Fret boards

  • Thread starter Thread starter marshall.amps
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Yes you can use that one. A little more detail about truss rod installation if your going with yours.

First you have to be sure that its solid. Any weak joins and it'll come apart and its a pig of a job to put right once its installed. Can be done but it aint easy.

The rod you've made looks liks a standard Gibson rod. When you cut the channel the truss rod function improves if it sits in the neck at an angle, higher near the nut and lower at the heel (not crucial). You do need the rod to be a few mm's deeper in the centre of the neck. You can do this with shims glued into the channel or by cutting the slot with a curved jig. Details if required!!??

You'll also need to make a Filler or shim to fill the groove when the rod is installed. This will echo the curve I described above and hold the rod in place . You can use any timber for this. I use Spruce as its light and stiff and I have lots of off cuts lying about

The truss rod does need to be wrapped in something to stop any possibility that it will rattle. I Roll mine in cloth tape. Anything will do the job as long as its a sug/ tight fit. Teflon is used these days by the "Big Boys" because they slop glue about when they glue up the fingerboard and truss rod shim and any squeeze out will not set on the rod or more imoportant the thread at the top. It also makes them easier to remove if required. You won't need to remove yours if you do it right :)

It doesn't matter that your rod is not straight its more important that it fits the groove you cut which has a dip in the centre in any case.

You can use a bench or pin router to cut the channel but you'll need to think about how to introduce a little curve to the depth of the cut. I have a number of jigs to do just that. It only needs to be a few mm's.

If you use a T or square bar you only need to Epoxy the whole bar into a snug fitting groove. I've built many necks with a Square bar as reinforcement and not had any of them provide problems over the years. As you've made the truss rod I would fit it anyhow it's not that hard. Like anything in life it just requires a bit of careful thought and execution.


Hope this is clear. It's late here and I'm getting tired. If your not sure of anything just holla!!
 
muttley600 said:
The rod you've made looks liks a standard Gibson rod. When you cut the channel the truss rod function improves if it sits in the neck at an angle, higher near the nut and lower at the heel (not crucial). You do need the rod to be a few mm's deeper in the centre of the neck. You can do this with shims glued into the channel or by cutting the slot with a curved jig. Details if required!!??

You can use a bench or pin router to cut the channel but you'll need to think about how to introduce a little curve to the depth of the cut. I have a number of jigs to do just that. It only needs to be a few mm's.

If you use a T or square bar you only need to Epoxy the whole bar into a snug fitting groove. I've built many necks with a Square bar as reinforcement and not had any of them provide problems over the years. As you've made the truss rod I would fit it anyhow it's not that hard. Like anything in life it just requires a bit of careful thought and execution.


Hope this is clear. It's late here and I'm getting tired. If your not sure of anything just holla!!
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Thanks you have been alot of help!

what do you mean by a curve to the depth of a cut, like deeper at the heel and shallower at the nut?

Im considering a solid non adjustable rod because it wont break (the welds) and with my red oak and the grain is more porus and could snap if i tighten it too much. I still feel like it would be wierd to have a non adjustable truss rod though.

If i have a non adjustable rod what material whould it be steel hollow square rod can it be solid like from a hardware store?

Can i completely cover the non adjustable rod so it is not possible to acess or see?
 
What kind of epoxy do you use to glue the non adjustable rod in to the neck?
 
With a traditional Gibson style rod such as you've made it works by compressing the timber on the back of the neck as you tighten the truss rod. To work correctly the rod needs to be set so that it has a bow of a few mm. ie it is set deeper into the neck around the 9th fret. The groove needs to reflect this and the rod needs to be installed to match the groove. As you tighten the truss rod the rod itself straightens and results in the neck pulling backwards. Hard to visualise I know. I'll try and do a graphic later and post that. A picture speaks a thosand words.

Ideally the rod will be deeper at the heel than at the nut, but the whole thing must have a concave bow to it and it must sit snug and not be hindered by glue etc. for it to work. It sounds more complex than it really is. I'd go with what you've made seeing as how you have it ready :eek:

Non adjustable truss rods are becoming more common as awreness of the truss rod function becomes more widely understood. 50% of my work now have fixed rods. Go figure!! Like I said a truss rod no matter how well fitted can never straighten a badly bowed neck. All it can and should do is pull against the strings. I get dozens of setups in every month as a result of badly adjusted or broken rods.

A fixed rod is just that. A solid stiff steel rod embedded in the neck. Completley hidden and out of site. On an electric neck I'd start it under the 3rd fret and finish is just before the heel. 9 or 10 mm hollow mild steel will do the trick. You can hold it in place with any epoxy you like but the slow stuff is stonger.

A neck built this way with modern light strings will hold up fine. Especially on a first instrument.
 
Its my first home built instrument but not my first owned or played.
 
muttley600 said:
With a traditional Gibson style rod such as you've made it works by compressing the timber on the back of the neck as you tighten the truss rod. To work correctly the rod needs to be set so that it has a bow of a few mm. ie it is set deeper into the neck around the 9th fret. The groove needs to reflect this and the rod needs to be installed to match the groove. As you tighten the truss rod the rod itself straightens and results in the neck pulling backwards. Hard to visualise I know. I'll try and do a graphic later and post that. A picture speaks a thosand words.
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I think I get what you mean now.

Do you think it would be safer, better, and easier if i just use a fixed rod because i can just go and buy one cheap.
 
disclaimer: i don't know what the f*#$ I'm talking about. :p
 
marshall.amps said:
YAY i got em on finally
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Looks like some quality work there. Don't let other's discourage you, finish that project and post some pics!!
 
Whoa!
Thanks to Muttley. I'm reading this just in case I'll ever get around of building one, and those words and links are very good.
If Marshall.Amps asks a few more hints down the road we can sticky this thread as DIY-Q&A :D

Seems to have improved poor-Marshall's grammar too! :D

You GO dude, and keep posting pics too!
 
Definite grammatical improvement. (sentence fragment LOL)
 
muttley600 said:
I would advise just going with a steel square section or T bar rod on your first instrument with no adjustment. Keep it simple.
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Really bad advice.

Just ask any of the couple hundred thousand Martin owners who have guitars made before Martin started using an adjustable truss rod. Ask them how much they liked paying $450 for a refret just so they could get their neck straightened out.


On another note. Don't give this guy too much. He needs to spend some money and buy a book. The internet is a great sorce of information; but too much of it is bad, and books actually have to go through an editorial process which helps to improve acuracy. Besides, he needs to learn that knowledge comes a cost. Not always a monetary cost, but if he doesn't learn it soon he is going to become even more obnoxious than he is now.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by muttley600
I would advise just going with a steel square section or T bar rod on your first instrument with no adjustment. Keep it simple.




Really bad advice.

Just ask any of the couple hundred thousand Martin owners who have guitars made before Martin started using an adjustable truss rod. Ask them how much they liked paying $450 for a refret just so they could get their neck straightened out.


On another note. Don't give this guy too much. He needs to spend some money and buy a book. The internet is a great sorce of information; but too much of it is bad, and books actually have to go through an editorial process which helps to improve acuracy. Besides, he needs to learn that knowledge comes a cost. Not always a monetary cost, but if he doesn't learn it soon he is going to become even more obnoxious than he is now.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
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Sorry Light but I cant agree with you on that.

Most of the T bar Martins I've had to do neck resets on or refrets have not been down to the T bar but poor choice of timber and tooling used at the time. When I was in the Martin Shop some 15 years ago they just about admitted as much.

Martins choice to move to an adjustable rod was as much commercial as anything. They wanted the guitar to be able to be reset off site so as they never came back to the shop. This is also why many Martins (among others) are over built. Sure they are great I don't dispute that but they are over built.

I have had as many 70's fenders as Martins in my shop for neck work. They all have adjustable rods. Why is that??

I've built hundreds of guitars in the last 25 years and have used a solid bar on a good 40% of them. I can count the ones that have come back for neck resets or remedial action work on one hand. Build it right in the first place and the neck will hold. Many necks I see these days that are shot are a result of people who don't know what they are doing, playing with the truss rod. I ain't complaining they come to me to put em right. You build em your way and I'll build them my way. Both will likely work. But you can't tell me I'm wrong cos I've paid for my house and kids by doing it for 25 years and I'm still learning all the time.

As to your second "go buy a book" dig thats great advice and I second it there are quite a few good ones out there. I have chosen to share a bit of what I know here because I found some useful info on the site myself. Sure I could have gone and bought a book about it but Hey I wouldn't have met you then would I? :)

@Marshal.amp. You can build a good guitar with either a fixed rod or an adjustable rod. As you've made adjustable rod already go ahead and use it. Likelyhood is if you finish this guitar you'll want to build others so learn as much as you can building this one. Then you can make decent choices on your future projects. There will be things about the one your building now that you will not like. So get on and build it so you can move on.

We learn by doing
 
muttley600 said:
Sorry Light but I cant agree with you on that.

Most of the T bar Martins I've had to do neck resets on or refrets have not been down to the T bar but poor choice of timber and tooling used at the time. When I was in the Martin Shop some 15 years ago they just about admitted as much.

Martins choice to move to an adjustable rod was as much commercial as anything. They wanted the guitar to be able to be reset off site so as they never came back to the shop. This is also why many Martins (among others) are over built. Sure they are great I don't dispute that but they are over built.
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Well, my family has one of the largest Martin warranty shops in the world (number 1, 2, and 3 for the last three years, and we are well on the way to number one this year, last I checked). We have about as much experience with Martins as anyone anywhere. We also build a shitload of guitars. We are one of the largest and better respected repair shops in the country. (No, I won't tell you my name, but you would likely recognize it. Dad and I have numerous articles to our name). We've done thousands of seventies Martins, and an awful lot of 40's, 50's, and 60's Martins as well. A few months back we had a 1934 D28 in the shop. We had done a complete refret on it a few years back (this time we were just doing another aprasel for his insurance company), and it's neck was already starting to move. People don't play those things because they play well, they play them because they sound amazing (probably the best sounding acoustic I've ever played). That's just the way wood works. Or, as the sign in the shop says: carefully sellected pieces of wood, in the most carefully controled circumstances, will do pretty much as they damn please.

Adjustable truss rods are NOT just a "marketing" thing. They are a absolutly essential and functional part of a well made guitar. ANY neck will move with time and climate changes. A truss rod can fix this easily, but without one it is what it is, and they are rarely right. It doesn't matter how stable you make a neck (ours are five piece laminates for stiffness, with great mattterial which has been in our shop for years - my electrics even have carbon fibre rods; they still need truss rods). Sure, you might get it ok until it gets sold, but in a year you will have problems. It will be impossible to get the setup as good as it should be. Getting the neck bow right is the first part of ANY setup is to get the neck bow right. If you can't do that (and you need a truss rod to do it), everything else after will suffer. Too much neck bow and the guitar will either have high action or it will buzz in the middle of the fingerboard. Too little neck bow, and it will buzz all over. I read this all over the internet, and to be frank the only way you can believe that a truss rod is less than essential is if you have never done repair on a professional level. Sure, we can get a neck right without a truss rod, but you are magnifying the cost by 5-10 times the amound it should be.

Truss rods are essential, and anyone who says otherwise is flat out wrong. This is not an opinion thing, this is fact; you NEED a truss rod if you want a functional guitar.



Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Light, I'm no trying to labour the point and I understand from reading your many posts that you know of what you speak. I'm not based in the US so I can't comment on your shop size etc. I'm sure you have a fine reputation and thats good enough for me. Although we could well have met at one or two of the trade shows over there.

I am also a liscenced to do warranty work for Martin, Taylor and Lowden among others and I do. I think your missing the point I'm trying to make which is that truss rods do not need to be adjustable. Just because it is a solid bar does not mean it hasn't got a truss rod. I didn't say Martins choice to use an adhustable rod was a marketing thing. I said it was partially motivated by commercial decisions. Like it or not I know this is the case. It was not the only reason but it was a consideration. I'm not anti adjustable truss rods. I use them when asked and also on some of my stock run instruments. I also use solid concealed bars as do Lowden. Are they Flat out wrong? If so I'll be sure to tell George next time I see him. It is entirely possible to build a decent and long lived guitar with either style of rod and MANY professional Luthiers who I know and admire do just that. My first choice for gigging these days is an Archtop I made nearly 20 years ago with a concealed rod. The neck on it is as true as the day I made it. Its had a few refrets but I've never had to play with the relief during any set up work I've done on it.

Also you do not need a truss rod to get the neck relief right. It is one way of doing it. If you rely on the truss rod to do too much work you are doing it wrong. The purpose of a truss rod is to counteract the pull of the strings not to correct a bowed or warped neck. I'm not for one minute suggesting that that is what you are doing but that is what a lot of people believe is possible and why you and I see a lot of broken rods, stripped threads or worse.

I too have had papers published by the way, on everything from the damping properties of spruce to the mechanical properties of archtop plate design. I'd be really interested to read some of your articles at sometime. Any way peace Bro and I'm not getting at you just pointing out that there is never only one way!
 
gvarko said:
Looks like some quality work there. Don't let other's discourage you, finish that project and post some pics!!
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Oh believe me i will. And when im done im going to make a thread with all the pics.
 
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Light said:
He needs to spend some money and buy a book. Besides, he needs to learn that knowledge comes a cost.
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Money does not educate! And those martin guitars, "before they started useing adjustable rods" are old! duh! dumbass thats why they need to be straightened.
 
Money does not educate! And those martin guitar before they started useing adjustable rods are old! dumbass thats why they need to be straightened.
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marshall.amp that aint true its not just because they are old and there is a lot of wisdom and experience in what Light is telling you. I would take it on board. We are disaagreeing from a standpoint of many years experience which you do not have.

You could do yourself a favour and get one of the many books out there it will become a bible to you. I am only gonna help out people that remain civil. Of course if you recon you know more than Light then you'd know more than me as well so you won't be needing any more advice will you?

Your call.........
 
ok ok Sorry Im know i didnt read all of what you guys said i will but dont have time right now and im still thinking about doing a fixed rod any objections?
And i dont think i will but a book now but i will sometime just not now im saving for new amp then if my guitar i made is crap wich it will be im sure then im getting a new guitar.

sorry bad grammer and punctuation i have no time right now.
 
If you've got time to post inane questions that you could find the answers for in about half the time of waiting for a response on here, on Google, then you've got the time to read good advice. Bad move calling someone who's giving you great advice and putting up with your idiocy a dumbass. I sincerely hope your neck join fails and some organ of yours gets punctured. Ignorance is underrated - it enables Darwin to do his magic!
 
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