Hard tail bridge ajustment

[inp4ct]

So i am an owner of a Ibanez MTM2, but lately ive been experiencing not being able to hit the 12th fret on my light e string proberly. The string barely hits the 13th fret as i pick the note, and therefore mutes the note (kinda)..
I have tried to raise and lower the bridge plenty of times, but it does not solve my issue. Do you know what might be the problem??

 

[Pikka Bird]

The 13th fret might be unseating itself? Or the 12th could be getting worn down?

 

[inp4ct]

Its hard to tell, i tried to hammer the 13th fret gently, but it only made the situation worse, but now im quite sure that the fret is the problem..
Do you know how to reseat the fret proberly again??

 

[cardinal]

Get something like a credit card or something similarly straight that can span three frets. Lay it over the 11-12-13 frets and the 12-13-14 frets etc. Rock it back and forth. You should be able to tell whether one of those frets is high or low.

 

[inp4ct]

I find it kinda hard to even feel if the fret is higher... but i am almost sure, do you know what i can do to lower it again?

 

[Pikka Bird]

^I'm not gonna advise you on that until you're dead sure which fret is causing the problem. It should be quite obvious which one it is based on the "fret rocker" approach. The straight object you use to diagnose should span three frets only, and be hard enough to not deform at all when you rock it on the frets. I'd use a credit card (not business card), a razor blade or you can snap off some suitable lengths from a utility knife blade.

 

[cardinal]

Yeah, with a suitable fret rocker (I actually use brass tremolo blocks) should make a low or high fret pretty obvious.

If a fret is high, the best approach is to figure out why. It could simply be that the fret is lifting out of it's slot. Or it could be that it always was high and that the feta need to be leveled. Leveling a single fret can be tricky. People generally prefer to level at least frets 12-24 together so that you can be sure that you're not creating other problems by just lowering one fret.

It could be that the 12th fret is low, in which case you'd probably need to have at least that fret and all of the higher ones leveled. A low fret can happen gradually just as play wear or if something struck the fret, etc.

 

[inp4ct]

Aaah, i misunderstood the fret rocker method, now i tried one again and i didnt fint any difference in 11 - 12 - 13 or 12 - 13 - 14.. unfortunately..

 

[vansinn]

An easy method to determine low/high frets is simply:
Remove strings
Adjust neck fully straight using a dedicated ruler with cutouts for the frets
Run a light-flowing marker on all frets
Gently run a long fret sanding block with very fine grained polishing paper over the frets

Any high frets will show up with the marker line being flat-spotted.
A few more strokes will mostly remove the maker lines, and low fret-spots will appear still having the maker line on them.