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Old 07-03-2009, 03:51 AM
Hendra Hendra is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Jakarta, Indonesia
Posts: 712
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff M View Post
The truss rod generally doesn't unscrew itself.

It is not something that needs to be "tweaked" every few weeks or months.
On most my guitars I've never touched the truss rod..and the relief remains where I like it.

I've seen more people screw up their set ups by continually fidgeting with the truss rod ...and not knowing what they were doing/WHY they were doing it...than I have people improving them.


BTW, if you are tightening the truss rod, be sure to turn it only in SMALL increments....1/8 to 1/4 a turn at most. Then let it settle in for a day before you look to adjust it again.
You do NOT want to over tighten your truss rod and break it/strip it/lock it so you can't turn the nut. THAT is an expensive repair.
You really should not have to be tightening it on a routine basis.
You are just subjecting your truss rods to more and more pressure. Maybe one day....................................SNAP!!!

Again, as is noted on that link I provided...the truss rod's function is NOT to adjust the guitars action. It is to set the neck relief.
Once you get the relief dialed in where you want it..you are done with the truss rod.
Action is adjusted at the saddle. (And the nut. Many folks forget about that end. )

Quoting Frets.com again;

"Before you start wrenching away, please remember that the diagnosis is the key to the job. Make sure you understand what you're doing and why."

Hi All,

Thanks so much for the feedback. I was very anxious doing this coz a couple of years ago I end up throwing away my Squire Strat just because of attempting to adjust the truss rod. Apparently over the course of time I have somehow snapped the strat truss rod by over tightening it. But that’s fine with me now coz I no longer play electric.

With my Washburn, it seems to to me that the nut and saddle are just fine coz base on some instruction on the forum I read prior to the adjustment, when I pressed the 1st fret and 14th fret, I saw quite a significant gap (fits a credit card) between the fret and the string especially on the 6th or 7th fret. So I assume this is due to the neck relief. Therefore tightening the truss rod did straightened the neck bow and fix the problem(gap of a piece of paper now). The only problem is that unlike what Jeff suggested to turn the truss rod only by a small increment and give it a day to settle, I did it one at a time and maxed out the screw. Will I be getting into trouble with the neck because of this??? Iit’s been 5 days since I adjust the truss rod, so far everything seems to be fine. Oh God I Pray…..
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