Epi les paul black beauty.

Robbyk

Robbyk

New member
Ok so I have had this thing for a year now. I love it to death, but it has a fret buzz it seems at the 1 and 2nd fret. I looked at the neck and noticed it looks fairly straight to me. How much of a releif should this be to stop the buzz. I am sure the neck needs adjusted slighty to stop this. It was fine when i first purchased it, but for the last 6 months or so I have noticed this irritating issue. I have to purchase a straight edge to verify this, but with the eye it looks as flat as it could ever be. It could be from the change in strings? I have started to use the signature Gibson Frehley strings. I love the deeper bottom end. Also if i filed the nut for the strings to fit properly, would it be an issue to use different strings in any time in the future without replacing the nut? The guitar is 3 pickup with gold hardware. I restrung the strings over the rear of the stop and it works awesome. I have never had to adjust the truss rod before on anything, so I am a bit concerned about screwing it up. I have always had someone else do this for me. But I will never trust the guys at guitar center to do it. They did it originally.
Thanks to all the epi gurus who can answer this
 
Re: Epi les paul black beauty.

First/second fret sounds more like a nut issue than truss adjustment.

also - you do not need the straight edge. Hold the string down ant the first fret and where the neck meets the body (15th). Use the string AS the straight edge. Still, sound like the nut settled just a little. But - for free, give the truss a little relief. If it works - great.
 
Re: Epi les paul black beauty.

So would that require the nut to be reset and shimmed? If so this would need to be done by a pro?
 
Re: Epi les paul black beauty.

I agree w/Aceman.

I also understand the reluctance to do truss adjustments. I just started to do them recently, after yrs of bringing it somewhere. So far, so good! There are resources on the net to help, and some good books out there (I have the Earlewine book from Stew Mac) that are helpful.

I'll leave it to those resources for the specifics, but a good overall idea to keep in mind is to make your adjustments in small increments. That will lessen the chance of going too far, and messing something up. Good luck!

Re the nut: That would not necessarily require a pro, although I'd be inclined to take in a Paul. I'd want to try my hand at it w/a cheapo axe first, to see if I was able to do an adequate job. Quite possible that I might not do a good job!
 
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Re: Epi les paul black beauty.

I had fret buzz on the low frets on my black beauty, turned out my second and third (or third and fourth I don't remember) frets had started to lift out of their seats a bit. Took it to my guy, he charged me like twenty bucks to fix it.

As for the truss rod - there are a lot of differences of opinion there but I set all my guitars and basses up with no relief on the neck at all. Arrow straight. Feels better and more even across the neck. Of course I have to raise the saddles slightly to compensate but only very slightly. Never had a problem except for the aforementioned frets lifting.


If it does turn out to be the nut you can probably shim it on the bottom yourself with a very thin piece of sheet plastic, or whatever. Nail polish works VERY well to glue nuts in. And the nut should just come right off if you bump it with a rubber mallet.
 
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