Embarassing question

[MadFloyd]

I've googled and I've searched, I've read the Fender setup guide and I'm still not confident.

I'm trying to 'straighten' the neck of my Squire Fretless. I am turning the allen key towards the G string (is that clockwise or counter clockwise - depends on orientation). The tension in the truss rod gives pretty quickly (like opening a jar). I can't see any visible difference in straighteness of neck. By reducing tension in the truss rod, will that make the neck curve away from the strings (i.e. increase the gap between middle of the neck and strings) or vice versa?

Thanks in advance for 'straightening' me out. :-)

[bassteban]

Tightening the truss rod should apply more tension against the pull of the strings, increasing the action(distance between strings & fretboard); loosening should have the opposite effect. GO SLOWLY- turn it 1/8-1/4 of a turn, then allow everything to settle for at least a couple of hours before doing anything else. Also read the stickies on setup at the top of this section: ALL BASIC SETUP QUESTIONS ANSWERED HERE

[waleross]

Also YouTube has vidz in the same :
Here is a gen. link Trussrod Adjustment
Sylvanmusic » Video Clips
Have fun.......

[BritPicker]

i thought it was the opposite way around!

[bassteban]

Originally Posted by BritPicker

i thought it was the opposite way around!

You know, I think you may be right- and not just because you're from *down under*

[SMILEYSIXX]

Sorry Bassteban, Brit's right, you were backwards haha. No worries though, I still have a tough time adjusting my TR too.

[walterw]

think of it like this: the strings are pulling the neck one way (up into a curve), while the truss rod pulls the neck the other way, straightening it out.

tightening the rod (turning it clockwise, to the right, like you were tightening any other nut, bolt, or screw) makes it pull harder, "fighting" the string pull more and bringing the strings closer to the frets.

[fhm555]

For a right hand thread, looking down the vertical centerline of the head of that fastener, imagine the point where that line hits the screw head as the center of a clock face. From that prospective, turning CW is tightening and CCW is loosening. Thinking of the screw head as a clock face again, limit rotation to no more than an hour or two at a time before checking progress. Not only will this yield a more precise adjustment by allowing you to "sneak up" on the sweet spot, keeping track of how many hours you've moved the screw also allows you to go back to your original starting point if for some reason you need to do so.

+1 on the allowing things to settle before you sign off on the job. I tried my first one a few weeks ago and got it real nice, played it for a while and it stayed just fine. The next day it was all over the place. I punked out and rationalized that since I needed the bass back up and running quickly I'd better take it to a tech and worry about the learning curve when I had more time to keep it down while I fumble my way through a self taught education on setup. The upside is I found a new place close to home that did a first rate setup for $50.00 which included new strings.

[rojo412]

Neck bowed away from strings (strings too high) = turn truss adjuster CLOCKWISE (towards the E string)

Neck bowed up and strings buzz on open strings or first few positions (too low) = turn adjuster COUNTERCLOCKWISE (towards G string)

Neck relatively straight and still buzzes a lot = adjust bridge properly.

[MadFloyd]

Thank you VERY much everyone, I got it now. :-)