i paid $50 to a tech, and the action (which wasnt as high before the humidity struck) remained generally the same as when i left the guitar at the shop. the only difference was that the strings were made of weaksauce and the fretboard was cleaned. this is weird, seeing how the setup was from the music zoo, which is a famous dealer for exclusive rare guitars from gretsch, charvel, and fender, not to mention the gibson custom shop... but yeah, i dont really want to take it to a store anymore (the only stores around are the zoo, where i get my axes, and gc and samash, which in the flushing, NY area are pretty bad.). what can i do on my own?

well for starters , you don't want a perfectly straght neck whatsoever...you NEED SOME relief for it to be playable. looking down the neck....lefty loosey righty tighty.....now you say the bridge is as low as possible and there is still a big gap? seems you may have a really big problem there. if you have been turning it to the right(which tightens the tension) for several days without any positive results, then THAT neck may not be fixable. even high humidity shouldn't drastically change your neck relief in THAT short a period of time,... if at all. if you don't notice a change over the next few days, then you may want to just go ahead and make additional turns in one day....perhaps even 3 or 4 turns. i would hope it doesn't come to that because that is NOT a good thing to have to do....but...if the neck is trashed allready then you may not have any other options. the only other viable option i can think of is to have the neck shimmed up a bit at the joint. now if this a set neck, then you are looking at some bucks to have that re-done as such. if it can even be done at all. you could also try light guage strings(9's) if you are using heavier guages. not that it will make a huge difference, but anything's worth trying at this point......


fortunately the floyd can be lowered considerable which should allow you to dial in the action exactly as you want it without messing with the truss rod much at all.....

"the bridge is already as low as it should go at a healthy level"

It sounds like there's more room for the bridge to go farther down. Lower the pickups too if they get too close. If the strings are high all along the neck or are at their highest over the upper frets, then the bridge must go down still. If the middle frets only are too high, then it's a task for the truss rod. Be sure to identify the problem exactly before you keep yanking on the truss rod and cause damage.

oh i see. yeah, the upper frets are highest. i thought the answer for that was a neck adjustment... i'll see what i can do. thanks!

The bridge is a harmless adjustment so lower it as much as it takes to get good string height for your taste. Since you've been tightening the truss all this time, it is very likely that the neck is now too straight or even bowed backwards and because of this you may get fret buzz in the lower and middle area of the neck. So you'll probably need to slowly loosen the truss again until the strings are clear.

It is time for me to do a very slight adjustement on my truss rod, It's a bit loosen, and I have to tighten it. Then I'll finish the setup.

well i dont have a allen wrench thing for the gibson truss rod... it's this weird bullet shape that im not familiar with. the action is fine on it now because i lowered the bridge, but i get lower fret buzz now. (0-3fr). do i have to loosen the truss rod?

and the strat, surprisingly, is fine. after all the truss rod abuse i put it through, it comes back the same way it went. i'll keep tweaking that one.

"well i dont have a allen wrench thing for the gibson truss rod... it's this weird bullet shape that im not familiar with"

Well, that pretty much confuses me. Since you earlier said..

"i can't seem to do it on my gibson. i turn it to the right 1/8-1/4 a turn every other day. still, the same high action remains." How did you do this before?

"i get lower fret buzz now. (0-3fr)"

Sounds to me like too much back bow. But without actually seeing it that's a best guess.

well it's still like --------------------_____________________ draw a very slightly declining line from the start of the dashes to the end of the underscore. that's my neck. im not sure what to do with it, should i turn to the left or right?

oh oops. the gibson was supposed to be fender, sorry... i couldnt turn the gibson truss rod at all. i meant i was turning the fender truss rod. ;x
ill proofread my posts more next time... editing now.