[Mike_LA]

Greetings everyone, I have a marauder that has a history and some issues. I got it thru E-bay a few years ago and got HOSED. The neck is too small for the pocket (not really a gibson neck but the logo threw me off at first) ). When I got it, the neck had a slight shift to the left and a severe down angle. Upon removing the neck I found it shimmed with a popsicle stick at the end. Fast forward to re shimming the pocket, and a whole bunch of other stuff. It plays well, sounds good , holds tune, sort of.

Here's the problem; from frets 4 up the neck it's in tune, from the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st it progressively gets a little sharper. Now it's my understanding the the bridge will control intonation at the 12th fret. So i'm inclinded to think that maybe the nut is a little too high? Or since this isn't the right neck it may be longer or shorter than the original, but then it still should be controlled by the bridge positioning?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[Wally]

Mike, measure from the fretboard side of the nut to the middle of the 12th fret. Then, measure that distance from the middle of the 12th fret to the bridge area. That measurement should mark somewhere close to the middle of themovement of the saddles in that bridge. IF that measurement works out, then the neck should intonate with a proper set-up....IF that neck was fretted with a proper formula, right?
You are correct in thinking that high action at the nut will cause notes to go sharp at the fret positions close to the nut.

[Mike_LA]

Originally Posted by Wally

IF that measurement works out, then the neck should intonate with a proper set-up...

Yup, that checks out fine

Originally Posted by Wally

.IF that neck was fretted with a proper formula, right?

I thought it was a gibson neck, but now that I've looked at it closely, it is not a Gibson neck, so I don't know anything about it. Though I got to believe a standard production neck would be fretted properly

Originally Posted by Wally

You are correct in thinking that high action at the nut will cause notes to go sharp at the fret positions close to the nut.

Hummm, well it's either that or I didn't re-installed the neck quite right, but geometrically I don't see how that wojuld cause this problem. It's a straight line from the nut to the bridge, hummmm perhaps I've lowered the action too much causing the strings to be lower at the high end of the neck than they are at the nut. So the string travels farther to hit the fret causing it to go sharp. I'll have to measure that in a bit . . .

[Wally]

Mike, imho and ime of 48 years on guitars, action at the 12th fret on that guitar should be set at about 5/64" on the bass side and 3/64" on the treble. The line of the neck and the radius will dictate the action, but a 12" radius usually sets up at around 3/64" on the treble side for a one-step bend. ACtion at the nut is measured in thousandths of an inch.

[Joe-Bob]

Sounds to me like the nut needs to be tweaked.

[Mike_LA]

Indeed I believe I am in the right direction with the nut being too high. After lowering the string slots a bit and matching the approximate curve of the neck it is helping the tuning.