Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi Everyone,

My gig bag was stolen and it had most of my allen wrenches for adjustments. It's been so long but I acquired all these different sizes throughout the years that I'm looking for the quickest way to restock them.

I had ones for fender saddles, floyd roses, ibanez edge-pro, various truss rods for electric/acoustic, both standard and metric etc.

Also, what do you call the kind of truss wrench that fits OVER the truss rod nut, at the headstock, looks like a small socket with a handle? I have to find one of those for my Ibanez.

Off the top of my head if I bought some sets at the hardware store I'd be left with quite a few I wouldn't need. I still have lots of those.

Any advice on the best way to go about this?

2.0, 2.5, 3.0 mm are the ones for a FR bridge and nut. 4mm fits many import truss rods. You will need SAE for the fenders if they are American, not in the shop so my wrenches are not in front of me.

My advice, buy a complete set of each metric and SAE and keep them together with your guitar gear and you'll always have the right one at hand. And buying a set will be cheaper I expect than buying 10 wrenches separately....

The kind of truss wrench that fits OVER the truss rod nut is called a truss rod wrench and is also available in different sizes and types to fit various guitars.... here is a good selection https://www.allparts.com/collections/luthier-tools?q=&hPP=28&idx=shopify_products&p=0&fR%5Bnamed_tags.type%5D%5B0%5D=Truss%20rod%20wrench&is_v=1

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

StewMac makes it really easy and they are actually reasonably priced

https://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/T ... _Keys.html

The wrench stay together, you can read on the little holder which sizes they are (I have a page of notes in the back of a repair book that I keep on my work bench listing which size wrench fits each guitar. Buy a couple of extra 0.050 inch (they fit most Fender height screws)

I used to work in a machine shop where we bought individual wrenches in bulk. I found it real handy to put the right wrench with certain tools - for example my binding router bit uses a small allen bolt and I can never remember its size. Once I figured it out I just put the correct wrench with the bit and bearings.

DO NOT buy the folding pocket knife style wrenches - I had a guy bring a nice D28 to me that he had used one and it folded while he was turning it and put a pretty big ding in the sound hole.

For non allen truss rods I just keep a SAE nut driver set in my tool box. Those have a lot of other uses too.

Thanks. I was wondrering about the stewmac sets. I'll give them a look.

Whatever you get, make sure they are long enough to reach from the sound hole to the head block on an acoustic. Many of the new double acting rods have the adjuster buried way up inside the block. The SM wrenches are long enough

I also have a set of SAE wrenches with a removable screwdriver like handle. I use one of them a lot for bolt on neck allen bolts. I also have a set of both metric and SAE that work with a 3/8 drive socket - they are really handy for working on cars and motor bikes. And a folding combination wrench that has a few metric allen, a philips and flat screw driver and a couple of other things that I carry on my bike. Fits most of the odd ball thingies that might need to be adjusted.

Yes, I noticed over the years some are too short, so annoying.