Official Luthiers Forum!

I notice most guitars don't follow the Gibson way. I happen to like it and I'm planning/thinking about this for my second guitar neck. I like the look of it and don't care if it will probably break off someday when it falls off a stand.

My next guitar will have a Martinish body with a bolt on Gibsonish neck and a shell truss rod cover.

What say yee.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Everything is about choices; deciding which mix of goods and bads you prefer. If you have weighed the goods and bads, and a headstock truss rod adjustment is what you prefer, then that’s what you should build. I prefer the opposite. To each their own.

As an American, I celebrate the freedom builders enjoy to make meaningful choices - both wise and unwise. But with this freedom comes responsibility for those choices. Primarily, that responsibility should be to repair persons, but particularly to me. As your primary skill, knowledge, and practice guide stars and - indeed - first waking thought, you should place my convenience, comfort, and financial security foremost. Consider getting in the habit of pausing before every action to ponder what is best for Woodie G, and set aside those selfish thoughts which might inadvertently elevate your needs and wants above my own.

I suppose I need to add an emoji here just to be on the safe side...

But seriously, if you want to use the Gibson adjustable truss rod design or perhaps attend an early Fall garden party dressed only in 4" Ferragamo sandals, a thong, and a red riding hood, as long as you've thought through the color choices, I am good with whatever you do. Enjoy the hobby (and the party... my RSVP was regrets due to family activities, but you go have some fun!).

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We have become a civilization that elevates idiots, prostitutes, and clowns. Am I still to defend it? Yes, for its principles. Yes, for what it was. Yes, for what it still may be.

-Mark Helprin, The Oceans and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story (A Novel)

You say you like it and don’t care about the obvious downside. So what do you want us to tell you?

Disagree with “most guitars don’t follow the Gibson way”, there’s about a zillion guitars in service with peghead truss adjustment. I’d actually say body-end truss adjustment is slightly less common on a global scale.

A headstock truss rod adjust is something that I appreciate very much even though all the guitars I built had sound hole adjustments.

But the process is you stand at the headstock end, tip the instrument up and sight down the treble side and then the bass side of the neck. Then you make adjustments accordingly with the truss rod.

When the adjustor is at the nut end I don't have to put the guitar neck back down, lock it into my leg vice and then move to the sound hole end and do the adjusting there. In fact I need not even let go of the instrument I may just insert the wrench and tweak to my heart's desire and Bob's my uncle.

So a peg head truss rod adjustor is more efficient to use in my experience.

Structurally sure the big arse cavity in the headstock and neck transition does weaken things but with a little common sense and a careful selection of guitar stands head stock breaks need not happen.

I have to wonder on vintage Fenders how many repair people when dialing in the relief don't go for that last few % of adjustment because it's hard to do? I know when I get close and if I'm in a hurry I may not dial in these as much as I would want because the design is unserviceable when you have to loosen and nearly remove the neck to adjust a truss rod.

Others like Suhr and Ernie Ball have learned to make body rod adjusts that can be done under full tension eliminating this problem.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

If you add a "volute/diamond/dart" to the back of the peghead it will add a little extra "meat" to that fragile spot.

double post for a double post

There is no need to make the HUGE gouged out Gibson style access port. If I do those now I use rods with Allen Key access and make the port as wide as the truss rod. If you use a long Allen Key then it's not a problem. With a nut you would have to make it wider. Having said that I tend to exclusively do sound hole access now. I don't find it anymore difficult at all, a little hole in the UTB lines up precisely with the Allen head of the truss rod. You don't even have to remove a truss rod cover.

Yup, there's that. One less step.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Headplates and backstraps do a lot to strengthen the nut/truss rod access area.

Another thing is to buy truss rods that operate with an allen wrench and minimizing the access required in the wood at the head.

I'm working on some right now where the access is so small the hole in the head isn't much different than some current fender electrics. I don't plan on a access cover unless a customer wants one. If they do, it may just be a small oval held in place with rare earth magnets.

You could possibly add a layer of CF fabric under the head plate and backstrap, and I may experiment with that.

Then they would have to break the neck shaft .

Sometimes overstrengthening one area just moves the weak point somewhere more difficult to repair.

There isn't always an easy solution and just about everything in a stringed instrument is a compromise between strength and tone.

Little slow at the keyboard, as others have just added while I was fiddling around.

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

Nice one Woodie. I shall remember your words on all future builds, and all party invites! Dave

I think the same.
Headplate, backstrap, volute and wood selection combined with a slim allan key truss rod adjustment go a long way to avoiding the broken headstock syndrome.
Even my clients who didn't want a backstrap don't know they have one, just made it with a neck cutoff, never noticed..

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I had a bit of a hard time deciding what the OP was asking for; reassurance, a good Gibson neck argument, or 'hey... whatever tops off your martini' statement of unconditional support. When in doubt, always go for a bit of well-padded snark, emojis, and a touch of the absurd.

I suppose I could have just told Mr. Hutchings that builders benefit from exploring their options - particularly before they are legally bound to commission contracts - and that no one should avoid a good Stilton just because they were told it tastes funny.

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We have become a civilization that elevates idiots, prostitutes, and clowns. Am I still to defend it? Yes, for its principles. Yes, for what it was. Yes, for what it still may be.

-Mark Helprin, The Oceans and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story (A Novel)

I like the magnet idea and will attempt it when I get to building the neck.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

I use both types depending on the guitar and what I am going for.
They both work fine as long as you don't make the cavity too big on the head access as has been noted.

Single action truss rods are easy to make as I learned building F5 mandolins using Roger Siminoff's book. The only issue is the need for a socket wrench to adjust it which makes the pocket huge. I don't know any way around that.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

I sometimes make a single action rod and use a Fender bullet style nut that takes an allen wrench. The truss rod cavity can fit snugly around the nut, and it looks pretty cool. Don't need a truss rod cover either.

I would not use or recommend singe action rods. A compression rod like Gibson used is very eloquent in it's simplicity but it does not do the entire job that a truss rod can be tasked with.

Every few days we save a guitar from either major work to end of life because it has a double action rod. When people let their guitar dry out and that happens a lot in Michigan and they go into back bow the backbow often is not removed when rehumidified and the neck can take a back bow set.

With a double action rod I can adjust this out. Without a double action rod it can be a very big deal to straighten the neck and we are not fans of heat pressing in so much as it does not always last.

I understand tradition but I also understand value and double action rods are a major innovation so much so that the last major hold out on even using a truss rod, Martin went all double action too.

There are some great double action rods on the market these days.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Oh OK

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

That made me laugh - I needed that today

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Happy to oblige.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Random thought: What if you use a tube instead of a rod, and tap threads inside of it so it uses a screw instead of a nut?

EDIT: After further consideration, I think this is a very good idea. You do still have to weaken the headstock by routing a slot for the screw head, but by doing that instead of fully hollowing out the cavity, you can apply pressure in the opposite direction as well, making it a two-way rod. Reverse pressure could potentially crack the headstock, but probably will never need that much, and you could include a layer of carbon fiber to be safe (EDIT2: better yet just put the screw head a little deeper in, so it's underneath the fingerboard and has more wood before the headstock to support reverse pressure)

Another nice advantage is that you can make the screw as long as you want, to get plenty of thread contact area with aluminum or titanium to minimize risk of galling. I'll try it with a 1/4" diameter 0.35" wall aluminum tube (~4.5mm inside diameter) and m5x20mm screw.

I'll have to come up with a new way to anchor it instead of just bending the end of the rod...

If you can't find a bullet style nut you could cut a slot in the end of a coupling nut and use a flat head screwdriver to adjust the tension on the rod.
https://www.amazon.com/Hex-Coupling-Nut ... 57FNJ?th=1

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anything on how you make your necks. I use a double acting truss rod with the adjustment at the head end, but I splice my head stock and shaft.Sometimes I'll put a veneer on the sides to hide the line and on the back if the customer wants. I almost always use a rod with an allen key.