Official Luthiers Forum!

Do any of you bother to make your truss rods removable? I played a guitar I built and gave to my father some 20 years ago or so and it had awful truss rod rattle in the neck. He never plays it so it just sits there and all I had to do was tweak the rod and it was gone but I do remember that it was one of those Hot Rods that at the time was sold as 'removable' and I thought it was a good idea at the time. Now not so much. I get that it one day could break and installing a new one is a PIA but in the 25 years that I have been doing repairs (not in a very busy shop but still) I've seen one broken truss rod and that was on a cheap guitar. That doesn't include stripped truss rods.

Just curious.

no I do glue them in to avoid the rattle.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Yep, I make my truss rods removable, which is as much a part of the construction method as a design intent. It can be useful occasionally. I've never had one break or rattle, so never had to pull one for that reason. However, occasionally a neck will go into back bow when it comes out of humidity control into the real world (much more humid, in these parts). They have all pulled into shape after a while, but in the mean time the single acting rod (folded type) can be pulled, turned over and used in reverse (then flipped again once proper behaviour has been established). I spent a long time in mechanical engineering and saw a lot of nasty welds and weld failures, so I don't like anything welded on my truss rods, and I certainly wouldn't put a weld anywhere it could not be periodically inspected.


The truss rod can be seen at the end of the neck extension and can be pulled straight out using a substitute truss rod nut with a handle on it.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

No thank you...

As with anything in guitar making there are more ways to skin a cat



Do you just let the process of gluing the fretboard in 'glue' it down? Or do you actually embed the whole rod in epoxy or something?

I've always wondered if it was important for the rod to be able to slip in it's channel to function smoothly but that is just intuition.

I love that neck join and I'm going to try to emulate it when I build my first guitar. I have seen no good come from dovetail joints, mostly because I suck at adjusting them. I planned for a bolt on from the start and this is what I want right here. Thanks for posting it. The truss rod thing, I'm not so sure about. I have a ways to go before I need to think about the neck.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!