Understanding guitar truss rod adjustment

[Music] it's been my experience over many years of repairing guitars that most players most of my customers are afraid to adjust their own truss rod they're afraid they're gonna break it it's not very easy to break a truss rod and you don't need to fear it so let's take a look at truss rods and how they work guitar necks bend especially over the years from string tension pulling them up they can get into a very deep up bow imagine if this were the string line the action would be horrible up here and nobody likes that or if i pull back now the straight edge is rocking from end to end if this were the strings they'd be touching the frets in the middle of the neck another thing that makes wood bend or not bend is humidity or the lack of it and all this is controllable with the truss rod so there are two kinds of truss rods that are most commonly used the single action rod or a double action rod this is a single action rod a very common rod and the type that's used in this guitar it's a long piece of steel that's fastened at one end of the neck down by the body and it's threaded on this end down at the peghead the steel washer bears against the mahogany at the end of this cavity and the brass nut tightens on the threads and exerts pressure we call that an acorn nut this rod is installed into the neck on a curve and when you tighten the threads it's trying to straighten out and it will pull the neck back straight against the pull of the strings or if you tighten it a whole bunch it will actually back bow the neck and then the strings would hit in the middle on the frets when you loosen it because of the string tension it goes either straight or back into an up bow that's a single action truss rod and there are many types so you know which way to adjust the rod in case you don't if i want to tighten the rod and pull the neck back from the direction of the string pull i'm going to turn to the right or clockwise if i turn it to the left i'm loosening this single action rod that's counterclockwise that'll go back up towards the direction of the string pull you can stop when the next straight if it was in an up bow or keep going and get a lot of relief follow the rule righty tighty lefty loosey corny as it is now here's a double action rod this is the stumac hot rod it adjusts the same as a single action rod that is if you turn it to the right righty tighty it's going to pull the neck back away from the string pull but when you loosen it the nut doesn't come loose it will force the neck in the other direction so you can actually force a back bowed neck in to being straight or even into up pull or relief when you turn it the two rods are compressing and they can bend in either direction so let's adjust the truss rod we're going to adjust this 1960s gibson sg one nice thing about this little tech screwdriver set is that the barrel is magnetized so you can hold a screw and put it right in without fumbling my favorite tool i gotta tell you everybody i know gets one for christmas here we see the acorn nut i look down the fretboard on this guitar and i know that it has an up bow can you see that gap right in the middle it's deepest right in here that's a lot of relief that's an up bow if you don't have a straight edge the string can be a straight edge put one finger at the first fret one finger way up high maybe at the 17th fret reach out with another finger and press it up and down and watch it you can see that motion that also shows you the up bow i'm going to adjust that straight by turning the truss rod to the right before i tighten the nut to adjust the rod i put a mark on it so i know where i'm starting out an acorn nut takes a 5 16 socket i'm going to turn it towards me which is right and i'm going to give it between an eighth and a quarter turn and i think that's almost straight i could go a little further it doesn't take a lot to tighten the rod let's see what we got that's a straight neck the frets are a little bit uneven so there's a slight gap you'll see but the neck is straight as an arrow a half a turn plus an eighth now with a lot of guitars they don't adjust at the peghead end vintage fenders and many others they adjust at the body end that's not easy to get at so you have to take the neck off to make your adjustment tighten or loosen put it back on until you get the straightness you're after and that's a lot of work it's not uncommon to have to do that three or four times in a single setup if there's a gap down here between the end of the neck and the pick guard and sometimes there is we do have this little wrench it can fold down in and you can turn you take off the pick guard to get at it though each time as the slot comes up one of these ends will fit and allow you to turn and it avoids damage in the body by jamming a screwdriver in there so don't be afraid to adjust your own truss rod give it a try if it feels stuck and you're worried about it take it to a good guitar tech and see what's going on but don't be afraid to try it and if you like these free youtube trade secrets subscribe to our youtube channel see ya

Channel: StewMac

Views: 1,430,474

Rating: 4.9767013 out of 5

Keywords: truss rod, truss rod adjustment, adjust truss rod, truss rod guitar, truss rod for guitar, truss rod in guitar, truss rod guitar adjustment, truss rod adjustment guitar, how to adjust truss rod, truss rod adjustment acoustic guitar, adjust truss rod on acoustic guitar, truss rod adjustment electric guitar, truss rod adjustment fender, adjust truss rod acoustic, truss rod adjustment tool, how does truss rod work, dual action truss rod adjustment, guitar setup, stewmac_guitar

Id: SAg6Kvbr_OU

Length: 5min 28sec (328 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 18 2019