Warped Neck

[UGS]

Okay, long story short, my girlfriend was trying to be nice while I was away for a week and decided to clean my place. I came back to find my guitar in its case laying in direct sunlight through a window with no curtains. And let me tell you, that part of the room gets HOT for a few hours every morning.

So I move the guitar into a shady place. A few days later I go to play it, and highest two or three strings die as soon as you fret them anywhere, especially around frets 1-12. The strings sound fine open, no buzz, and the lower strings are fine.

I looked down the neck (the way you look down a rifle) and it looks as if the bow in the neck is gone.

Can someone please give me a few options to consider? Raise the bridge? Tweak the truss? Or am I just fucked? My only other electric guitar is at my parents house, 2000 km away, so I'm a bit desperate.

The guitar is a floyd-equiped Ibanez with a Wizard II neck, by the way.

Muchos Thank you in advance!

[BrownSound1]

I would think a truss rod adjustment should be tried first. Now if the neck is twisted...well that's a different story.

[UGS]

In the event of a twisted neck, do I have any options?

[The Scatologist]

Not really.

if it's the bow that's gone, then try let it sette down in a cool place first, then adjust truss rod. Be careful not to over adjust or you'll permanently fuck up your neck though.

I would just take it to a tech to see if he can do anything.

[Hardrock69]

I agree.

I had a minor problem with one of my neck-thru-body strats some years ago. I tweaked the truss rod a bit, problem went away, me happy boy.

I would advise taking it to a tech, inless you reall y know your stuff.

I do 99% of my own work on my guitars, but serious stuff like re-fret jobs, etc. I would have a luthier take care of...certainly if the neck was REALLY warped...

Good luck to ya!

[GAR]

Waitaminnit; he first needs to specify "forward bow" or "backbow".

You can't go wrong fucking around with the truss rod. I dunno what Ibanezes use but it may be the common 3/16" allen. May be metric I dunno.

Get the right size in there on start sitting down, body on the ground and headstock in your lap. Sighting the neck from the nut down, wrench on the truss, looking straight down to the bridge until that "vanishing point" appears where you can see that semiflat horizontal plane come up where the fingerboard disappears to a flat plane - pull the wrench COUNTER CLOCKWISE.

This will loosen the truss rod nut. Go very slowly, a quarter turn.

While you do this, watch for that horizontal plane vanishing point to become convexed (cupped) where it looks from the headstock-end viewpoint that the whole fingerboard from end to end seems to have both endpoints dish up, like the flanges on a tea saucerdish.

THEN, bring back that quarter-turn CLOCKWISE so you can witness the movement back to where it was, very important. What you are looking for is the fingerboard's direction of bowing and to what degree.

Do this several times: reduce the nut tension, retention it. Loosen, tighten again and again. Do it slowly till you "get it" - I can't explain what you are looking for its just something you have to notice yourself.

Look at it, think about it quietly - keep the music off and the fucking TV off. If someone's talking to you make them leave or just do it when it's quiet because by asking the Twistyneck question it shows you don't know, but in these sequences you'll learn. And when you "get it" it will Click and you'll go.. aha, now I get it.

To clarify the term Bow I'll put it this way: the direction of bowing is based to how the nut moves when you adjust. Forward-bowing means the nut is Rising, and you see this because when you turn the wrench to the left, you'll see the string height rise up and away from the fingerboard=higher, above the horizontal plane of the string path as it leaves the bridge. Back-bowing means the nut movement is falling Back, below the plane of the string path, and you see that because when you turn the wrench to the right (increasing tension )

Okay, once you then understand how the geometry of the trussrod adjustments' direction you will know intuitively from then on how to change the trussrod adjustment for optimum string height action and bowed neck correction.

[GAR]

Now the other problem with bowed necks is when the neck doesn't twist from end to end, but from side to side.

You can spot a twisted neck by sighting down the neck and looking down at the frets this time, you'll notice while looking at them like train track rail ties that they slope from one side to the other as you sight all the way down.

Your vantage point in sighting the frets will reveal it. A 24" steel rule from Home Depot will prove it and if its' just a localized area, you can mill it out yourself with a smooth-mill file then cleaning up with a flat plastic or wood blocking of 220 then 320, and finally polishing all the frets up evenly with number-four-zero (#0000-grade) steel wool. They all come out beautiful after that.

Cleanup the neck mess from all the metal shavings and keep it away from the pickups because steel shavings will go straight the them unless you tape them off or drape with a rag.

Severely twisted necks almost have no recourse but to yank all the frets out, "re-plane" the fingerboard and refretting it.

And milling or refretting a clear-finish maple neck is a delicate deal especially if its a CBS era neck because that fretwire rips wood up on removal and I suggest you masking tape off the fingerboard - which can take a halfhour to an hour - before milling, sanding, steel-wooling and polishing the frets after.

Correcting a lacquered fingerboard without masking tape protection will scratch it all to hell.

[UGS]

Thanks for all the advice GAR and everyone

I let it sit for a while, and it appears that there MIGHT be a slight twist of the neck up by the second fret. It also appears as if the neck has no bow in it either way- that it's just flat. I'm going to let it sit a couple more days then bust out the allan key for the truss.

[GAR]

I'd say, take the strings off and all tension off the neck.

Then, stick it in its case with a damp washcloth rolled into a sausage shape, and leave it in the case pocket if it won't touch the guitar.

This should replace the lost moisture. It sounds like the end of the fingerboard warped due to loss, that should do the trick by adding a homemade humidifier like that.

[Kristy]

Originally posted by UGS
In the event of a twisted neck, do I have any options?

Neck replacement. Now keep in mind if the guitar is worth it in the first place. In other words, if it's a genuine guitar like a Fender, Gibson, Rickenbacker, and you spent a lot of money on getting it and value the guitar, a complete neck replacement can be very expensive (more for acoustics) and sometimes the guitar never quite plays quite the same. Then again, I've seen it cut both ways where a new neck replacement actually improved how the guitar played (but not the player himself) and in other cases the guitar would not stay in tune, had intonation problems that required constant bridge/truss rod adjustments.

So the bottom line is this - if the guitar is unplayable and the truss rod adjustments do not fix the problem then yes, you'll need a new neck but keep in mind genuine replacement parts and a guitar tech's (AND MAKE SURE YOU TALK TO ONE WHO KNOWS WHAT IN THE FUCK THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT) labor rates are also not cheap.

Best of luck to you. And keep your girlfriend away from your guitars.