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Post by justin on Feb 9, 2022 15:15:13 GMT -5
We've had dry weather lately with RH in the teens to 30% range. My guitars all feel different when this happens, obviously, but some are affected more than others. My acoustic is suffering the most, where a truss rod tweak doesn't fix things like it does for my electrics. During this dry weather I restrung my Taylor 214CE Plus and after I noticed that the G string buzzes in the 1-5 fret region. This is with the relief how I normally have it (maybe 0.010-0.015"). I can loosen the truss rod and the buzz goes away, but a new one appears on the D string higher up the neck. The action also suffers if I add relief. I also accidentally used Elixir phosphor bronze instead of my preferred 80/20 strings. The 80/20 didn't buzz like this, but the weather lately confounds the issue. I've had the door closed in the office/gym/guitar room for 3 days now with a humidifier. It's maintaining 41-42% RH. The string buzz might be getting better, but that could be in my head. I want to give it more time before I start looking onto saddle or fret work, especially since the guitar played well before the string change. I've got my preferred 80/20 strings arriving today... I noticed that the side of the neck below the fretboard is visible in the neck pocket area. I never noticed this before. I think this is new because I've stared at this guitar many times marvelling at the fit and finish. Has the low humidity caused the top to sink down? Anybody here ever notice a Taylor neck peeking through like this? How much time should I give it with the humidifier on before I take any type of action? Would a soundhole humidifier be more efficient?  |
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sirWheat
Wholenote
For a better future, play Stevie Wonder for your children.
Posts: 319
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Post by sirWheat on Feb 10, 2022 5:48:05 GMT -5
It could have moved around, my guitars surely do. That top is likely just barely more than 1/16" thick and made of soft wood so you should expect some movement. It may also just be settling, finding it's destiny. 30% ain't too dry. My D-18 moves around enough to require a saddle change each summer if I don't keep it humidified. I should say that it used to do that; it seems to have settled into its preferred shape at this point.
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Post by justin on Feb 10, 2022 12:17:11 GMT -5
It could have moved around, my guitars surely do. That top is likely just barely more than 1/16" thick and made of soft wood so you should expect some movement. It may also just be settling, finding it's destiny. 30% ain't too dry. My D-18 moves around enough to require a saddle change each summer if I don't keep it humidified. I should say that it used to do that; it seems to have settled into its preferred shape at this point. Thanks. It's now 45% in that room and the buzz is slightly better. I've had this guitar for about two years and it never behaved this badly. I want to rule out a bum set of strings. I bought the pack off a guy on ebay that was selling all kinds of random stuff, pretty much all of it not related to guitar. Got my new strings yesterday and hope to find time to change them out soon. I put a new bone nut on it too as an excercise in nut shaping. I did a pretty good job if I do say so myself. This is unrelated to the buzzing. I also have a new bone saddle that I can install if my problems persist. I read that the bone saddles are not so consistent with the plugged in sound, but that doesn't concern me at all. I was always a little bit scared of using bone and always went with TUSQ, but man... bone is very easy to work with and polishes up so nicely! |
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Post by Peegoo 🏁 on Feb 11, 2022 13:42:30 GMT -5
The area where the neck attaches to the body on any acoustic guitar that's made of wood (even modern bolt-on acoustics) has around 8-10 glue joints. These glue joints bind multiple pieces of wood at various grain orientations.
Any infinitessimal dimensional movement of the wood pieces has a marked effect on the geometry of the guitar because of the distances from the neck joint of the bridge and nut. Acoustic guitars do tend to 'settle' after construction; some take a year or so to do so, but over successive years most all acoustics continue to fold under the constant ~130 lbs of sttring tension.
Generally, this tension results in a bellied top behind the bridge and a caved top between the bridge and the sound hole. This caving pulls the fingerboard extension downward, creating an s-bend in the plane of the frets' tops. That generates a hump in the neck, usually at the point it meets the edge of the body. On most guitars, it's the 14th fret.
The best way to reduce the effects of all this over the long term is to maintain consistent humidity conditions for the guitar. The reason is simple: when humidity is low, the wood shrinks. When it's high, the wood expands. All this causes dimensional changes in the wood, and these repeated cycles begin to make the guitar disassemble itself.
The more consistently humidity is maintained, the better the guitar will play and the longer it will last before needing the attentions of a good tech.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Feb 12, 2022 11:11:58 GMT -5
You wouldn't see wood sinking from dryness at that area of the top unless it was EXTREMELY dry, and if you did, you'd see the cracks running down the side of the neck to the sound hole.
What you're seeing is a slight optic illusion. Taylor's bolt on system means that the fingerboard is inside a rout on the top instead of glued flat. They also put a filler putty around it at the factory, which eventually crusts up and sneaks out, which you can see there.
Your humidity, assuming your hygrometer is accurate, sounds fine.
If you want to look at top sinkage, the best places to look are in front of and in back of the bridge, as well as by the tail block. A little bit of rise behind the bridge and sink in front is normal (that is just deflection - if you don't have any it means your guitar is over built), but if it doesn't look like the two average out, it might be off. Also, the top looks like is drops way down before rising back up behind the bridge like giant dimples, that could be dryness, too. The outline near the tailblock can be visible either with too little or too much humidity - the tailblock will look like it is sticking up out of the top, like an outline under a blanket when it is dry, while it will look like it is trying to rise and escape when it is over humidified. However, you can get "permasink" and if it spent a lot of time at the wrong humidity, many of those deformities might have just stuck.
You can always look at the back, too. Since the back doesn't have string tension and the bracing is more regular, sometimes that can be easier. The tailblock thing also applies here.
If you're still absolutely sure there is something off about how the neck looks, you can either check the bolts yourself or ask someone to do it for you. Taylor (for some reason I don't understand) doesn't cinch them down all the way at the factory (torque wrenches in assembly maybe?) and often if they dry out they can slowly loosen. Without using gorilla strength I can usually get 1/8-1/4 of a turn on a brand new guitar. I've been in the habit of checking those every time I have one on the bench. The heel bolts are 7/16 or 11mm (they're close enough), and the FB extension one is either 3/16" or 5/32.... I don't remember. If the guitar hasn't been dry for any extended time it is probably fine, though. I haven't seen them wiggle loose unless it has obviously been dry.
My guess on the G string buzz is a bad string. The wound G is the most dainty and fussy string, and often when a buzz can't be duplicated on adjacent strings, checking the string is often a good idea. Even a brand new string can be an obnoxious weenie on you.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Feb 12, 2022 11:17:45 GMT -5
I put a new bone nut on it too as an excercise in nut shaping. I did a pretty good job if I do say so myself. This is unrelated to the buzzing. I also have a new bone saddle that I can install if my problems persist. I read that the bone saddles are not so consistent with the plugged in sound, but that doesn't concern me at all. I was always a little bit scared of using bone and always went with TUSQ, but man... bone is very easy to work with and polishes up so nicely! I've heard this claim about bone for a long time, but have never witnessed it. That somehow bone has "dead spots" and pickups don't work....
Marketing hype for TUSQ? Maybe. Or, maybe the harder material makes it harder for some people to get the bottoms flat (at the time the claims were being made, under saddle strips were the main type of pickup in question).
Edited to add that synthetic materials are soft enough that they sometimes bend to conform to the bottom of the saddle slot, while bone will not. So.... a bit of room for slop, I guess.
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Post by hushnel on Feb 13, 2022 20:49:06 GMT -5
I’ve used bone for nuts and saddles, and notice that working it is similar to corian, I’ve used corian for nuts and saddles as well.
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Post by justin on Feb 14, 2022 16:57:57 GMT -5
Thank you funkykikuchiyo. I'm beginning to think that my Taylor didn't suffer too bady from the low humidity event. I probably never actually noticed the wood peeking out from under the fretboard. Also, my 214ce has the laminated Rosewood back and sides so the back is arched without any bracing. I will have a closer look at the top though. I do know that top bulges at the bridge but I have not compared behind to in front. I'd like to have a go at tightening the neck bolts, but I do not want to mess up the factory sticker that covers two of the bolts. I saw a video where a tech re-set a Taylor neck and he said that they apply a new sticker when they get serviced. Plus, I'm not 100% certain that anything shifted. I'll try the new strings first... |
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Feb 14, 2022 19:59:59 GMT -5
Yeah, I remembered you had a laminate back as I was going to send it - I left it for future reference for anyone else with an all solid guitar (I like those 214s more than many of the other Taylors, by the way... great guitars!)
I also noticed in the picture that it looks like you have pretty low action. The lower the action, the less wiggle room for humidity. Small changes will be barely perceptible (and not at all dangerous) with higher action - the lower the action, the more fussy it would be. It could be an optic illusion though - eyeballing a photo isn't the best way to measure string height.
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Post by justin on Feb 15, 2022 12:12:56 GMT -5
The action is pretty low - just how I would want to be ideally. It's actually the factory setup too so I never had to do anything to it. I think it's about 1/16 at the 12th fret on the low E - maybe a touch higher. It's even lower on the high E, which is crazy to me because I set my electrics to 1/16 at the high E (17th fret). So yeah, I definitely understand that this can be a little fussy. I tend to ride on the edge of fret buzziness where everything rings out with moderate attack. When I raise my action to eliminate all buzz even with aggressive playing, my fingers get tripped up more easily. I may evolve with more practice. It's all part of the fun.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Feb 15, 2022 19:08:50 GMT -5
Yeah, that is pretty low. It means that small humidity changes are going to be VERY obvious. If you were somewhere around 3/32" on the Low E, then it could drift back and forth a bit without you noticing.
If you like it low, it doesn't mean you have to change it. It just means you'll have to watch the humidity a bit. The upside is that the action is the canary in the coal mine - you'll know that as long as it is playable, it is okay. You won't have structural issues while it is still playable.
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Post by justin on Feb 17, 2022 12:55:51 GMT -5
I finally got around to installing new 80/20 strings on it. I forgot to mention that I like Custom Light 11-52 because they're as close as I can get to an electric feel while still maintaining a great acoustic tone. I went ahead and put in a new pre-shaped (for Taylor) bone saddle. I had to sand a little off the ends to get it to fit in the slot. The action came out to 5/64 on the bass side and 4/64 on the high side. I'm going to work with it this way for a while because it sounds absolutely fantastic! With about .008-.010" relief (eyeball) I still can get the G to buzz if I dig in at the first fret. I know my preferences for string gauge and action make for a fussy setup, so I think this guitar is dialed in 95%. Maybe I can get the frets looked at someday because I do not have the tools nor experience to do a level and crown job. I should at least wait until after "winter" here in San Diego.
For now, I'm just going to play it! It's never sounded better. I've used the same strings for a while so I think that bone nut changed this guitar for the better. The sound of the bone compared to the Micarta/TUSQ saddles if I drop them on my quartz countertops shows a big difference. The TUSQ makes a duller sound and the bone chimes like a xylophone. Hey, I'm relatively new to this and I get excited about this stuff!
The nut and saddle I installed came as a set. I've got the nut shiny like glass and want to do the saddle too, but I just want to play it right now because it sounds so good. The nut took a lot more work than the saddle. A benefit is that I saved a lot of bone dust for raising nut slots if ever needed. I even used some mixed with superglue on another guitar and it fixed a low slot real nice!
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Post by Peegoo 🏁 on Feb 19, 2022 13:10:14 GMT -5
Outstanding.
Playing a guitar that works well and sounds great is a true pleasure.
Having done the work yourself adds a "whole 'nuther" level of satisfaction to the experience.
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