A Few Neck Questions

[ihocky2]

I have a used neck that I bought for my next project. Everything is straight and in pretty good condition, but I will be refretting it. I just don't like the size ones that are one it. I have the book on fretting on the way from Stew Mac, and it should be here Tuesday. When I loosen the truss rod completely the neck has a lot of relief. Is this normal? When you build a neck from scratch, how do much tension do you have on your truss rod? My thinking is that it should be completely loose when you attach the fretboard and everything should be flat when it is loose. The repair book I am reading through makes it seem like adding frets will cause back-bow and not relief. I have to tighten the truss rod pretty far to get it to sit flat and that is without string tension. Does this mean there is a problem with the neck, or is everything functioning properly?

[KeithHowell]

The neck seems fine. It was probably made as follows: the fret board was glued all nice and flat then the truss rod was tensioned giving a bit of back bow. Then everything was leveled and radiused. If you then relax the truss rod a bit you will add relief and tightening it will work as normal against string tension.

Installing frets with tangs wider than the slot cut in the fretboard will tend to give you back bow but frets with corresponding tangs should keep everything nice and level. The oversized tang installation is a technique used by some luthiers to reduced relief if the truss rod can't (some older acoustics had non adjustable rods)

Keith

[ihocky2]

Thanks for the explenation. That makes a lot of sense. I don't know how common that method of building a neck is, but it seems like a smart way to fudge a one way rod into acting like a two way.