Guitar developed dead frets (fretting out) past the 12th?

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Bardagh

Bardagh

Well-known member
Pretty sure this one is going to have to go to the repair shop to sort out but I was curious if anyone has experienced this - note that this is on an acoustic guitar.

I don't know if drying out due to the weather/central heating could do this or what but I recently discovered my relatively new Guild D-20 is fretting out completely on the lower 4 strings between the 12th and 15th frets. What I mean is from the 13th fret until the 15th it just *plinks* and to the extent a note rings out, it is the note of the 15th fret. Obviously this means in this area of the fretboard the 15th fret is somehow sticking up too high but it has not popped up out of the board or anything like that.

I'm having trouble figuring out how this kind of problem could just appear like this, like how could 75% of the fretboard in this area end up too low or the 15th fret area in particular end up too high out of the blue? The fact that this had coincided with winter and the heat coming on in the house is a conspicuous correlation.
 
It's due to the rest of the neck moving from the weather run a humidifier in the room a few days and se if it improves or adjust the truss rod.
 
creep66 said:
It's due to the rest of the neck moving from the weather run a humidifier in the room a few days and se if it improves or adjust the truss rod.
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It would seem the truss rod couldn’t do much at that point on the board to me, relief is generally good in that 7th fret region. The case for the guitar has one of those humidifying sponge things I just wasn’t keeping it in the case, but I’ve soaked it and put the guitar in this morning. Not sure if that is going to do enough.
 
Bardagh said:
It would seem the truss rod couldn’t do much at that point on the board to me, relief is generally good in that 7th fret region. The case for the guitar has one of those humidifying sponge things I just wasn’t keeping it in the case, but I’ve soaked it and put the guitar in this morning. Not sure if that is going to do enough.
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Leave it in the case a few days before you take it to get looked at. Its dried out.
 
You shouldn’t be soaking anything that absorbs water in the air. You should throw that away before you cause a mold issue and have bigger problems on your hands.

Your neck needs relief added and the bridge or trem should be raised.
 
glpg80 said:
You shouldn’t be soaking anything that absorbs water in the air. You should throw that away before you cause a mold issue and have bigger problems on your hands.

Your neck needs relief added and the bridge or trem should be raised.
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It’s an acoustic though, bridge adjustments are right out. How can relief from the truss rod affect frets that are at/past the rod? Serious question, not being snide.
 
creep66 said:
Leave it in the case a few days before you take it to get looked at. Its dried out.
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I hope that’s the case, I love how this guitar plays and sounds otherwise and was about to start recording with it.
 
Bardagh said:
It’s an acoustic though, bridge adjustments are right out. How can relief from the truss rod affect frets that are at/past the rod? Serious question, not being snide.
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You can still adjust the bridge with the plastic saddle height but you’ll need a luthier to cut/size a new one. Too high of action is easier to fix than too low/not enough relief.

Relief can be added by adjusting the truss rod or by shimming the neck to get the proper angle. Since it’s acoustic you’re limited in both.
 
Hopefully you can correct with a truss rod adjustment. Otherwise, a bit of a destructive fret level might be necessary.
 
Bardagh said:
It’s an acoustic though, bridge adjustments are right out. How can relief from the truss rod affect frets that are at/past the rod? Serious question, not being snide.
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The truss rod is designed to affect the relief along the entire length of the neck... from the first fret near the nut... to the last near the bridge.

There is an issue with the neck. Maybe a bad truss rod (non-functional) or a twisted neck... that's why all frets past a certain point are affected. If you've not troubleshot a similar issue in the past, seek out a well recommended luthier in your area. Also could be two or more raised frets as well, but most likely there is an issue with the neck.

The issue is with the neck relief specifically... and from your description, you need to add more relief. That's why the strings are fretting out.
 
That humidifier in the Guild case is pretty good for maintaining humidity {have one with my 512} but it sounds like you may need more than that. I would absolutely give it a few days to a week. You can get some Boveda gel packs to put in the case with the guitar and leave it closed and hopefully that will help. Definitely dont touch the bridge saddle until you guitar has been humidified. I get what your saying about adjustment above the rod though, that why it really sounds like a humidity issue.

My background on humidity issues has been extensive as I had a Breedlove Masterclass 12 string that basically fell apart because of humidity. Never had an issue in my house with any acoustic guitar until that one. I eventually worked something out with Breedlove. I had the humidity in the case at 65% and still the back and sides were shrinking. Turns out I wasnt the only one with issues though. Shame cause it was a great sounding guitar. Good luck!
 
phil b said:
That humidifier in the Guild case is pretty good for maintaining humidity {have one with my 512} but it sounds like you may need more than that. I would absolutely give it a few days to a week. You can get some Boveda gel packs to put in the case with the guitar and leave it closed and hopefully that will help. Definitely dont touch the bridge saddle until you guitar has been humidified. I get what your saying about adjustment above the rod though, that why it really sounds like a humidity issue.

My background on humidity issues has been extensive as I had a Breedlove Masterclass 12 string that basically fell apart because of humidity. Never had an issue in my house with any acoustic guitar until that one. I eventually worked something out with Breedlove. I had the humidity in the case at 65% and still the back and sides were shrinking. Turns out I wasnt the only one with issues though. Shame cause it was a great sounding guitar. Good luck!
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Thanks for the input man. I had no idea about these Boveda packs, pretty interesting. I see they offer them in a variety of target humidity levels, from 49%-72%. Do you have any idea what would be a good one to go with considering this is an all mahogany guitar w/rosewood board and satin nitro finish?
 
lol nevermind, I thought those humidity levels seemed nuts. Looks like they only intend the 49% one for musical instruments.
 
The truss rod doesn't adjust the whole neck...only the middle. The stuff way up high on the fretboard is very much affected by truss rod adjustments but that's because those truss rod adjustments end up moving the nut relative to the butt end of the neck. So you have to raise/lower the saddles to compensate.

From the point where the neck meets the body, the neck is pretty much fixed. The strings want to bend the neck forward in a curve (from the headstock) and the truss rod counters that by 'pulling it back'.

Humidity can be a huge deal with acoustics as I learned last year. I went out and got hygrometers. room humidifiers, and case humidifiers.
 
Also @Bardagh, as I said I got hygrometers and room humidifiers. This past cold snap when it was in single digit temps here in north Georgia...my room humidifiers could not keep up. It still got down to 30% at 68* F (the temp matters) even running one full blast all day in the same room. I can only imagine how dry it gets without running a humidifier when it's that cold outside.
 
Bardagh said:
lol nevermind, I thought those humidity levels seemed nuts. Looks like they only intend the 49% one for musical instruments.
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Yea, the 49% is recommended for guitar. I had mine way up high as per the tech recommendation cause the damn guitar was too dry at 50%
I also went out and got a hygrometer and room room humidifiers like Spiderwars did. Martin and Breedlove both recommended those Boveda packs and I have never had any instance of leaking. So far so good.
 
Your guitar has dried out. Get a humidifier for your house and a hygrometer to know where the humidity level is. 40 to 60% is the happy place.
When the air dries out, whatever moisture is around will try to fill the void. Moisture in the wood will get drawn out. When that happens the sodes of the body will shrink. The bridge being attached to the body top as well as the end of the fretboard will come down with the sides making the strings get closer and closer to the fretboard. Sight down the neck from the nut to the bridge and you will see the end of the fretboard diving down.
Get a good sized room humidifier and run it. It may take awhile to cone back around…we have a humidifier on our furnace plus a big room humidifier downstairs and another upstairs…
 
I had to order a digital hygrometer because none of the department stores or hardware stores around here had any in stock, but I have one of those and the humidifier packs coming. I set up a humidifier down here but don't want to run it nonstop without being able to read the humidity levels. It's warmed up here in North GA considerably the past few days and it's been misty and rainy.

Just from keeping the guitar in the case with the humicase sponge pretty wet for the past day or so, things have already improved. Only the 5th and 6th strings are totally fretting out and just at the 14th fret now. I know it suddenly got crazy dry on the main floor of our house because the boards of our wood floors have visibly shrunk. My studio area is in the basement though where we have vinyl plank flooring so I have no other indication of how dry it is down here right now.

I have one other acoustic that seems unaffected but its a Takamine that has maple neck, sides and back and a spruce top and its all polycoated. The Guild sounds and plays about a 100 times better though so I need that sucker.
 
@Bardagh if you have to take it somewhere for work; Maple Street in downtown ATL is pretty good for acoustic guitar work. Or you could take a couple very short road trips to Nashville. I have a guitar at Glaser Instruments right now getting work done. Saw the Tom Bukovac show the day I dropped it off...I'll see something cool when I pick it up.
 
Bardagh said:
I had to order a digital hygrometer because none of the department stores or hardware stores around here had any in stock, but I have one of those and the humidifier packs coming. I set up a humidifier down here but don't want to run it nonstop without being able to read the humidity levels. It's warmed up here in North GA considerably the past few days and it's been misty and rainy.

Just from keeping the guitar in the case with the humicase sponge pretty wet for the past day or so, things have already improved. Only the 5th and 6th strings are totally fretting out and just at the 14th fret now. I know it suddenly got crazy dry on the main floor of our house because the boards of our wood floors have visibly shrunk. My studio area is in the basement though where we have vinyl plank flooring so I have no other indication of how dry it is down here right now.

I have one other acoustic that seems unaffected but its a Takamine that has maple neck, sides and back and a spruce top and its all polycoated. The Guild sounds and plays about a 100 times better though so I need that sucker.
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All our humidifiers have the ability to set what percent they can be set to and also will read what the level is… we just set them to 45% and let them run. You won’t hurt anything letting them run. It has warmed up and is rainy here in Ohio too, was brutal for a week or so.
 
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