truss rod adjustment placement.

[Rog]

Some guitars/basses have truss rod adjustment at the neck, others at the heel.

My '72P has it at the heel and the cross-head (and the close area on the pickguard) have become pretty munted over the years. I recently found out that one is supposed to remove the neck, make the adjustment, then replace it etc. Bugger than for a game!

In contrast, my '97J has the adjustment at the head and I find that much easier to use. It's also an allen nut, which is far better imo.

For you dudes with fixed necks, does the adjustment location change with models/years? Which do you find most useful?

Ash - is there are difference in manufacture?

[Bg]

mate, you're supposed to loosen the neck off, not take it off completely Saves munting the cross-head. I've found an electric screwdriver handy for loosening those neck screws. But yes a complete pain in the arse it is....

[ash]

I HATE the old Fender style TR nut at the foot of the neck. It does keep the headstock area at full strength and allows for the nut to be replaced (unlike the 'other end' Fenders), but the whole undoing the neck thing is stupid.

The concealed head-end allen nut on some Fenders is nearly as stupid, because when some noddy uses a worn or metric allen key (and they will eventually) and the nut gets shagged out, there is no easy way to replace it.

The best method I've tried so far is the Musicman "spoked wheel" at the body end. Its harder to do properly and thus more expensive, but it allows all the good things and no bad things other than the expense.

Good things include no weakening of the headstock area, option of single or double acting operation, difficult to break, but easy to replace nut, easy to hide the nut behind a false fretboard section, no special tool needed, blah blah....

[TMG 03]

In all my years playing guitar, I don't think I ever felt the urge to screw with a truss rod. I would hate to stuff that up.

[Rog]

Ash, I'd forgotten about those bullet ends with the four holes..

TMG - I've tried virtually all types of strings - most require some truss rod adjustment to keep mt action as low as I like.

[ash]

Some annoying guitars need a tweak every few weeks it seems. Usually when a guitar lives in a stable environment it stays good as long as the same strings are used. My tele has neve needed an adjustment in the 12 years since I made it...

[Tsuken]

The truss rod is one thing I prefer to leave to a "trained professional" as it were (in other words: Ash ). If i really put in the time to learn about how to best adjust I'm sure I could do a pretty good job, but I already know he does a brilliant job, so why mess with a winning formula?

[TMG 03]

The truss rod is one thing I prefer to leave to a "trained professional" as it were (in other words: Ash ). If i really put in the time to learn about how to best adjust I'm sure I could do a pretty good job, but I already know he does a brilliant job, so why mess with a winning formula?

Thats why I leave them. Fear of stuffing it up more than anything.

[B45-12]

I've broken two. but one was my own daft fault - the other was the old Framus 'crappy steel' that used to break if you looked at them - still tweak them myself though if I think it's neccessary. Good rule is quarter of a turn at a time max and if it starts getting really stiff - don't turn any further.

Dan Earlwhine had a really neat jig you clamped your precision bass to when adjusting the rod - it's in his book on guitar repair although for the life of me I cannot see how you'd get to the body end square screw with it.

Jansen also had a neat adjuster - the nut had four holes cross drilled in it and was at the body end. You simply slipped in a rod and turned. My Invader 12 has two of these rods so you can counteract twisitng as well as bow.

[ash]

The Jansen one is similar to the style I prefer, if a little more primitive.

The Dan Erlewine jig system is for fret work, not truss rod adjustment, but you do need to adjust the truss rod while using it. Erlewine is a clever bugger, but not quite as smart as he tells everyone he is. His "World Famous" neck jig system is great, but has a few troublesome problems still.

A better rule of thumb is 1/8 of a turn at a time or less. On many truss rods, 1/4 of a turn is more than you ever need to adjust it.

[B45-12]

The Dan Erlewine jig system is for fret work, not truss rod adjustment, but you do need to adjust the truss rod while using it. .

Not the one I recall/saw pictured - that had a specific concave shape faced with thick rubber and you clamped your bass fretboard face downwards into it until it assume the neccessary convex bend as you tightened - to be honest I wonder why it does not stuff up the frets now come to think of it, even with the rubber, plus I assume there must be some sort of shaped blank behind for the G cramps to spread the load.

Actually I've just had what seems a good idea - what about a concave shape on top BUT with an air bag below and behind the length of the neck so you could gradually increasee the pressure forcing the neck to conform to the concave shape and thus becoming convex - plus tighten the nut as you go.

I'll defer to your knowledge of truss rods except to say mine always seem to need more than an eigth of a turn either way.

[ash]

Oh, ok. That must be one of his earlier developments. Maybe it was a way of eliminating the need to dismantle and assemble a Fender six times to get the truss rod adjustment right.

The 1/8 turn thing isn't applicable to all necks of course, but there are definetly plenty for which 1/8 is enough, but 1/4 is too much.

[B45-12]

So what do you reckon on the idea of an airbag jig?? run off say one of those elcheapo compressors (around the $200 mark).

I was also toying with the idea of a thinnish, high tension steel cable run in a brass tube at the bottom of the skunk stripe. The idea being you could tension it u via rachet/pawl mechanism to counteract the string pull.

On the plus side it has the advantage of being cheap and easily replacable (just thread a new cable down the hole, anchor and attach to the rachet mechanism at the other end)

BUT against 1) sympathetic vibrations it will pick up/make 2) probably more sensitive than a rod so will need more fiddling with often 3) if it snaps due to corrosion etc., it's going to come away with 120 lbs of pull - don't know what that would do to the neck or the person adjusting it.

[ash]

Airbags are good. I have several unfinished machine jig designs that require them.

However, once you get used to the process of setting up a fender neck, it is not so slow that a jig would pay for itself though.

I've considered cable compensation before too, but not for long enough to come up with a method that can compete with a traditional steel rod mechanism. There are guitars and other guitar-ish instruments that have intentionally sympathetic strings running inside the neck in place of a trussrod, to give more depth of tone. Much in the manner of a concealed harp-guitar.

[Yoda]

My Victor Bailey Jazz has the adjustment on the heel end but neck removal (or loosening) is not required. There is a releif cut into the body to gain access to the allen head nut and a long Tee handled wrench is supplied. A regular allen wench will not fit becaused of the angled approach so the possiblilty of using the incorrect wrench is reduced.

Thing that's got me wondering though is that I'm pretty sure my bass has a double truss rod neck but there's only one adjustment nut. The relief was properly set when I bought it and it has not required adjustment so I haven't had to tweak it. Anybody know how this system works?