Recently, I was shopping for a 12-string electric guitar and found a great deal on one. A floor model D’Angelico Premier in transparent red. Nice wide neck for my fat fingers and sounds like a dream. I played a Danelectro 12 and had a Fender 12 but found my fingers bumping up against adjacent strings near the nut. In my opinion, 12-strings are at their jangly best when played with open strings e.g. C, G, E. The only problem: fret sprout. Fortunately, I know how to fix this problem. Surprisingly few guitarists realize this is a problem and know it can be remedied easily.
Guitar Problem 1: Fret Sprout
I wrote about the problem of too much moisture from humidity in The Care and Feeding of Your Guitar, June 29, 2020 blog post. This is from the opposite problem – too little moisture.
If you have ever felt like the neck of your guitar has become a saw as you run your hand along the neck, you might be experiencing this issue. I have had several guitars come to me for repair for completely different reasons and I would go ahead and correct this issue for no charge. Customers would invariably call me back to first, thank me for fixing their guitar and second, comment to say they did not know the frets could be fixed. Not cheaply, anyway. I just did it as an added service when I found it.
The problem is this: When a guitar is allowed to dry out over time, the neck shrinks in width and the frets will begin to stick out of the sides of the fretboard. In rare cases, it can push the binding out with them. Ugly and uncomfortable.
How to fix: Get your local guitar tech to file down the ends to be flush with the sides of the neck again. The details are more than I can go into with this blog but the tech should know to file down just enough to avoid damaging the finish – just kiss the edge.
I will be creating a video showing exactly how to do this on my guitar repair YouTube channel, Fast Way Guitar Repairs. Here is an example video: How to Restring a Classical Guitar.
Guitar Problem 2: Buzzing
There are three places that typically cause buzzing:
- Frets
- Nut
- Bridge
Frets
Frets are the easy culprits to find. Play individual notes up the neck and listen for the buzzing or notes fretting out. This can be corrected with a tweak of the truss rod. You can do this yourself and save yourself some money, time and frustration. Go slow as a little tweak can go a long way. Also, realize that you do not want to remove all buzzing as there will always be some when playing hard. That is the nature of the instrument.
Remove all buzzing and you may find your guitar is now unplayable.
Sometimes, how to fix buzzing requires tapping down a loose fret or even filing it down. The worst cases are when the frets are worn and pitted from the strings. This requires what’s called a “fret dress and crowning” or “dress and crown” for short. A friend calls it “Bluegrass wear” as Bluegrass guitarists tend to play in the first few fret positions and wear those down first. It can also be caused by excessive pressure of the string against the frets. The cure? Lighten up, man! You only need to get the string down to the fret. Don’t mash the string to the fretboard. That hurts and de-tunes the notes anyway.
Note: Fret wear can only be cured by an experienced guitar tech. Don’t try this at home!
Bridges and Nuts
Nuts and bridges can be a source of buzzing from incorrectly cut slots or improper string gauge. They are somewhat related. If you have changed string gauges up or down and not adjusted the slots to accommodate, you may have just bought your problem with your new strings.
Strings too small and the string may slop around in the slot and vibrate against the sides. Strings to large and they will not seat properly riding over the slot bottom vibrating against it. How to fix something like this requires simple re-cutting of the slots. Going up in size can also damage the nut and even break it off at the low ‘E’ string. Bassists see this frequently as those are some beefy strings.
Guitar Problem 3: Noise
Finally, how to fix the racket that erupts when you jiggle your cable or adjust the volume.
There are basically two causes for this issue:
- Loose wiring
- Dirty controls and jacks
Wiring problems can come from loose components (jacks and pots) or poor soldering work. Loose parts cause you to twist the part around and eventually weaken or break the wire connection. Check your guitar for loose parts when you change your strings. When you encounter something loose, resist the urge to just finger tighten. Get the right tools and avoid rotating the part while you tighten. Use a dot of Loctite Blue to secure the threads.
Now, you need to re-solder the broken connections. You can learn to solder with the many tutorials on YouTube and elsewhere. Rhett Schull details how he built an amp from scratch in a class. Great way to learn! I learned working at NASA. Good luck trying to get that training 😉
Finally, cleaning controls and jacks. Get yourself a can of Caig DeoxIT D5 and gently spay a small amount into each control. Rotate the pots back and forth several times to get the fluid spread around.
For jacks you will need a cotton swab. Spray some of the DeoxIT onto the swab and rub the contact surfaces well getting the fluid onto the surfaces as completely as possible.
I produced a video going through the repair of a guitar suffering this problem, noisy pots and jacks, that you can view: Gretsch Van Eps Repair.
Finally
You may have noticed the symptoms of the problems described but did not now what caused them nor how to fix them. Most repairs are simple and not expensive from your local guitar tech. Go ahead and clear up these issues and you will be a new musician for it.