Truss Rod Adjustment At The Heel

[Captain Sociable]

I just put my baritone strat together and it has a slight bow in the neck. The truss rod is in the heel. Tell me if this is what I need to do.

1. Loosen the strings till they are floppy

2. remove the neck

3. adjust the truss rod

4. put the neck back on

5. Tune

6. check neck bow

7. repeat if neccessary

Should I just take it to a pro? Does fender put their truss rods in the heel just to make dorks like me take it to a licensed fender professional? I really want to know how to do this but I couldn't find any threads on it.

[Flon Klar Guitars]

So the access to the truss rod is on the BACKSIDE of the neck, between the neck and the pocket?! I'm a bassist, so forgive my ignorance of guitar configuration, but WOW! that really strikes me as odd and completely impractical! All my builds, and all I've ever seen, have access ot the front of the neck, between the fretboard and the neck pickup.

[soapbarstrat]

Yeah, 1-7 is pretty much how it goes. Get a little careless and you can end up stripping neck screws.

Look at enough guitars and you'll notice some have improvements made for easier heel T-rod nut access.

I don't think they made 'em like that to give techs business. For one thing, they assumed these guitars would always be set-up with fairly stiff action, so nobody would get all that fussy about precise t-rod adjustments.

I think a good compromise is to have threaded inserts in your neck so you have machine thread screws instead of wood screws. The machine screws can take the abuse of being loosened/tightened over and over when loosening the neck to get at the t-rod adjustment screw.

Sometimes if your neck pickup is far enough away from the neck pocket, you can cut/rout out a little pocket in the body right in front of where the t-rod adjustment screw is and then adjust it without moving the neck. I think a allen wrench usually works best for this. I do have a phillips head that has a 90 degree bend, but that usually doesn't work on something with a real small access pocket.

[Captain Sociable]

AWESOME! That is what I needed to hear (read)

[Captain Sociable]

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?...mageID=30854987

a few pics.

Edited May 5, 2008 by Captain Sociable

[Captain Sociable]

That was easier than I expected

It ain't perfect, but neither am I...plays like a dream come true.

[Mickguard]

I'm getting ready to put together a strat-like guitar with the adjuster at the heel. I routed an opening in the pocket to get to the adjuster (it's a Phillips head type). The pickguard will still get in the way though.

I figure I'll string the guitar up without the guard, tune it to proper tension, adjust the truss rod, give it a day or so, then de-string and put the pickguard in place and re-string.

I definitely prefer the adjuster at the headstock!