift out the saddle.
Cut a thin strip of business card, or thin cardboard, slightly thinner and shorter than the saddle slot.
Put the thin piece of cardboard in the saddle slot.
Slide the saddle back under the strings and into it's slot.
Lightly tighten up the strings.
Remove capo.
Tune strings to correct pitch.
And enjoy playing the buzz free guitar. 😀

Now, I do have another saddle that's a smidge lower than the one in the last couple of postings here. I swapped it in to take its measurements, and here's what happened:

Neck relief at the 7th fret seems about the same, and action on the bass E is right at 5/64".

I'm starting to think that it's less a guitar problem and more an operator error issue. The action's pretty well where it should be. The neck relief is slightly worrisome given that the truss rod nut is as tight as it will go.

Yeah, I wasn't going to try anything "heroic." I'm under the impression that there should be more adjustment room on the 'rod, but don't really know.

I start lessons on Tuesday, and this is the git that I'm taking with me. I'll let the teacher play it and see what he thinks.

OK, done some fiddling with the guitar today and last night. I took the strings off and let it sit overnight unstrung. I know some people frown upon that, but the world's still turning on its axis... This did allow the truss rod but to turn further clockwise.

I put a new set of strings on today and measured neck relief and action on #6. NR was around .12" or .13". Action was 5/64" I realized just eyeballing it that the saddle could be lowered. I did that, and now the action is just below 5/64". I am cautious about going much lower.

The neck relief has barely changed during all this. I thought I would be able to get the neck straight or even slightly backbowed, and make adjustments from there. It's almost the sort of thing where I could put a "neck roll" under the bowed area and set a volume of the encyclopedia on either end of the neck...

The guitar doesn't show signs of a great deal of playing "mileage." There's a small scratch on the back at belt level and a little bit of fret wear on the first three frets. The pickguard had some scratches, but not many. Makes me think the guitar got stored away somewhere tuned to pitch for an extended time. I wasn't bothered by this when I first bought it because I thought it was the typical high action that Seagulls seem to have and that I could adjust it.

Well, someone once sent me a link that, among other things, said neck relief is supposed to be between .006 and .008", and my other gits are pretty well there. So, I was getting unhappy that this one seemed to be a rebel, and didn't have any further room for adjustment.

Also, my fingers were starting to hurt like they did back in January when I first started practicing. Not quite as bad as never playing at all, but close. I thought the guitar's action might have been creeping upward.

As far as action goes, I can swap its original saddle back in and have action at 5/64". I have three saddles: the original, a really short one, and a new one that's unaltered.

And, well, I like tinkering with stuff. I'm thinking about getting a really cheap but decent guitar so I can carefully disassemble and reassemble it and have it playable. I've been taking stuff apart since I was 8 or 9. Sometimes, that worked out OK. Other times, ahem... Maybe not so great.

The goal wasn't to get rid of all the neck relief. I thought it was supposed to have less.