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No way to say without seeing it and checking out the neck. Just sight down the neck and see what it looks like and how much "relief" it has. What the 'action' is. Check for buzzing. Etc.
It appears the guitar has lost some height. I increased the bridge height almost 1.5 mm above its previous height and that stopped the buzzing completely. However, the action at the low E, 12th fret, is still very low - about 1.75. I'll take the guitar to a local guitar repairman who knows these Selmer style guitars and have him take a look. There doesn't appear to be any issue with the relief that I can tell, but the guitar repair guy will know. At least it doesn't appear to be a serious issue. It's back to playable.
As I feared, sounds like the top has sunk a little, possibly it will need braces regluing. That is my guess, if it was the neck heel allowed to move because of the heat, one would expect it to go the other way resulting in a higher action. Does anyone know what glue is used on these modern guitars, one would think it would take quite a bit of heat to disturb them, not like the old days when they were made with animal glue when at least they were easy to take apart and therefore easy to repair.
Oh, I was under the impression that it was too stiff to play. Well, Chris may right but if it looks good and sound good then nothing left but to enjoy it.
I have an Alex Bishop d dole which, unusually, does not have a first fret. It plays and sounds fine. When I was building one of my many attempts at building a gypsy guitar I asked Alex if he used a higher fret at the zero position and his answer was "no", he frets the the zero fret with the same size fret as the rest of the frets.
Do you keep the guitar humidified? Sounds like it maybe dried out??? Or could have some structural issues. You really need to take it to a luthier. I would slack the strings and make sure the ambient air is around 50% RH until you can get it looked at. It sounds so far off that anyone who knows set up will immediately be able to figure it out.
I took the guitar to our regular Gypsy Jazz Jam this evening. Plays just fine, even if it lost about 2 mm of height at the bridge. The guitar repairman took a quick look at the guitar before the jam, and the only thing he could see was the neck had a slight over bow. He fixed that by adjusting the truss rod. He's not a luthier - he doesn't build guitars from the bottom up - but he's familiar with these kind of guitars. He's going to give it a more thorough going over tomorrow in light of the change the guitar has gone through by stripping the finish and refinishing it.
I brought the guitar to the guitar repairman today and he gave it thorough look over - knuckle knocked on the top, back, and sides and with his mirror looked inside at its bracings (He looked at the neck yesterday and all looked good except a slight truss rod adjustment). He said everything looks good. Nothing loose and the bracings look very solid. He speculates that stripping the original finish off on these Chinese-made guitars (and given the high gloss that was on original finish) was probably enough to reduce the height. Looks beautiful and plays great. Relieved!
I greatly appreciate the comments!
Cheers!
cool congrats. BTW, luthier, tech, repairman, same diff but yeah just make sure they know how to do fret work/setup/repairs
So if there were no other changes apart from removing the factory finish and the bridge height reduced by 2mm. logically that would mean the finish on the top of the guitar was 2mm thick? And in the area of the bridge where one usually believes the transfer of vibrations from the bridge to the soundboard is most crucial.
I have never tried an Altamira but if 2mm is standard thickness of the finish I will give them a miss for now; even the cheap Aria MM-20 I had years ago and stripped back was nowhere near that.
Or, just a guess, there are others on here who would know better, but could the factory applied finish help make the whole top stiffer and removing it allows a little more flexing which in turn causes the top to bow slightly under the bridge once tuned to tension?
Either way, it sounds like some on here are not convinced of your 'repairman's credentials and I tend to agree, I would be looking for a second opinion for peace of mind.