Fixing neck bow?

[mirflee]

Hey all,

I've been bringing my LTD Deluxe EC-1000T around alot on my travels and when I played it during band practice, the necks feels weird and harder to play on especially higher past the 12th fret. I googled, did the usual checkups and found out the neck has close to no relief at all (finger on 1st/15th fret thingy). It to look like the relief gets higher as you get close to the end of the neck. I've got .013, .017, .026, .036, .046, .062 slapped on them set on Dropped B.

I'm not too sure whether it's having an 'up-bow' or if it's too straight? How do I check for sure?

I know that if it's having an 'up-bow', a simple truss rod adjustment would work and if it's too straight, I'll just adjust the bridge to a lower action.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Shinozoku]

Look down the headstock toward the body. What do you see?

 

[mirflee]

Sure but what am looking for here man?

http://imgur.com/T70B8DT

 

[Clockwork]

Don't eyeball it, lay a straight edge across the neck, that should make it pretty visible where the relief is.

Something like this is ideal but you can make a regular metal straight edge work.
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Measuring_tools/Notched_Straight_Edge.html

 

[Plendakor]

To "eyeball" it you would have to look at the sides of the nut and kinda check the binding all the way accross the neck to the pick-ups. The best way is to use a capo at the 1st fret then fret the 17th one so that the string creates a ruler. Then see if you can tap the 8th fret which is supposed to be half the distance between the capo and the fretted 17th. To have a precise setup you can use feeler gauges and verify the gap between the fret and the bottom of the string at the 8th fret (while still fretting the 17th and having the capo at the 1st fret). A safe gap is something around 0.012" which is a little less than what they set up at the factory. They do it by eye, they don't go anal about it since it's gonna move anyway depending of the climate where the guitar ends up. I'm not a reference, but I set mine to 0.008" a couple of times a year due to our extreme 4 seasons here. This is a feeler gauge : [ame="http://www.amazon.ca/25025-26-Blade-Master-Feeler-Gauge/dp/B000BYGIR4"]LINK[/ame].

 

[mirflee]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, a trip to the tech would have me drive down close to 8 hours unfortunately.

I did more research and came to a few conclusions. I know for sure that the neck's not warped/twisted. It's a fairly brand new guitar and before all the travelling of sorts, it plays mighty fine. It's also weird that I think there's absolutely no relief at all meaning that its dead straight? Did the fret measurements and stuff.

It also feels like the strings are pulling the neck more forward than back.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Don't eyeball it, lay a straight edge across the neck, that should make it pretty visible where the relief is.

Something like this is ideal but you can make a regular metal straight edge work.
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Measuring_tools/Notched_Straight_Edge.html

$80 for a straightedge with some notches cut out of it?!?!

 

[Clockwork]

$80 for a straightedge with some notches cut out of it?!?!

I see you are not familiar with stewmac haha.

 

[Plendakor]

^stewmac is pricy but hey, there's that old saying "always use the right tool for the job" or something. They got some stuff to drool over.
Btw for 80$ you can buy a straight edge + a Dremel and make your own lol

fanir it's quite possible that it's fully straight and needs a little bit of bow.
It works just like the cap on a Pepsi bottle, turn left to loose and right to tighten. Of course the looser, the more "v" the neck will be. Too tight it gets "^". Check how they do it, quite carelessly, when setuping your LTD :

Got an LTD myself recently (H-1007), awful setup but damn a great guitar.

 

[abaga129]

^
Damn that guitar is gorgeous.