My guitar won't set after adjustments with thicker strings

[Mathias Eriksson]

Hi all,

This is my first post on this forum so I apologize If I've put this thread in the wrong category.

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So, I have this Dave Navarro SE Custom 24 which came with .09s as usual.
Since I'm more into the "heavier" playing style of music I decided to put .011s on there with a .59 as the low 6th string and downtune the guitar to D/Drop C.

I went to a local guitar tech for all the adjustments, truss rod, bridge (tremolo), nut, intonation etc. But my neck just won't set after two visits to this tech guy. It keeps bending efter a few days, messing with my action and causing some buzz at the lower frets (while playing chords), no problem with open strings. While this is going on, the action is quite high for my liking at the 12th fret and beyond. It won't stay even across the fretboard and stay that way for more than a day or two.

What exactly is causing these problems? I'm thinking about going to another tech within a bigger chain to get their perspective, but I just don't want to spend alot of money on adjustments just to have my neck and action change after a couple of days.

 

[colinkanders]

What's the weather like where you are? In Southwestern Ontario, the temperature and humidity are fluctuating pretty wildly from day to day, which is wreaking havoc on my guitars (causing issues similar to what you describe without changing string gauge). This happens to me twice a year, every year, and I just have to wait for the weather to settle.

 

[Rider1260]

In my experience some guitars take time to settle in after a major change and if you keep chasing your setup it will take longer.
Truss rod adjustment are best taken slow, make an adjustment and give it sometime.
I like to let them sit for a day and recheck everything and fine-tune the adjustment again I also like to adjust the truss rod in the playing position not on a neck rest or horizontal.
If you do have a problem neck ( unlikely ) you have to understand that the truss rod is meant to hold the neck in place, sometimes you have to loosen truss rod and straighten the neck then add truss rod pressure to hold neck at proper relief.
From what I hear sounds like you don't have enough relief and your bridge to high.
If you can show us some pictures we may be able to help more

 

[JJJ]

Take things slow. Make an adjustment, leave it for a day or two, don't make subsequent adjustments while it's settling. Some guitars just aren't as stable for whatever reason. It is possible it's not the neck being upset here, but your bridge. These have a floating vintage style trem right? It's possible that changing gauge has upset it, even after a setup. Maybe the springs are stretching or something

 

[bluenova]

If you do it yourself you won’t owe any tech anything. Put just a hair of relief into the neck so you know it’s not backbowed and adjust saddle height to taste. That should get you really really close to the optimum balance between low action and fret buzz. I find it’s not too much trouble to get 1.25mm to 1.5mm string height at the 12th fret if your frets are fairly level.

 

[Mathias Eriksson]

What's the weather like where you are? In Southwestern Ontario, the temperature and humidity are fluctuating pretty wildly from day to day, which is wreaking havoc on my guitars (causing issues similar to what you describe without changing string gauge). This happens to me twice a year, every year, and I just have to wait for the weather to settle.

That could definitely be some of the issue, I live in Sweden and summer is coming in hot as we speak, some days are crazy warm while other it drops heavily.

In my experience some guitars take time to settle in after a major change and if you keep chasing your setup it will take longer.
Truss rod adjustment are best taken slow, make an adjustment and give it sometime.
I like to let them sit for a day and recheck everything and fine-tune the adjustment again I also like to adjust the truss rod in the playing position not on a neck rest or horizontal.
If you do have a problem neck ( unlikely ) you have to understand that the truss rod is meant to hold the neck in place, sometimes you have to loosen truss rod and straighten the neck then add truss rod pressure to hold neck at proper relief.
From what I hear sounds like you don't have enough relief and your bridge to high.
If you can show us some pictures we may be able to help more

Thanks for the reply! I took some pictures, if you need any angle or detail specifically, please let me know. As you can probably see, the low 6th string is not in place correctly at the bridge due to the thickness of the string, sure that's an issue for the high action on that specific string, especially above the 12th fret, but the main problem still exists for all of them.

Take things slow. Make an adjustment, leave it for a day or two, don't make subsequent adjustments while it's settling. Some guitars just aren't as stable for whatever reason. It is possible it's not the neck being upset here, but your bridge. These have a floating vintage style trem right? It's possible that changing gauge has upset it, even after a setup. Maybe the springs are stretching or something

Thanks for the reply! I was actually on the phone with another store the other day and he did actually mention the springs as a potential problem. That's interesting thought, and I'm surprised the tech guy who did the work never even talked about that.Right aftere first adjustment the guitar felt perfect across the board, but after a few days I did acknowledge the buzz once playing at the lower frets. Told him about that the second time which he confirmed, or said that the neck had moved. So he "fixed it", but then the problem came with the 12th fret and above and the action became too high. And a day later, the buzz was back at the lower parts.

If you do it yourself you won’t owe any tech anything. Put just a hair of relief into the neck so you know it’s not backbowed and adjust saddle height to taste. That should get you really really close to the optimum balance between low action and fret buzz. I find it’s not too much trouble to get 1.25mm to 1.5mm string height at the 12th fret if your frets are fairly level.

Thanks for your reply. I was thinking about trying to do it myself, just do minor changes. But I feel way too inexperience to do that kind of stuff. But then again, If I actually mess something up it can always be fixed I guess.