New Martin d28 B String Buzzes Tried evertything

[Charles]

Bought a 2008 Martin D-28 new from a shop going out of business.
It played fine at the shop.

After playing it for an Hour, lots of lead and string bending, B string sounds Dead. It doesnt "ring" but sounds thuddy.

Took it to a Authorized service, what a joke. He made a new bridge, charged me $150 and no dif. Started adjusting the Truss, no diference.

Light strings. Any Ideas b4 I ship it up to Penn?

[Tom Krebs]

Have you gone through Frank's buzz list?

[Charles]

yep, I am becoming an expert in something I didnt want to be one of? (lol)
Like Medical insurance, I just wanna be sick, not a lawyer.

[Darren]

Taking into account the new saddle, if the problem is only found around the 5th to 7th frets, it sounds like it could be a fretting problem. There may be a slight dip/hump in the fingerboard, or a hight fret, thats causing the problem. Do the frets look seated properly in that area of the fingerboard? Are there any dark shadows under any of those frets, suggesting that they have risen up? Gotta be worth a look!

[Len Biglin]

This is unlikely , but I have seen new Martins where the machines are not tight and the washers under the nuts rattle , but doesn't sound like its coming from the peghead. Just worth checking ....Len

[Tim Mace]

Can barely wait to find out the prob..........

[Benjamin Brockway]

Have you checked for rocking / loose frets?
Like Darren says...
Sounds like gluing an unseated fret and / or dressing the frets 5 and up could fix the problem.
Just because the guitar is new doesn't mean the fret job is going to be perfect.
Martin makes A LOT of guitars and I'm sure at least a few of them slip by with less than satisfactory fret work.

[Benjamin Brockway]

Side note:
Does $150 sound like way too much to charge for a new saddle to anyone else?
Especially since it seems they didn't diagnose the problem right.
Unless it's something fancier than cow bone... I dunno.
You could've gotten a partial fret dress for less than that, I'd think.

[Benjamin Brockway]

Though I haven't seen the guitar, which means I am typing out of my ass here...

[Jeffrey L. Suits]

Uh, yeah...

[Rob Mercure]

If the work was solely to cut a new saddle - out of palladium/iridium/titanium alloy seems like - leaving the problem uncorrected then the term "rip-off" comes to mind. But there's something "fishy" about having to play the guitar for a while before noticing the problem that I don't understand. Has anyone else ever played the guitar and noticed the symptoms?

Rob

[Ned Knepp]

This is probably not the case here but I met a man who complains that every guitar he plays has a subtle buzz. No one else has ever heard it so it just about has to be the bones in his ear resonating in response to certain frequency produced on the guitar. He's messed up a lot of good setups trying to fix something that's in his head instead of the instrument.

If the problem only manifest after the guitar has been played for a while then I would focus on trying to find out what changes to cause it before I started actually making changes to the instrument. Intermittent problems require a discipline approach to troubleshooting and it can be easy to "fix" yourself into another problem. I think I would start with pulling the guitar out for a time with out playing it to see if the thud develops anyway. If it has to be played to develop the problem, find out if leaving it alone after it develops causes the problem to go away again. If the problem can be induced and relieved as needed, it becomes much easier to determine what is changing between these two states to cause the issue. It's possible that it will take as long to diagnose the problem as it would take to send it back to Martin under warranty.

Ned

[Rob Mercure]

Ned,

Just the line of what I was thinking. Some where on Frank Ford's pages I believe there is page on fretting and hand positioning caused issues and I wonder if this may be a culprit. Doing electronics repair I'm quite familiar with symptoms that change with time/heat but generally an acoustic guitar shouldn't change that much assuming that the instrument is stable with the local environment before playing. Again having someone else trusted play it and duplicate the symptoms would seem a next step cuz the absolutely hardest repairs are those intermittent ones that only happen at someone's house or studio or some such - not that infrequent with electronics but for an acoustic guitar ...........??

Rob