Rattle on new guitar

[Dave M]

Most people probably know this but I thought I'd throw it in anyway.

Recently strung up a new steel string based on Trevor's medium body size and it sounds great but had a rattle on the third open string. Did all the usual checks including filling and recutting the string slot, but it persisted.

I thought I had checked that all the nuts were screwed down on the individual tuners but after much fiddling my mate who was assisting (well actually doing the job) found that nearly all of the other tuners were doing the rattle. In other words they weren't down quite tight enough and were being excited at the particular frequency of the G string, not by any other note. A turn on the locking nut on each tuner has solved it.

I thought this was a bit weird but what do I know. This is my first steel string build.

Cheers Dave

[johnparchem]

Thanks for posting this. Just today I just tracked down a buzz; loose post screw of a slotted steel string tuner. Buzzes can be a real pain to find because the sound does not always seem to be near the cause.

[Allen]

I had one that was a slightly loose screw on a strap button that would only buzz at a certain frequency. Drove me freaking mad trying to track that one down.

[Jeremy D]

On my first guitar I used stumac 3 on a plate restoration tuners. I spent days tracking down a rattle. Turns out one of the ivoroid buttons needed to be pulled off and and re-glued in place.