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Upbow on my guitar neck
I have a low cost import guitar, my Donner Rising G1. It started out well adjusted but now after the summer humidity and much dryness this winter I could clearly detect a problem in the neck. I did a little YT research and diagnosed my neck has an upbow and needed a truss rod adjustment. I slowly adjusted my truss rod and it looks like the bow is gone but I’ve got some buzzing on the upper (G, B and E) strings. I think I need to raise the strings at the nut, because the action on those strings has become so low.
Have any of you ever tinkered with things like this? If it were and expensive guitar I would have paid to luthier to fix it, but I want to learn how to do my own setups anyways and it’s pretty much a “BIC” guitar (=disposable) anyways.
I’ve heard that you should replace your plastic nut with a bone nut.
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28 Replies
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Hey Pete,
It isn’t that hard to replace a nut. Buy some bone blanks and don’t be in a hurry to complete this repair.
i have every tool know to the Guitar lords that i need to do repairs so I can us one of my sanders to shape and fine tune the nut width and lengths
1. make sure your new nut is a smidgen taller than the existing nut. File or sand to height.
2.. File or use a Japanese Saw or hack saw to cut it down to get the right length and make sure that it fits snuggly into the nut slot. Sand it if it is too thic for the slot. hand sanding will take you a long time but is good for learning patience, yeah, right….
Line it up, back to back with your existing nut and pencil mark the string locations.
I have couple of sets of slot files made for guitar work and would slot each string location a little higher than I will need and put it in the slot and string it up and slowly adjust each string to the proper height. You can also buy bone powder to fill in slots if you file to deeply.
If you buy an tools like the needed files look them up on StewMac but buy them from Amazon as StewMac charges a huge shipping fee.
I can’t remember the name of the other company on Amazon that sells guitar tools and parts but you will find them located on Amazon under guitar tools or parts. Good luck and know that you will never have to pay a guitar tech for this repair again. Plus I find the repairs fun to do.
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I knew it would be you @jorgemac , who would answer right away! Thanks for your encouragement, I’ve been a pretty handy guy my entire life but only started my guitar journey at 64, so your input is much appreciated! I have purchased a few tools but I’m not well equipped yet.
When you say blank, are you suggesting unslotted too or pre-slotted?
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Huh, never thought about pre slotted as I always use a blank when I make a new Nut for one of my guitars. If you could find a pre slotted with the same nut measurements you could use that but each guitar has it own nut slot thickness and string separation variances If you order one smaller than the current neck width it won’t work but a longer one can be cut down as long as the string speration slotes aren’t already cut into it. So be careful with that. If it is thicker you can always sand or file it down to fit. What is the nut size? 1 & 3/4 or smaller? Just measure the current nut and go from there.
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When I 1st starting doing my own repairs I purchased Dan Erlewine’s Guitar repair book on StewMac. They probably Have a video on there site just for this repair That you could check out. In the 90’s there wasn’t the same amount of internet help that there is today.
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Looked on StewMac and found this, check it out.
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While I’m waiting on nut files, I tried sliding a spacer under the original nut. That doesn’t resolve the issue, so this is what I’m thinking:
the saddle needs to be raised instead of the nut.
Now that checking again it seems the 15th fret is somehow raised, and that seems to be causing all these weird problems.
Evaluating again the 15th fret is very high. Would you recommend filing it down?
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Ughh StewMac nut file set costs $138! That’s nearly the price of the guitar I’m fixing. Might have go for a lower grade set.
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That is a strange place to have 1 high fret.
Just tweak your truss rod a smigen more to make sure that is the problem. If that cures the problem, then put your truss rod back where you had it and take a triangle file and slowly remove just a touch of that fret. you have to be careful with inexpensive guitar neck adjustments . you take too much off of the fret and the 16th fret will start buzzing and you will end up chasing the problem all the way to the last fret on the fret board.
You can buy cheaper files on amazon or go to the Guitar Nomad site and you can get a cheaper set. Again the Amazon feature of free shipping might be where you want to buy the files.
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A cheap guitar is the one to practice on. The most important tool for checking which fret is actually too high is called a Fret Rocker. It is small straightedge that you use to check each fret or a series of frets. It is about $30 and was on of the 1st tools that I bought when I first got the guitar repair bug and It was about $15 way back when.
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Yeah, I just ordered a fret rocker after watching some videos on the subject. I had been using a my Action Ruler to check the frets and it works somewhat. But you want a proper Rocker with 5 different length sides so you can check 3 frets at a time all the way up the neck. I also ordered feeler gauges (0.002″) so I can test for raised frets.
Yes I agree, it’s good to practice these things on a cheap guitar so that when I have a more valuable one I will have honed my luthier skills.
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On cheaper instruments the 1st fret on the guitar body seems to be the one that causes most of the trouble. A good 24″ straight edge is a good way to check for overall fret issues if you have the neck adjustments perfectly straight. This gives you an over idea of where problems can exist. Then your fret rocker can zero in on which frets are causing the most problems.
Like you said if you raise the bridge saddle it can overcome those issues but it is harder to fret. For every 16th of an inch that you raise the saddle will raise the string action, at the 12th fret a 32nd of an inch or which ever amount you raise the saddle height equals half of that height higher at the 12th fret.
Also if the frets weren’t dressed properly to begin with you can have one part of the fret too high and all of the other string positions on that fret perfect.
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Just my unprofessional opinion here as I’ve been down this road. On an inexpensive guitar, changing from a plastic to a bone nut may make very little difference. You may put in a lot of time and expense and not get the results you were expecting. Working on guitars can be very challenging, so be sure you’re up for the task. Just listening to the comments that jorgemac says, tells me he’s very experienced and confident in his knowledge and skills. I personally love doing basic work on my instruments, and do think it is a valuable skill to learn. Good luck with your repairs.
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Thanks @Skyman911 for your concern. I am up to the task, I’ve been handy since I was a teenager building various things out of wood or leather as I was growing up. I worked as a handyman in my parent’s motel from age 16 until about 24 as well as maintaining my cars until they started making them where you needed specialized tools just to change light bulbs. I’ve also built entire houses as a real estate investor here in Florida.
I’m really just trying to setup my guitar for the experience. I want to learn how to setup a guitar myself, probably going to build one eventually. So I need some tools and the proper hardware and I’m retired so I have time to watch videos.
Mine being a low end unit, I don’t have to be concerned about ruining anything. It has already served me well as my learner acoustic. I do have another one to play that used to be my wife’s. Even before the onset of arthritis a few years ago, she had not played her guitar since 1989. It’s a Takamine F-340 from the mid 70s, a nice but full size guitar lacking a cutout. For everyday playing I just prefer my little cheap Rising G1 so I’m going to see if I can bring her back. If not, I’ll have acquired some helpful luthier tools and learned a few things in the process so it’s still gain.
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Update: it has taken me a while to attack the guitar nut and the high frets because my Mom (who is 93) has had a lot of health issues and I’ve been shuttling her around to various appointments.
The nut fabrication worked out quite well. I didn’t buy the premium nut files so it was a slow process with the cheap ones but it’s very functional and I learned the process so that’s a win. I was able to correct a lot of the anomalies due to the 2 high frets with a fret hammer, but fixing this completely is going to require removing some metal off the 16th fret and I’m still not equipped to do this properly and safely.
Mostly I’m pleased that I’m overcoming my reluctance to work on my guitar at this level. Glad that I have sort of a beater to use as my guinea pig.
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So Cool, You will be a complete guitar junky soon. There is no cure for it…
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You’re not kidding, I’m hooked! I’ve got the action set up better than it ever has been.
I keep ordering more stuff and now I have buy a nice tool bag to put it all in. As soon as everything comes in I can get that last pesky fret taken care of and ’99’ (that’s what I call her) should be A-okay.
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Good luck with your mom.
I moved back from Hawaii to spend 3 enjoyable years with my mother before she left us at 95 years old. I wouldn’t change a thing of those last years, much laughter, love and simply enjoying each other.
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I’ve had Mom living with me since ’07. Only the last year has been difficult, before that she was still pretty mobile. She was still driving until 2019. Sadly she’s been falling apart physically for a while and now mentally as well. It’s not Alzheimer’s, she’s not doing anything too crazy and still knows everybody (but forgetting a lot of their names) and I’m having to take control of her meds because she can’t anymore.
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Pete, just read your post regarding getting hooked on guitar repairs. just a warning for you.
I have a 5 foot tall, 15 drawer, Costco tool chest that has almost nothing but but guitar stuff in it, Tools, pickups, guitar necks and electric bodies, fret wire, guitar tuners, bone nuts, saddles acoustic and electric bridges, fret wire and tools to install them, abalone marker dots , neck head plates of assorted woods, pick guards. Plus 4 smaller tool boxes with more guitar tools. Of course it has taken me 30 years to accumulate this stuff and I just hope all of it finds a decent home when I’ve turned into dust in the wind…
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@jorgemac – I’m ROFL! Warning received! I’ll try to keep my habit in check. So far I’ve done pretty well. Since February of ’24 I have bought only 3 guitars. Actually 2 because I returned 1 of them and bought another. I have a third because my wife already owned an acoustic. I also bought a mandolin.
You started such a long time ago. I have decades of missed opportunity to do the thing that I love. It’s peculiar, because I’ve always loved guitar playing, was drawn to it. For unknown reasons I never started to learn how to play myself. Most songs that I listened to in my youth I typically didn’t remember any of the words to because I didn’t care and wasn’t listening to the lyrics. I was sucked in by the music and the guitar especially.
With all that gear, did you ever do setups for other people? (for money?)
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I thought about doing guitar set ups, but just helped friend out. Now that i am retired i think about starting to do it a couple of days a week but it is just a thought currently. I would have organize my garage which looks like Noah’s Ark after the flood, or organize my spare extra room which looks like the ruminants of the land after the flood. …
It is kind of nice to wake up each morning and not have my day all planned out for me like when I worked for a living.
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It sounds like you are very experienced, have all the tools and would be good at it! I have almost no experience and I’m giving it some thought.
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Actually think it is fun. My guide is the Dan Erlewine Guitar player repair book copy of 1994 in my copy. there is a heck of a lot of information on your tube now. There wasn’t much info back then so I learned through my mistakes on my own instruments. I’ve hand built 20 guitars, 10 electric, 10 acoustic so that taught me a heck of a lot. There were only about 3 online places to buy tools and they all were overpriced as most were made by special order as there were not that many of us customers interested in specialty guitar building tools. They are still way over priced, I think. I think the 1st set of nut files were good quality but were over $50 even back then. I still have them and they are still great tools. Even learning to sharpen chisels was a learning experience. No teachers and no online instructions.
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