Buzzing/sitar sound after refret and fret level

[Luke Single]

I'm honing my refret skills, done a few now. Probably 50 fret levels. Read all the books watched Dans DVDs, had success with my other fret jobs. Read all of Franks stuff. I put time in and have studied.

I'm working on a non adjustable truss rod ,,Harmony .

I put new frets in straightened the neck out using both compression and some sanding. I thought I had pretty optimal relief. About .008. The only thing is the relief is a little funky:

The straightedge touches at the first fret and I have relief varrying from about .004 to .008 from the 2nd fret to the 9th fret. Straight edge touches around the 11th fret and then I have ample fall away after that.

It plays well past the 12th fret no buzzing. I have good cowboy cords. Basically between the 4th fret and 10th fret it has uniform buzzing or sitar sound.

I thought maybe I could work some relief in by forcing it into a back bow and relevel it. After doing that I have slightly more relief but it still has the same issues.

When I fret a string in the problem area there is very minimal space betweeen the next fret up. .002 or less. I mean it's low. And there was no change in that regard after I tried to work relief in with a modified fret level.

What am I missing?

[steven gallagher]

What's the action at the 12th fret? .002 at the next fret seems way too low.

[Roger Häggström]

I do refrets on parlor necks without an adjustable truss rod all the time. Here is what I do.

First the old frets are removed. The new frets are tapped in without glue after using a fret saw with a matching thickness to the new frets tang. Then the guitar is stringed to tension and "freezed" in it's position in my variant of the Erlewine neck jig. In the jig the strings and temporary mounted frets are removed and the fretboard is sanded to a very small relief, about 0.15 mm. I have a couple of aluminum beams milled in a CNC for proper 0.1, 0.15 and 0.20 mm relief. I use them to sand the fretboard and to crown the frets. I have tried adjustable beams (Katana) but they don't give the right even curve. Depending on the softness of the neck the fretboard/neck will have a slight backbow and a bit more backbow near the nut from the rotation force from the strings over the nut.

The guitar is removed from the jig for a proper refret. I put the strings back at tension again and mount it in the jig for the last crowning of the frets using the 0.1 mm relief sanding beam.

If a neck reset or any major work is done on the guitar, the guitar should be stringed to tension with the temporary frets a couple of days for the neck to settle in before doing the refret. I use the time to vibrate the guitar hanging in a closed  cabinet with an aquarium air pump strapped to the top :-)

[Luke Single]

The relief is about .080 at the base E and .070 at treble e.

Roger that is quite the process. I made a neck jig and use it with guitars that may have bow issues. I've never seen the beams with built in relief.

[Roger Häggström]

No, the beams are made by a pal of mine who owns a nice CNC router. It's an inveted relief BTW. I have worked with old parlor necks/refrets for a quite while dealing with this problem and this is the best method I've come up with so far. The process may take some time but the end result is predictable and great every time  :-)