Mystery of the Flexible Neck

[crunchee]

I was visiting friends not long ago, I was invited to play a Epiphone SG set neck copy that they'd had for a few years. They said that they were having tuning problems with it. I started playing it while sitting, minus a strap, and I DID notice something funny about the tuning...when the guitar was perfectly horizontal with minimal pressure on the neck, it played and sounded fine. When I raised the neck up, putting mild pressure on the neck to raise it with my hand in the 'cowboy chord' area (no more pressure than a mild to moderate handshake, pressure wise, in order to shift the guitar's position--definitely NOT Pete Townsend style vibrato), the strings went mildly but audibly flat. With mild back pressure (pulling back towards me) to the neck in this area, I could get the strings to go mildly but audibly sharp. When I let go of the neck and strummed open strings, the tuning seemed back to normal. Of course, the higher up on the neck I went (nearer the neck joint), the less this occured to the point where it didn't happen at all. Again, when I played with as little as possible pressure on the back of the neck and on the fretboard in the 'cowboy chord area with no leverage, it seemed to keep in tune fine.

Everything seemed to be 'right' about the guitar, structurally speaking...there was no cracking to the finish around the neck/body joint, the joint seemed solid, the neck looked straight and the truss rod worked fine (I checked), and the tuners seemed to work fine. The neck profile was slim but I wouldn't call it shredder thin. The neck appeared to me to be mahogany or a mahogany-type wood, not maple, and had the usual rosewood fretboard. I'm not sure about the country of manufacture of the guitar. The really weird thing is how LITTLE effort it seemed to take to do this, on this particular guitar, to make this happen...without really trying to. This is a question that has been bugging me ever since I encountered it, and haven't heard of anybody else running into it. It's a problem I haven't run into with other guitars, but it makes me wonder if I should switch to maple necks. So, what's going on here? Maybe I don't know my own strength.

[murkat]

When at the custom shop, Pro shop,

and some one was or wanted to pick out a "good"

SG, double cut, DC special, V, Explorer,

And I was in charge to pull some,

First thing I would do.

Plug it in, amplify, body sitting on bench,

Lifting the neck at head stock,

jerking it up and down and listening....

Hearing how good or bad the pitch would fluctuate.....

There was a lot of bad ones....

[crunchee]

Thanks, murcat! Wow, that's good to know!

So, now I'm curious...

Does age, and the length of time that a guitar has had strings on under tension, affect the amount of 'flex'? In other words, can 'flex' get progressively worse with continued, steady stress...kinda like metal fatigue, except with wood? Do heavier gauge strings/higher tension make a neck MORE prone to flex, over time...again, getting progressively worse over time, except more quickly? I'm not too worried about USA Hamers, with the three-piece 'stressed' neck construction, though they can probably be made to flex with effort. Not a habit I'm into!

Somebody once told me that 'wood does what wood wants to do', regardless of the application, and that each chunk of wood is a bit different. I guess so!

[murkat]

Thanks, murcat! Wow, that's good to know!

Somebody once told me that 'wood does what wood wants to do', regardless of the application, and that each chunk of wood is a bit different. I guess so!

that pretty much sums it up right there.

[crunchee]

Thanks again, murcat! Much appreciated!

A variation of a previous question:

Will heaver strings make a neck LESS likely to flex, at least in the short term; since there is constant pull on the neck, and bigger gauges mean more pull, and more pull could possibly mean more stability? In other words, would the neck be less prone to be affected by outside forces, depending on the amount of force already applied?

Edeted fur grammaticle eros.

[murkat]

^ doubt it. But, to the first quote.....

You could always try and see what happens....

[crunchee]

^ doubt it. But, to the first quote.....

You could always try and see what happens....

Thanks, murcat! I'll pass the suggestion along, and hopefully they'll tell me the results reasonably soon.

In the meantime, it looks like other people found similar neck issues with their Epiphones...and some Gibsons...and maple necked Squier CVs:

http://forum.gibson.com/index.php?/topic/3...your-g400-neck/

http://www.seymourduncan.com/forum/showthread.php?t=168019

http://www.strat-talk.com/forum/squier-str...x-new-cv50.html

From the Internet discussions, US Masters gets mentioned now and then for their reinforced necks. Can anybody who owns one of those (maybe the Dean RIs they do/did are reinforced?) comment on them? Of course, has anybody else run into this situation? On ANY guitar?

[gorch]

Thanks, murcat! Wow, that's good to know!

Somebody once told me that 'wood does what wood wants to do', regardless of the application, and that each chunk of wood is a bit different. I guess so!

that pretty much sums it up right there.

My statement would have been that regardless of industrialization, wood is still a nature product.

[a.bandini]

I bought a 335 "Pro" sunburst in 1980 that had a flexible neck. I was too young and overawed in the store to realize that when I bought it, but later, I found that if I was using a strap and plucked a string and then rotated my body without my hand on the guitar's neck I could hear the pitch change. This is when Gibson was selling guitars with "Second" stamped in the back of the headstock. I've since played two of those and could find nothing wrong, but that 335 certainly deserved to be labeled "Second" or "third". Too bad, it was pretty.

[burningyen]

You don't want a ridiculously soft neck, which has obvious problems, but you don't want an overly stiff neck either, for tone reasons.

[carfish7]

Hamers are not immune. My Special FM does this to an extent. Or maybe I'm just too ham-fisted and need to work on my technique. Refine the fury, so to speak.

Had a mid-sities SG with a deeply shaved neck. That thing would bend if you breathed on it. I could easily drop the pitch a whole-step by pushing on the headstock.

[mc2]

We had a similar problem with an early Ibanez first run JEM. The thing would NOT stay in tune when to pitch and played.

After MANY trips back to the dealer and claimed "fixes" to it (pulled/reattached neck/swapped Floyd/swapped tuners)...it did the same thing and the dealer finally took it back. Told my guitarist that it could be traded for ANY guitar in the store. IRONICALLY....traded it for the NOS snakeskin, setneck Chapparal with the Jackson sharkfin inlays. At the time (1988) close to a $4,000 axe, when we called Hamer to ask about it (was a special order that the buyer never paid the store for.) Talk about a score!

Anyway....almost 10 years later I was at the Ibanez/Hoshino factory in PA because I was writing their annual guitar catalog for them and they'd insisted I come down to check out the new axes in person to get a feel for them.

I told them about the JEM problem we had and, right away, they owned up to a run of bad necks early one that had wood that was too soft and would not hold tune.

[Armitage]

I had an old El Degas SG in the 70's and it was the same. If you turned the guitar face up, the strings would fret out completely.

[Rocktuna]

I bought a used Firebird V online and discovered why the original owner got rid of it. Super flex neck, I bet a good fart could drop it a tone and a half. Luckily the dealer let me return it and I only paid return shipping.

I would have though that a 5 piece neck through would be stiff.

Yee Haw post 1000.

Only took about 10 years

[formula73]

I had an Electra Outlaw that did this to a minor extent. I always figured it was because the neck pickup was right against the end of the neck and they'd scooped sooo much material out to make the joint fast.

[Steve Haynie]

I had a 1982 Dean ML with a flexible neck problem like what is described here.

[daa2202]

My '79 Hamer Sunburst does this to some degree. That guitar was made before Hamer went to the "stressed neck" design. My 2008 Studio Custom (with the same basic body/neck design) is rock solid.

[crunchee]

Status report on the SG: I had emailed my friends/the owners of the SG about putting heavier strings on it, to see if that would 'stabilize' the neck. I went by and checked it out today, they'd switched from the original strings (probably .009-.042) to a .010-.046 set, and they liked the result. It DID seem to make a difference, the playing action and the neck definitely feel stiffer, there is still some flex to the neck but not quite as extreme (from what I can remember, anyway), and any external force seems not to throw the tuning quite as badly out of whack. The problem is still there but our consensus is that the heavier strings seem to make the guitar a bit more playable and liveable even with the neck flex, as compared to a 'seasick' sounding detuning which we did easily before.

I dunno if a .011-.052 set would cure the flex, that would probably mean having to widen the nut string slots and a full saddle adjustment/intonation...and that's a lot of stress on a SG neck too, I'd think. They told me that they had to tighten the truss rod by a quarter turn, but that was all they did adjustment-wise. But what else can ya do with a inexpensive guitar? If it was worth bucks, then it might be a thought to remove the fretboard and install some carbon fiber rods to lend some stiffness...provided you could find a luthier willing to do that...but that is just a guess. Out of curiosity, does anybody know of someone ever performing this kind of 'operation', or something similar? Or is replacing the neck the most practical answer?

Anyhoo, if anybody decides to string a guitar with a heavier gauge string or has done so in the past, especially to one with a similar flexible neck, please let me know about the results!

[gorch]

... But what else can ya do with a inexpensive guitar? ...

Sell it! There is still wood underneath the lacquer and mother nature does not deliver industry grade perfect quality with any tree. Sometimes it just doesn't fit. My assumption is that you will never be fully happy with this guitar. As cheap Asian manufacture lines do not take care for any individual item as it would be custom made, there will sometimes be a guitar that's more sensible than others. For sure, I assume there would be another guitar of the same model and color on the market that could be found and being easier to set up and play.

Don't you think?

[crunchee]

... But what else can ya do with a inexpensive guitar? ...

Sell it! There is still wood underneath the lacquer and mother nature does not deliver industry grade perfect quality with any tree. Sometimes it just doesn't fit. My assumption is that you will never be fully happy with this guitar. As cheap Asian manufacture lines do not take care for any individual item as it would be custom made, there will sometimes be a guitar that's more sensible than others. For sure, I assume there would be another guitar of the same model and color on the market that could be found and being easier to set up and play.

Don't you think?

I suppose...if it were mine. But A. It isn't. I'm not a SG guy, and B. I'm just helping out a family friend. This particular problem got me wondering about ALL guitars. I did suggest at the beginning that he do a trade in or sell it, but he's stubborn (it took me awhile to convince him just to change strings), and he likes THIS guitar, he's not really 'muso' to begin with either, one guitar and one cheesy old Peavey solid state student sized amp does him fine. I think he got the set at a local yard sale. He IS frugal, more so than me!

[tomteriffic]

Do something like this to it:

If that doesn't work, try this: