Truss Rod Less Electric Neck

[kukulcan]

Hi there,

I want to build a guitar without a truss rod to improve the sustain, how would I go about doing this, I currently have 3 laminates that will make up the neck; 2 rock maple with a center laminate of bubinga, could i simply epoxy a carbon fibre rod in place of the truss rod to increase the stiffness?

Edited April 25, 2005 by kukulcan

[jnewman]

There've been more anti-truss rod threads lately. First of all, why do you think it will improve sustain?

As to your question, the truss rod has nothing to do with the stiffness of the neck. The truss rod is simply a way to adjust the bow of the neck, which changes with string size, temperature, humidity, etc.

You can of course make a neck without a truss rod, and carbon rods'll help keep the neck from flexing too much, but it'll still flex and without a truss rod you won't be able to adjust the bow so that the neck is perfectly flat or has a slight relief. It may stay kind of close to right or it might not, and you won't have a way to fix it - you'd end up having to pick out the string gauges that got the neck the closest to straight.

[kukulcan]

basically I want to build a guitar with the best posible sustain, and I have heard the the truss rod can impede sustain and cause dead spots on the fingerboard, I dont want to put frets on this guitar so sustain is a must, as is no dead spots...

[marksound]

It's like deja vu all over again.

If you'll use the Search link at the top of the page and enter "truss rod" I'm sure there will be more discussion on the subject than you can stomach.

Happy searching!

[GregP]

I don't remember Ed Roman being anti-truss-rod.

Er..

Yeah, the truss rod won't noticeably affect sustain. I suppose if you rigged up a blind test, I'd be willing to believe (just for the sake of argument, not because I actually DO) that you could maybe get one more second of sustain out of a rod-less neck.

Would that 1 second be worth it? How often does anyone sit there and hold a note until it completely fades? That would make for some pretty boring guitar work.

Even on a system with infinite sustain (ie. Sustainiac), nobody would just sit there and hold a note for that long. There's really no point to being so sustain-crazy that you'd sacrifice something as important as the truss rod.

I'm not saying that sustain isn't important. We all like good sustain. But there comes a point where there are diminished returns. The difference between a poorly-assempled piece of plywood and a well-crafted hardwood guitar is a significant difference in sustain. But the difference between a guitar and the same guitar without a truss rod? It doesn't even bear consideration.

Greg

[kukulcan]

I wasnt planning on holding a note for 90 minutes or anything, but with a 'fretless' guitar the note that you finger connects with the fingerboard not the frets, obviously the best place to look for sustain is the fingerboard as this is the first point of contact, but I have this in hand at the moment and was looking for at the next point which would be the neck and rod...

[x189player]

From what I hear the bridge, and the way the bridge contacts the body, has more to do with sustain that presence or lack of a truss rod. If you're after sustain, go with set neck or neck-through construction.

[jnewman]

Have you ever actually played a fretless guitar? Just curious...

[erikbojerik]

Assuming that you'll have a well-prepared fingerboard, poor action on a fretless will be more noticable than on a fretted guitar. So I would go with a truss rod.

As for dead spots, you should be much more worried about the quality of the wood in your fingerboard and neck blank. You should also be sure when you glue it down that both the fingerboard and the neck blank are perfectly flat, so you don't create small glue "puddles" under the board. Both are more important than all the fuss over a truss rod when it comes to tone.

[Mr.Churchyard]

Hi there,

I want to build a guitar without a truss rod to improve the sustain, how would I go about doing this, I currently have 3 laminates that will make up the neck; 2 rock maple with a center laminate of bubinga, could i simply epoxy a carbon fibre rod in place of the truss rod to increase the stiffness?

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Put a truss rod in it and make it a neck-through instead.

[Devon Headen]

I understand wanting sustain, but you just won't have it with a fretless guitar. I've tried fretless before, and added frets very soon after. It's impossible to chord in tune. No ifs ands or buts. You can get used to lead work, but I really dislike the tone. It just sounds like you're pushing strings down onto wood. It sounds muffled and lacks sustain. Maybe you'll love it, but I certainly didn't. If you've never played a fretless guitar, you probably want to find one to play before building a guitar around that one option.

[frank falbo]

It's like you're saying:

"I want to design a car that is very fast. I've heard that by making a car lighter, it will go faster. So I was thinking that since the engine is an extremely heavy part of the car, I would design one without an engine."

I agree that fretless guitar is already at a major disadvantage. But all you can do to combat that is to use the hardest fretboard, and the most rigid construction techniques and material and hope for the best. The truss rod is the least of your concerns. Erikbojerik is right when he says the slightest bit of "unlevel" in the playing surface will kill off anything you tried to accomplish with no truss rod.

Hey while I was typing this I came up with an idea to improve fretless guitar. Let me think about it for awhile and then I'll post it when I've worked out the bugs.

[Guitarfrenzy]

As far as making the neck stiffer and eliminating dead spots, carbon fiber rods will do both while not adding unneccesary weight to the neck all at the same time. Speaking of experimenting, I recently just cut a 1/2" slot all the way up the neck to fit the truss rod, and two CF rods. I epoxied the CF's to each side and the truss rod fit snug in the middle, so far everything seems to be working great. The main reason I did this was because I wanted the CF rods to be as close to center as possible, simply because if your not careful and you place them too far away, you might end up carving into them when shaping the back of the neck. As far as a truss rod, I think you definitely need to use one, otherwise you have no way to adjust things if you have problems later on.

[Mr.Churchyard]

Speaking of experimenting, I recently just cut a 1/2" slot all the way up the neck to fit the truss rod, and two CF rods.  I epoxied the CF's to each side and the truss rod fit snug in the middle, so far everything seems to be working great.

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Seems a cool idea to me... Keep us informed!