I just got my railboard yesterday, and like many I suppose, I jumped into the chapman waters sight unseen. The downside of that is sight unseen is also sound unseen.

When I first started playing I noticed a lot of buzzing from the strings. It seemed mostly to be coming from the nut-to-fret section of the string and I was still getting a tone so I ignored it at first. But I did feel like it was a bit difficult to get a good, clear sound. I had to hit the string with more force than the "use a light touch" advice I've read seemed to imply. So I laid the railboard down and rested my finger lightly a few frets above where I was fretting which dampened the buzz and seemed to improve the tone.

I'm not a maintenance guy, but I thought I'd check the truss. I immediately noticed that the bolts on either end of the neck were completely loose. I could freely and easily turn either nut by hand.

Is this normal? I didn't want to proceed at that point because it seemed odd that both were essentially completely loosened and I wasn't sure if that's normal for a railboard. There definitely seems to be too much buzz happening.

This is truly odd, as SE's quality control has always been top notch, however things do get missed. what to do? I would contact SE by phone, tell them and also let Greg Howard know, and he is easy to get a hold of as well. Sorry you had this experience... Not to worry, it will be fixed!

Happy Tapping!

This seems to be common with Railboards, that they have a natural back bow. Tighten (or in this case loosen) the nuts so that they're "pushing" away from each other. My guess was that there was very little tension on the nuts when it was shipped and they jostled loose on the way there. So it shouldn't take much to bring it back straight.

Andy's suggestion is correct. The natural tendency of the Railboard structure is an arch, even with tension on the strings, so spin the nuts to the far ends of the threads and tension the nuts "outward" rather than inward to "push" rather than pull.. It won't take much. if you are looking at the instrument from the rear, you will be spinning the nut by the belthook to the left, and the nut by the headstock to the right.

Hope that helps,
Greg

My Railboard arrived 2 days before Christmas after sitting in sub-zero weather over the weekend. When I opened it up, it was nigh unplayable because of the temperature change--it was still freezing to the touch!--and because it probably got a bump or two in the shipping to jostle it.

Having said that, I had 4 months experience with my Rosewood, and knew that I just had to adjust the truss, and then I was rocking it out. I used this video of Greg's a few 10-12 times before I kind of figured it out by just playing when it "feels" right.

Best of luck!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx8LQS7Et1g[/youtube]

Same here, I had to do a slight adjustment because it arrived on a very frosty October day in Northern Canada. At the end of the day, haha.

Those Railboards are bulletproof, in my opinion! I have only played with mine, but I really enjoy it. The tone, adjustability, the aesthetic, everything. Although I am predominantly a 12 string junkie, I love the railboard too. Looking forward to the 12 str railboard...

Good news is an adjustment cleared up the buzzing. I think fine tuning the action will take time. I've tried to play around with it. Funny enough, the stick was tuned slightly high when it came and after adjusting the action it's basically in tune. I bet if I just adjusted the action and tested to see if the string was perfectly in tune the action would end up perfect.

Bad news is when I screwed the belt hook back on one of the screws wouldn't go in all the way. I dunno if I picked up two different screws and the real ones disappeared or if I simply was shipped two of the longer screws. Anyway, found a screw that works but it is a round head so I'll need to find a flat one of the same size. So long as the taggart stand works (when it arrives) it's all good but I want to make sure everything works perfectly in case I decide to sell the stick at some later point and shift to a 12 string stick.

Better news: played the first part of star of county down today. Only took 3 days! Well, I never worked on the tune until today, but took a couple of days to start getting comfortable with chords. I can tell it's going to take a LOT of getting used to coming from a guitar and piano background. I blame Greg and Bob and the others for making it look so easy