help a noob out???!!! do my first few "practice" guitars need to have truss rods?

[dreadsftw!]

so i know before i start using high quality materials i should start with some practice. im gonna build a few guitars with like 30.00 B/S and 35.00 tops (AA) wood on each. to cut down on price though, could i build these practice guitars without truss rods in the neck? after all im not looking for there first guitars to be showroom quality, i just wanna get the basics of neck angles and bracing and get the basics of how to build a decent guitar.

[gitnoob]

Sure. There are plenty of guitars in the world with no truss rod. That's why V-profile necks were invented. That deep V makes them very stiff.

[Tom West]

You don't have to use an adjustable rod but I would not bother to build without a rod. The cost of a decent rod is very low and installing one is part of the learning process. In my mind the overall cost of materials is low compared to the time required to make a guitar. Good guitars can be built with low cost materials that you have quoted be I think it's folly to try to save money by leaving out an adjustable truss rod. Just my opinion of course.
Tom

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by Tom West

You don't have to use an adjustable rod but I would not bother to build without a rod. The cost of a decent rod is very low and installing one is part of the learning process. In my mind the overall cost of materials is low compared to the time required to make a guitar. Good guitars can be built with low cost materials that you have quoted be I think it's folly to try to save money by leaving out an adjustable truss rod. Just my opinion of course.
Tom

Exactly.




.

[SteveS]

You can make one for a few dollars.

I strongly recommend you build with one.

[Comfyfoot]

To a great extent, your greatest challenge in building is set up. A box full of errors set up to play well will be more useful then a pristine box that can't be set up. Truss rods help with achieving a proper set up, if you don't practice with one, you can learn some lessons on building, but you will be skipping a large part of lesson 1. Great to start with cheap materials, but you may want to get some that are even cheaper, scraps to practice on are vital.

[redir]

IT's not hard to drop a truss rod in, just do it, even if it is just an aluminum bar.

[Alan Carruth]

A big part of the reason for truss rods is that wood will 'take a set' over time from a sustained load. If you don't intend these guitars to be around and playable for very long, then you won't need a truss rod. As redir said, even dropping in a fixed aluminum, CF, or steel tube rod is a help, but an adjustable rod is so much better...

[patticake]

if the point of making a practice guitar is to learn to make a complete acoustic guitar, then i'd say yes, you need to make guitars with truss rods. otherwise the first guitar you make with a truss rod will also be a practice guitar, as you'll be practicing and learning how to do the truss rod.