Hot Rod Truss Rods

[luthier1206]

Im looking into hot rod truss rods and I saw that there were three kinds, slotted nut, 4mm allen nut, and 1/4in hex nut. Which do you prefer and why

[Buter]

You've forgotten the spoke wheel version.

It all depends on the design of your guitar, dude. The rods all work the same, there's just different ways to crank the buggers.

For me, a peghead adjusted TR is the 4mm allen, a body end adjusted TR gets the spoke wheel.

Cheers

Buter

[postal]

I will not use a hotrod after one snapped on me.

I curently use ones from "doeringers", and theyre -ok- but people rave about the ones from allied lutherie. Kinda pricey, but people say they're great.

[Mattia]

I´ve never had problems with any of my HotRod guitars, which is most the ones completed to date, but these days I use the allied rods. More power, and I can use a quarter inch bit.

[SwedishLuthier]

I have also mover away from the hot rods as I think that they are too bulky. I use a generic two way adjustable that is exactly 6 mm wide. Makes my life much easier as any 6 mm bit will do an excellent jod. And it only requires a 9 mm rout compared to the 11.1 mm rout that the hot rod requires. Small difference, but still a 2+ mm difference were the neck is at its thinnest. And on top of that it is threaded steel rods into threadeed steel, no brass.

But when I was using the hotrods, i used the Allen nut version as the slot cut in the head can be made smaller compared to if a hex nut was used.

[Southpa]

I make my own single action truss rods now. Cost is a couple bucks each. I make necks that don't require dual adjustment action. I've repaired more guitars than I can count over 25 years, and in all that time I might have come across 2 with serious backbow that could only be righted with a dual action trussrod. And those guitars were not really worth fixing anyway! I still have one, an EKO X-100 archtop that makes a damn nice slide guitar.

[Musiclogic]

Allied Rods and the rods from Grizzly are made in the same factory, Martin Keith of Keith Guitars also sells these rods with a longer nut at a good price...something like $9 or $10 each if you buy 3. Just a note in case anyone was not aware of this.