Official Luthiers Forum!

No pictures on this one to protect the identity of the builder.

Worked on a Luthier built arch top that the commissioner had been struggling with because no one could get it set-up properly so that it does not have fret rattle noise.

The client paid thousands for this thing and needs to play it in his gigs but has been either cringing from the poor set-up or avoiding playing it even considering selling it to the next unhappy owner.

See why there are no pics.... This is not unusual by the way, I see it often with Luthier built instruments with single action rods.

It seems the builder did not account for fret compression when building the instrument and built it with so much neck back bow that string tension alone can't over come the back bow even when the truss rod is slacked (and may possibly rattle....). Again I would guess that I see this one half a dozen times a year.

So we are basically asked to save the instrument so it can be played without the owner hating every minute of how it rattles....

Solutions are available for him that are not very expensive, more solutions with higher cost are also available.

First increasing string tension by increasing string gauges can pull the neck forward and over come the back bow. Next setting action higher can over come fret rattle when a fret plane sucks for reasons of poor workmanship or slight back bow.

A fret dress where we mill the mid neck hump out and even mill in relief with a slack rod is a possibility if the frets are not overly worn. These frets are new and this is a possibility as well.

Moving up in price a refret where the fret board is straightened and the fret slots are deepened since we make them more shallow by milling the hump out of the board is a possibility too.

The client was thrilled that there were answers to his issues ranging from $85 to $450 and he was even more thrilled that in only an hour since he was from out of town we could make it playable with heavier strings and setting the action ever so slightly higher.

He will be coming back driving nearly six hours again for plan b when he has more time and we will either refret or dress the frets milling in relief for that useless, slack single action truss rod.

The client is not happy with the builder, this is not uncommon in our world either since after all people don't come to us because everything is hunky dory...... The instrument is otherwise well built and I told him that. Now and with some time he may grow to appreciate it.

So the point on this forum of mostly builders? Use a stinkin double action rod because all of this trouble and more such as when an instrument is permitted to dry out can be avoided with the instrument remaining playable simply by using double action rods.

Many decades ago it's likely the same was said, perhaps with colored stones on cave walls..... about using a truss rod at all. But these days we have a number of very good options with quality double action rods that can be had for a song.

After all the entire satisfaction that your clients receive from your creations may depend on it...... That pretty rosette means nothing if the thing sucks to play.... Guitars ARE ultimately tools for musicians.

Thanks.

Thanks Hesh. What are your thoughts about building without a truss rod if the builder knows what s/he is doing?

For instance, there’s the Teeter method of widening fret slots and using epoxy, which takes back bow out of the equation. Do you figure using old school Martin T-bars or carbon fibre in lieu of a truss rod is mostly a waste of time?

Steve

I hear ya on that 2-way rods but I wonder why he would not address the problem with the builder? FWIW the method I have adopted as of a few years ago is to make the fret slots just wide enough to barely hold the fret in with a tap and glue them in with fish glue.

I've had a $3000 "Gibsin" acoustic in for set-up with same problem. Told him and offered to fix it but I think he ebayed it.

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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 think there is a lot to be said about modern conveniences. There are a whole host of them....

While I am still not convinced about adjustable bridges... I really like double acting truss rods and bolt on necks.

I am glad I used a double acting rod in my My Oak guitar due to the oak neck.... The oak neck wanted to expand a bit more than the garden variety mahogany neck does with seasonal humidity changes... And certain times of year required a bit of a backwards crank.... I haven't noticed this in the last 2 years or so... Perhaps it's settled down..

Hey Steve!

In this business there are very good reasons, everyone.... willing and advised of the possibilities... for building without a truss rod or with a T-bar. Some of the top tier builders will do this too but for a very specific reason - to be period correct and authentic to what they're replicating.

Period correct replications from well established builders and factories are available without naming any names and because these guys (men and women) are not on their first time out and have done likely multiples of these replicas they can pull it off and pull it off very well.

The epoxy method I would not recommend and times change. Why? Because we can always make a fret slot bigger if we want to but making them smaller is not easy with desirable solutions easily available. Cleaning ep*xy out of a fret slot although great for one's X-rated vocabulary is not something you want to do either. Ep*xy is very dampening and I would not use it for frets for the very same reason I would not use it for bridges.

Anyway if your objective is period correctness not to be confused with political correctness I can see no truss rod at all or a T-bar utilized by someone who can pull it off as an option.

OTOH if building instruments for value, serviceability and enjoyment AND you are not building enough of them to toss a few that fail the smell test over time...... for all concerned use a truss rod and use a double action one.

One last word about Teeter. There was a time before Al Gore invented the Internet that there was very little to reference for Lutherie information. These early books including Cumpiano and Natleson's work were invaluable AND one of the only ways that information was shared with Luthiers. Now because of Al Gore.... we can share all manner of stuff such as complete and absolute crap ideas packaged as gospel. Last week someone showed me a Luthier who believes that electrons travel more unimpeded on only one direction with fret wire.

Now come on.... if you are going to be smoking the drapes at least have the decency to share....

Another idea that is taken seriously by some Luthiers and players alike is that one can hear the difference in effects pedal between 9 volt battery brands.....

Not trying to dis Teeter or anyone for that matter but we also no longer saw necks off guitars or shave bridges down to nearly nothing.... etc. etc. etc. Times change and so does how we view things. Ep*xy IME and IMO sucks for fret work.

Lastly when the most experienced and well respected Luthiers do repairs it's often he case that the repairs themselves are "serviceable" and "reversible" even if it's highly unlikely that there would ever be a need to do so. Another reason to use proper, reversible glues where important. Widening fret slots and packing them with ep*xy is neither easily reversible or serviceable in my experience.

EDIT: Forgot the back bow thing. Back bow can develop and often does when an instrument is permitted to dry out. A guitar with no truss rod and no T-bar better have the BEST of care because if too much back bow develops that can't be overcome with string tension we have the very same situation that I started this thread over, someone has to fix the thing.

I'm not a fan of CF rods in necks unless there is a specific problem that one is attempting to solve. One example could be a bass guitar with a long, narrow, wimpy neck that Dan E. would call a "rubber neck" and use his neck jig to work on. Most guitars really don't benefit from CF in my experience in the least. There are even examples of CF making a neck so very stiff that the truss rod is of limited use.

CF has a place in necks but just throwing it on any old guitar attempting to reinvent the wheel IME usually is of no benefit to anyone. Let the hate mail begin...

Also regarding CF in necks remember Ov*tion? They approached reinventing the guitar with aluminum necks. Where are they now......

Hey Jf!

He said that he did address it with the builder and it didn't go well..... Anyway this could have been avoided with a double action rod.

Fret compression is not the problem though, too much fret compression is the problem. One of the advantages IME to pressing frets with a Jaws II fret press is we can feel if they are going in easily or they take more force. This is invaluable feedback for us and we can see where the rod is currently positioned and if there is enough functionality to still be effective even if the thing develops some back bow.

Exactly! These duds often get passed on to the next unsuspecting and soon to be unhappy steward of the thing. Price of the instrument does not seem to matter, this Archie was over a $8K and because of no double action rod it was nearly unplayable and completely unplayable to someone with standards.

Hey John!

Exactly, it gives you options and let's face it too since you just brought up another very good reason to use a double acting rod what we build may take some years to behave as we wish and settle down. My Strat from Fender had an active, moving neck for four years and it's just now starting to not be a weather vane with RH changes.

I recently had a '70s era 7-string Gretsch come in the shop with a similar issue except the truss rod was a geared Burns type rod that was inoperable. The fretboard had a backbow that could not be adjusted for due to the frozen truss rod. I gave the client a list of options (similar to those described above) with the most expensive option being pulling the fretboard and installing a new double action truss rod, which is what we ended up doing. Turned out good but it sure was a lot of work. The rod I installed was by Mark Blanchard and I highly recommend them. Very smooth operation.

Very cool Barry! I used dozens of Blanchard rods in the guitars that I built and sold and never had an issue with any of them. Because they looked nearly identical 8-9 years ago when they came out to a competing rod that had a reputation for bad welds some people avoided them. But the Blanchard rod was the best that I ever used although Martin's double action rod also gets rave reviews these days and Martin always uses great stuff.

Nice save on the Gretch. Gretch instruments are known for some pretty dicey practices such as a rod so complicated that it failed as you described. Rickenbackers are terrible and even worse IME than Gretch so much so that I got mad and doubled our price list pricing for Riks as what we call a "punitive quotations" specifically engineered to make one go the hell away..... These days's I'll set-up a Rik 12 but someone will be paying me $165 plus strings to do it.... Take a look at a Rik 12 headstock and see why it takes north of 30 minutes to restring one.

We had locals who would only bring in Rik 12s for restringing since they could not even do it and let us lose our arse and souls on it. Now we at least get compensated for our time. Talk about unserviceable.... any maker who makes instruments overly difficult to restring should be buried with one....

Yep, this job turned a near wall hangar into his favorite jazz guitar.

Never had to do a Rik 12 string but I've heard tales similar to yours.

Yeah, if you want to use single rods, you better get the setup right before you let it out into the wild. And be very picky about neck wood, to minimize the chance of bending every time the humidity changes.

Does anyone know what happened to Stuart Gort? He was working on composite truss rods that were going to be even lighter weight than single steel, but I haven't seen him around here in months.

His web site is up and his wares look killer! Maybe drop him a note?

Sweet! I didn't know he had a web site. What's the URL?

I sent him a PM 4 months ago, but unless he logs in again, he's never going to see it.

Not necessarily relevant to the archtop but occasionally a back bowed neck is a useful indicator in humidity forensics.

Customers often arrive with a freshly moistened humidifier, if only to avoid a reprimand, but I believe the neck is a much slower battery of moisture and bow can still be telling the tale of a humidity extreme even after the top has normalized.

How much longer do we need to wait for instrument humidity history RFID?

Since their invention, a two way rod is simply due diligence. Also very useful in the fretting process itself. Get the board exactly level. Knock in your frets via preferred method. Dial out induced backbow from fretting to get the board dead level again. Level frets. Can't level frets with a backbowed fretboard.

Was he the original owner?

I don't think anyone's mentioned it yet on this thread, but you can crank the rod before you put the Frets in, plane it flat, deepen the slots appropriately, then fret. This gives you some room to move both ways.

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Pat

I think even with a two way rod it’s a good idea to do the final leveling of the board with some tension on the rod.
I have found trying to introduce symmetrical relief into a too humped neck by truss rod alone to be unpredictable. My experience has been with the LMI TRSD and for the last 5-6 years the Blanchard.

Right after fretting I usually check by putting 10-12 lbs on the shoulders while supporting the headstock.

Any chance your customer overhumidified his guitar? Guys that pay $$$ tend to do that.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Yeah. That’s the technique taught by Cumpiano in his book. But very necessary as he is building in a single action rod.
I’ve used nothing but double action t-rods.
Anybody tried Stew mac’s newest supposed low profile double action rods?


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"It is easier to fool a man, than it is to convince him that he has been fooled"
Mark Twain

http://www.stuartkeithguitars.com

Sorry I forgot to post the URL

Very true. Running our hands up and down the fret ends is often a tell tale since the frets don't shrink but the wooden necks do and then take some time to recover, if they recover.... because of the thickness of the necks.

We get lied to often since we do warranty work and you're right the humidifier may still be about ready to drip and overfilled too.

David that's been my experience too. My stuff usually came out with the rod barely engaged and the neck flat after fretting. Put strings on the thing and it's pulled into a bit of relief and more on the bass side because we milled the fret board to do exactly that.

All very true, the double action rod is just so much easier in all respects.