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When you get a chance, post a picture looking straight down the board towards bridge to emphasize the ramp. Side note, measure side to top squareness using a small t-square. Look forward to ur thickness measurements.

Checked the fretboard and it's no thicker either end so it's not that. Now strings are of I'm getting a fall away on the extension on the bass side and a ramp on the treble side.
Perhaps I put a slight twist on the neck when it hit the top of the body.

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If you have a ski ramp with strings on and fallaway without them, that tells me that string tension is affecting the upper bout geometry. The neck and heel block is trying to rotate increasing the relative angle or the top in the upper bout. everrything is trying to tilt very slightly forward but the top won't let it bending the FB extension up (relative to the plane of the rest of the board).
I'm thinking out loud here so I may be all wet.

Could the heel block be rotating but the UTB holding its ground?
Did you do anything new with the heel block or upper bout bracing?

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Take a photo like the above, but straight down the neck. Sounds like a twist but the photo will help diagnose.

That's what I was hoping for as well. If there is a ramp, and upper bout is flat, then my theory (I could get all wet too) is that the dome on the lower bout means the bridge should have been a bit taller. Instead, CP forced the neck angle which caused the apparent ramp. Simplest solution is sand the ramp, and use a slightly taller saddle.

Mike

Hi here's a few pics straight down the neck. Not sure how good the pics are

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IMO, bridge height should be a constant. 3/8" bridge and ~1/8 saddle. Compensating the bridge height to counter incorrect neck angle is what Martin and Larrivee do. Meh.

I just do not see a ramp, anybody else? If there is a ramp on a dead flat neck, then a straight edge should rest on first and last frets, gap visible

Hi Mike,

Hope you can see it but there's a visible gap over the 9th fret with a straight edge, it's resting on 1st and last fret on the treble side of the fretboard. The bass side seems okay as there is a slight fall away on the extension.

The fretboard extension is glued but Would it be worth unbolting the neck and see what it does? Or could it make it difficult to assess what's going on?


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Is this photo with the strings on? I thought that once you removed the strings the ramp went away, but maybe I misunderstood.

_________________
Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

No strings on in this pic

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Did you setup similar to this? http://thbecker.net/guitar_playing/guit ... ge_04.html

Yes that's the exact page I used Mike

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Just checking: Bridge is 3/8" thick, Finger Board started at 1/4" thick?

Pretty easy to do if you try to level with the neck off of the instrument and the extension is unsupported DAMHIKT.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

CP what I want to know is the height of the bridge please measured at the bridge face between the G and D.

Seems to me that the fret board was not leveled with full length beams ( a beam that spans the 1st through the 14th) on the neck with the neck already set on the guitar as Steve rightly said a page ago.

When our fret boards are not level, dips, twists, ski ramps when we install the frets the frets are not level either.

The folks who have been to our classes learn to induce fall-away on the neck with the neck on the guitar. Since you are reporting a twist now what's most suspect to me is the fret board level set on the instrument prior to fretting. I want to make some suggestions to you but before I do I don't believe that we have completely understood the problem yet.

Anyway a bridge height check, not the straight edge just the bridge height please will let me eliminate that the neck angle may be off because the bridge height is non-standard. Thanks bro.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Hi Hesh, the bridge measures 9mm (0.35)

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Cool that's perfect, thank you. Me thinks that you would benefit as Steve said in the last page from leveling your fret boards on the neck with the neck set on the guitar.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

And what is the FB thickness at the end? Also, measure upper bout height on either side of neck as close to neck as possible

Instead of being pulled farther down the rat hole of analysis paralysis - it's time to go ahead and fix it.

If the interference at the last few frets is minimal - level and recrown the frets and off you go.. Most people don't play a lot at the frets down on the body... So a bit shorter frets here aren't that big of an issue.

If it's more than 0.015" or so - you probably ought to level the fretboard. Pull the last few frets and level the fretboard extension on the guitar. There are plenty of good videos on pulling frets with minimal damage.

Then you can refret those and go on...

Happy New Year John.

I think that CP said early on that he already hogged off a lot of material from the extension frets making it possible that there is not enough height to hog off much more.

A bit more analysis paralysis from me though if I may please. That newest pic of the gap in the 9th fret region, a dip really is troublesome. If the fret board was uniform in thickness and CP has a dip there that means that the neck was not flat when the board was glued on to it.

It also means that to chase a level set of the fret tops with this profound dip in the area of the 9th will mean hogging off a great deal of fret board material not only on the extension but every other place but where the dip is.

As such what I would be considering is this:

1). Lift and remove carefully the frets (not pull, pulling clauses chipping, let the closing jaws on the nippers work as intended with the bevels closing on the fret and lifting it while the ground face of the tool is in contact with the board guaranteeing that no chips are lifted....).

2). Use the truss rod to straighten the neck between the 1st and the 12 fret. Ignore the dip in the board in the area of the 9th for now.

3). Put two layers of masking tape on a short leveling beam and 80 grit paper on the beam. Keeping the tape over the 12th fret area mill the fret board extension down. Taping one end of the beam tilts the beam to take off more material at the end of the fret board and it's how we induce fall-away. Just be sure to keep the taped end generally over the 12trh fret. We do this technique near daily and it works great.

4). Once the board is level between the 1st and 12th ignoring the dip in the region of the 9th because it will require taking the entire board down too far AND the extension is now below the level of the 1st through the 12th creatively..... refret.

5). Use .037 height wire (a Martin standard) everywhere but where the dip was in the region of the 9th fret. So, for example every fret is a .037 but where the dip was use .043 and/or .047 wire or possibly one or two even higher as needed. When fretting check with a straight edge looking at the 1st though the 12th and this will tell you how tall the frets in the dip need to be.

Dips are progressive and I'm not getting political.... so in terms of frets you may need several heights in the dip. Was that self-effacing....

6). Or in other words we level the board as much as is practical but then leave some dips in place and continue to refine the fret plane with variable fret heights. Variable fret height is what we level to any way we just rarely install frets of variable height on the same neck.

7). Using the short beam with two layers or tape on it mill the extension frets until you either have fall-away or it's at least not kicking up AND the twist is gone.

The underlying thinking here is that what matters to the strings in the fret plane is really the fret tops and not the board. I work on guitars frequently with lots of finger divots worn over time, etc and these things don't seem to bother anyone including me when playing. This idea may not be visually noticeable either.

The other idea incorporated here is to use some higher frets and some lower frets.

Now CP you will need some fret wire and maybe Luthiers on your side of the pond will send you a loop of .043, .047 and a couple loops of .037 to help you out. Fret wire is cheap and I'd send it to you but shipping from here will suck. If you can't find anyone on your side of the pond to do this I'll package up and send you the wire, no charge. I may cut it into short lengths to save on the package size. This is Jescar wire if you get it from us, great stuff and it's preradiused and ready to press or pound in.

Lastly when I was building before installing my fret boards I turned my necks upside down and sanded them on a super flat surface. The flatness of your neck because of that one pic is likely in my view at least one of the major problems and here is a plan to address it now and prevent it in the future by leveling the neck prior to board installation.

Hope this helps and let me know if you need some wire, happy to help.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Hi Hesh,
Thanks mate great advice sounds like the right thing to do and the offer of fretwire is very generous but I will sort from my side but thankyou.
I will have a good look at it over the weekend as been struggling for time this week. Im sure I have a few different coils of fret wire and a set of syntoms frets, they were different thicknesses if I remember right but maybe not different heights, I will check

Thankyou

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CP, any chance you can tell me thickness of FB at end? At highest point of crown.

Instead of pages and pages of advice and perspective, while people guess about how the guitar is set up, I'd offer another suggestion. Are there any experienced guitar builders where you live? This is a perfect situation to get a little bit of help from someone with experience. You'll learn a lot and the luthier will be able to assess the whole instrument instead of sipping details through the straw of the forum. Where are you located?

Andy

Located in Devon UK Andy

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