Adjustments

There are Manouche guitars made by luthiers and others made in factories. Technical problems are seldom with hand-made guitars, but with factory guitars, they are quite common and adjustments may be necessary. The most widespreads problems I know of are :

1. Frets that are aligned on a flat surface
2. String buzz over frets in the middle of the neck (around the 12th fret)
3. "Saucepan" noise on cheap guitars.

Let's see what we can do for some of these problems.

Checking the fret layer before buying

Usually, before buying a guitar, you should always check that the fret layer is really flat. Take the guitar by the body, fretboard up. If the frets are not aligned, this is a negative point, not necessarily redhibitory but that can still impair playing. In order to check, you should look on each side of the neck just like on the following pictures of my Rudy Larna (a cheap factory guitar).

On the right side view, you can see that the neck is fine and that the fret layer is flat, which leads me to believe that there will not be any high string buzzing problem, if the strings are parallel to that plan of course (we'll talk about this right after).

However, on the left side view, it does not look so good: the neck is bent around the 14th fret and the fret plan is not flat. I'll have troubles with low strings buzzing when fretting in that area. And that is the case. My Rudy Larna, as I bought it, is a true "saucepan".

Adjusting the truss-rod

The truss-rod is a metal rod integrated to the neck, on its full length, and that offers resistance against the pressure exerted by the strings. Often, this rod can be adjusted to modify the angle of the neck. For guitars that come equipped with a truss-rod (not all of them are), the adjustment of the truss-rod helps rectifying the angle of the neck which in turn can make the string more parallel to the frets plan. But be careful, this is a sensible operation. This adjustment can crack or break the neck if you rectify too much. It's generally an operation that should be carried out by a luthier, or a specialist, or in any case, by an experienced person. That said, this is how you would do it :

In the head of the neck there should be a plastic triangle with several screws.

We'll start by releasing tension on the strings without taking them away. Once the strings are slackened, the A and D strings can be moved over the lowest E string, and the G and B strings moved over the highest E string. Access is not open for a screw-driver.

Once the triangle is taken out, get your Allen keys.

Do not turn more than a quarter of a adjustment turn at a time. Clockwise, the neck is getting higher, and lower in the other direction. After each quarter of turn, wind the strings until they are tuned again just to check whether or not the buzz problem still exists. If it dampens and you don't want to run the risk of breaking the neck, then you can start thinking about elevating the bridge.

Adjusting the bridge height

There are at least two good reasons why you want to heighten your bridge. The first one is to heighten the strings to avoid buzz above certain frets. The second one concerns flat bridges (like the one on my guitar) that tend to block the vibration of the sounding board and give a sound without volume and that sounds metallic a bit like a banjo. Some bridges are dug to let the sounding board resonate as much as possible. In my case, I had to elevate the bridge for both reasons. How to proceed at a low cost ? The first thing to do is to slacken the strings. Then:

Camembert is your friend (I'm soooo French here). Not only is it so delightful on a nice slice of bread, lettuce (whatever so-called gastronoms say) and a good glass of red wine, and it brings happiness between friends before a music session at home. But once eaten, you have the wooden box. In this wooden box, you'll cut the necessary pieces. Wood is good because it transmits the string vibrations to the sounding board.

I prefer to cut on the side of the box. For this fixing, I needed two pieces. Make sure the pieces are not wider than the bridge.

Before the adjustment, you can see how the bridge is in full contact with the sounding board.

Move the bridge when the strings are slackened. The wood pieces are placed on each side next to the moustaches, then put the bridge back on top of them.

And there you are! The bridge is now elevated and my guitar sound much better, the strings buzz much less. Isn't life beautiful ?