Please help on neck relief and break angle

I believe the neck on my new old white label concert kamaka has bent upwards causing a problem in lowering the action to my need. When I got it the action was way to high.How do I determine if this is correct?

Can this be fixed without major surgery. If it can please tell me how.

Also, I've lowered the action at the saddle to get close to what I want but that definitely negatively effectively changed the break angle. My plan for this is to change the slot bridge to strings through. What do you think?

I lowered the saddle in two stages over weeks. The first lowering left the break angle noticeably bad and I still couldn't get used to the action so I lowered the saddle to about 16th" above bridge which made good playability but break angle unacceptable.

This is a very beat up uke with great sound.

Thanks.

"I believe the neck on my new old white label concert kamaka has bent upwards causing a problem in lowering the action to my need. When I got it the action was way to high.How do I determine if this is correct?"

Get something with a straight edge and put that edge against the frets. The amount of bow will determine your options, and whether there is a simple fix or major surgery required.

Thanks Dan and Kekani.

Using a straight edge showed at most 1mm on frets 5 - 10. That doesn't seem enough to be a problem. Is it?

I consider major surgery to be pretty much anything I can't do myself.

Taking the saddle down is reversible and gave me more info then I had.

Mostly I think it's a problem that developed because it seems unlikely that the original build didn't allow for lower action.

Action at 12 fret is 3.5mms. I'd like 2.5 but don't see how I can get it.

Thoughts anyone?

Thanks.

1mm bow can be enough to mess things up (as you found).

The zero-surgery option (if you can't learn to live with it) would be to clamp the neck to a flat surface/bar, apply heat, and hope. If that doesn't work, removing the frets would improve the odds of success. Some repairers will replace the frets with thicker ones so the fretboard expands, bending the neck back.

Beyond that the options include replacing the fretboard, reinforcing the neck, replacing the neck... major surgery.

Personally, if it was an instrument I liked, I'd just learn to live with it and play a different uke when low action was required.

Thanks Dan.

Action is low enough to work with. Now I need to decide if I can do change to strings through myself.

Read everything I could find with search but still need to learn more.

The sound is what this is all about.

Jeffelele said:

Now I need to decide if I can do change to strings through myself.

Click to expand...

Are you thinking of modifying the existing bridge or replacing it? If you decide to replace it I'd be happy to make you a new one with whatever specs/design you need (eg. to cover the footprint of the old one & get just the right height). If that would help any.

Thanks Dan.

I'm under the impression that I can convert to a strings through bridge by having holes drilled between the slots. I need to get more info on that as first thing. I've read everything on the forum I've been able to turn up with search and I think I'll go back and do that again.

I know that on the bridge point where the strings pass the saddle and the point where the knots are held determine the break angle but I don't know how to determine where the new holes would be drilled. Would the halfway point be good?

I really love the sound of this uke.

Jeffelele said:

I know that on the bridge point where the strings pass the saddle and the point where the knots are held determine the break angle but I don't know how to determine where the new holes would be drilled. Would the halfway point be good?

Click to expand...

Maths! How high is your saddle above the bridge?

But there may be another way. Does yours look like this?



Because you could possibly drill 4 holes into the back of the string slot to increase the break angle:



This would net the same break angle as the string-through conversion halfway from the bridge to the back. Might want to check with an experienced luthier though.

Edit: Or there's this option:



To clarify, I'm talking about planing the top of the bridge off altogether, deepening the saddle slot, and converting to string-through. The taller saddle would improve the sound over the 1/16" you had before!

Thanks Dan.

I need to think about this.

Uke is now with a luthier who is shaving down bridge and recutting saddle slot.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks.