Unstable Strat Neck!

Does it happen on open strings, does it happen on certain string on fretted notes, if so, where?

What exactly is going on here?
 
Bring it back, let him do it again, and don't leave the shop until it happens again so you can demonstrate.
 
GuitarStv said:
Especially when fingering a minor.
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Both my Carvins have 1pc necks. The full-hog is quartersawn and the full-maple is standard cut.
Neither necks are prone to moving, even with weather changes they barely change at all.
The reason is probably the truss and the rods.

I have other guitars with laminated necks that are much more sensitive to humidity changes than the Carvins are.

My two Ibanez prestige models have laminates and they barely move at all.

IME it's much more about the truss and rods than the neck construction or neck thickness.
 
Could be something simple, could be something major.
But it's hard to give any useful advice without seeing it in person.

I'd explain the situation to your tech - he got it right, it just didn't stay that way.
Hopefully he can figure out what's up, with the guitar right there in front of him.
 
contiContiCONTI said:
How can the neck suddenly be this unstable? Yes there was a temperature change from 18C in the shop to about 5C outside then back to 20 at home. But surely it wouldnt be this drastic?
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contiContiCONTI said:
The truss was tightened during the set-up though, not loosened.
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I'm going to posit an uneducated guess. and maybe Goober can tell me if I'm on to something or not. Wood and metal freeze at different rates. My guess is the truss nearly froze on the way home (or maybe the strings), tightening it further, while the wood did not.

If you don't touch it and don't do anything with it and just let it sit for an hour or two until everything is back to room temperature again, does it go back to being playable like in the shop?
 
nexion218 said:
How did you try it in the shop? Plugged or unplugged? Is the buzz com8ng through the amp? With low action, some acoustic buzz that doesn't come through the amp is OK with electeic guitars. Is it buzzing everywhere? Or in certain spots only? Is the action lower than usual? If younare a violent picker, the action might just be too low for your style of playing... Sorry for the next question, but do you play the same when in a shop? I for example hate trying out guitars in a shop and I consequently play very differntly.
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I played it unplugged and plugged in for about 15-20 minutes and it relly as perfect. Everything was set-up as I would normally expect from a pro set-up. No buzz, through the amp or unplugged. Everything ringing out as it should.

When I got home, as soon as I took the guitar out of the case, it was buzzing like mad (about 20 minutes later). 20C in the house, about 5C outside. Its buzzing just about everywhere but mostly around the 5th fret. Just as if in those 20 minutes, the truss rod tightened itself (I know its not really possible), or the strings just lost a bunch of tension.

I do normally play differently in the shop but this time, since it was the second time going back, I made a consious effort to play the strings hard and play heavy SRV blues type stuff to really test out the set-up. As mentioned, there were no issues in the shop.
 
Actually, one thing that I forgot to mention is that the new strings were different to the usual. I have always played Ernie Ball 11s on this guitar since the day I bought it. The luthier didnt have this string set in stock so he put some SIT 11s on instead. Same gauge, different brand. Could it be possible that these strings stretch out really quickly in the first day or so of mounting them? So the loss of tension curved the neck backwards and created a hump in the middle of the neck? Never used SITs, so not familiar with their behaviour.
 
SIT strings stay in tune pretty well; they're literally named for that. If the neck had bowed due to a string tension issue, tuning back up to pitch should've corrected it fairly quickly.

5° Celsius outdoors is 41° Fahrenheit, not freezing and unlikely to be the cause of lasting problems once the temp had equalized, even if the guitar had been left out in the car overnight.

There's got to be something else going on.
You checked the nut, bridgeplate, and trem for any visible anomalies, right?
I figure if it were something obvious you wouldn't be asking for advice.
 
eclecticsynergy said:
SIT strings stay in tune pretty well; they're literally named for that. If the neck had bowed due to a string tension issue, tuning back up to pitch should've corrected it fairly quickly.

5° Celsius outdoors is 41° Fahrenheit, not freezing and unlikely to be the cause of lasting problems once the temp had equalized, even if the guitar had been left out in the car overnight.

There's got to be something else going on.
You checked the nut, bridgeplate, and trem for any visible anomalies, right?
I figure if it were something obvious you wouldn't be asking for advice.
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Thanks for the reply. Yes, I checked things through quite thoroughly, even with the guitar tech because it seemed so stringe to both of us.

The only thing i noticed was that the bridge was touching the body. I normally have it flat but just ever so slightly raised so that when I use the trem, it doesnt knock against the body. But I cant imagine this affecting the neck stability so much.
 
What's the humidity difference between the shop, outside, and your house? A drastic change in humidity can wreak having on guitar necks. I had done a setup on 3 of mine last week and just a couple days ago I had to readjust because the humidity levels went all over the places from then to now. They're stable now but man, one day playing great, the next, WTF? We've had a messed up weather pattern here in north TX this winter too. Heck, the entire continental US has had messed up weather patterns this winter. I know you're in Scotland and humidity shouldn't be a problem but in the cold, it can drop pretty low.
 
ErikH said:
What's the humidity difference between the shop, outside, and your house? A drastic change in humidity can wreak having on guitar necks. I had done a setup on 3 of mine last week and just a couple days ago I had to readjust because the humidity levels went all over the places from then to now. They're stable now but man, one day playing great, the next, WTF? We've had a messed up weather pattern here in north TX this winter too. Heck, the entire continental US has had messed up weather patterns this winter. I know you're in Scotland and humidity shouldn't be a problem but in the cold, it can drop pretty low.
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Hmmm, I'm in Italy actually (havent updated profile), but I dont think the humidity was particularly drastic. The shop is basically in the same neighbourhood as my house, just a 15-20minute walk away. But at this point I'm thinking the only cause could be the environmental changes. I've been thinking about it quite a lot and keep going over the parts to check for anything unusual but I keep finding nothing. So must be tempertaure or humidity as you suggested, maybe not the best quality of neck too.
 
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