Installing A New Truss Rod

[AndrewM]

Hi

This is part 2 of a previous post entitled 'Truss Rod Blues'. I have my LP knockoff ready to go with the fretboard steamed off, the body repainted, and my stew-mac parts in hand. The suggestion from my previous post was to fill the channel with putty and re-router the channel.

There are several problems with this approach:

1) I suck WAY to much with a router to be doing anything like that

2) I cannot afford to pay a professional

3) This is my only electric Guitar.

So, my question for everyone is, Since the old truss rod was a lot larger than the new (18" stewmac 'hot-rod'), Can I just shim the new rod in place? or does the truss rod need to be in contact with the wood along the sides of the rod?

Thanks in advance for the help,

Regards,

Andrew

[jay5]

You need to have solid contact at both ends. The middle portion of the rod can be left alone I imagine. How much wider is the rout than the new rod?

[AndrewM]

Jay

Thanks for your reply. The New rod is about 1/8" on both sides smaller than the rout channel. However, the new rod is longer than the old. So, I need to extend the rout to accomodate the end. There is almost 1/4" on both sides of the rod itself. So, it is not really out of whack, just a bit. So I am ok then?

Thanks

Andrew