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Do graphite rods make a difference?

#62
I had an American Standard Jazz Bass four string that had them. Had it for seven years. Never needed an adjustment. Now I have 2 Fender American Pro fivers that have them. They haven’t been with me long and have had checkups at the luthier and both necks are perfection. One has a rosewood fretboard the other maple.
 
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#66
Bass Viking said:
How long does this process take? I have a 3 year old Carvin and haven't noticed any truss rod adjustment problems. Does this mean that my Warmoth necks with their steel reinforcing rods are going to give me trouble down the road?
Click to expand...

I have a Jazz parts bass with a Warmoth neck that I ordered from them 20-ish years ago. It includes the steel rods. That neck is solid as a rock - great action, response, etc.

Issues? Well that neck is a little on the heavier side - it doesn't quite "dive" on a strap, but it's a little droopy. I have it paired with a standard size J style body by ESP and the upper horn extends right up to the parallel with the 12th fret. The overall weight of that bass (10.5 lbs.) has become more than I care to hang on my shoulder for a night, but I'm thinking of checking with Warmoth to find out whether I can get a lighter version of the same neck with graphite rods instead of steel. I could perhaps also go for Hipshot Ultra Light tuners.

So that particular issue is about me getting less tolerant with a hefty bass. But both the integrity and performance of this neck over two decades have been truly impressive.
 
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#69
A bit off the beaten track but my Danelectro made Silvertone 1444s from the early 60s have 2 steel bars in the neck and they've never needed adjusting. Good thing because they don't have adjustable trussrods.
 
#70
Graphite or any other reinforcing rod is not a cure-all for neck stability. The idea is to prevent the wood from distorting, bending. But wood reacts to changes in relative humidity regardless of what you do to prevent that from causing unwanted changes. With a modest amount of steel or graphite or titanium or whatever properly bonded to a piece of wood, you can prevent the wood from bending. But the wood will react - but instead of bending it will fracture - often with a myriad of internal mini-fractures. You can even induce this in wood without any added outside material, as experienced by anyone who has kiln-dried wood. If the process of kilning is too rapid it will "case harden" the wood, where the surface of the wood becomes dryer and harder than the interior. As the interior slowly continues to dry, the board would normally shrink or bend, but because of the case hardening it can't, so it fractures internally. That will happen whatever means are employed to prevent the neck from reacting to changes of moisture.

Where graphite or steel or titanium rods are helpful is in controlling bending forces caused by the tension of the strings. In this situation the reinforcing rods do two things:

1. Assist the truss rod in controlling the effects of string tension
2. Help to prevent a "ski jump condition" from forming where the truss rod cannot control the distortion forces.

Side effects may include reducing dead-spots, but that is largely unproven. There seems to be just about as much opinion on either side of this thesis.
 
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#73
Eublet said:
I spoke with Mike Tobias on the phone once, and I believe he was against using them and felt they weren't necessary if proper care was taken. This was interesting to me since he helped develop the Modulus Genesis basses, which I assume includes the neck design with that large graphite spine. I don't know, but I have graphite support in my Lakland's and those necks are WONDERFUL! Super stable, don't shift a lot and take minimal adjustments. That said, I don't know how they'd sound without them, so who knows?

For me, it seems the Laklands I own now approach the stability of the Modulus Quantum and VJ that I had in the past, so I'm very happy with them. Whether the graphite is to thank or not, I don't know.
Click to expand...
Which Lakland models do you have?
 
#75
My one experience: The neck on my new Fender Am Pro J, narrow and thin and with graphite rods, was a disaster with regard to dead/weak spots/areas. As soon as I figured this out I replaced it with an Allparts PMO, wider, thicker, and with steel rods.

No way to know how much the graphite rods contributed.
 
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#77
Certainly a different animal, but the only completely stable neck Ive ever owned is my Steinberger. Its just always, perpetually, and utterly the same, regardless of humidity, temperature, string choice, etc. It simply doesnt move, nor can it, as it has no separate trussrod. The relief was cast into it when it was molded. I had the misfortune of dropping it once, and chipping a nickel sized hunk of gelcoat off it, exposing what looked a lot like fiberglass "mash" of random strand CF in a resin matrix. Maybe the random pattern evens out stresses? I can only say it WORKS. The modern CF rods are "pultrusions" of CF fiber and resin forced through a die, and they are incredibly stiff for the weight. @Bruce Johnson has done some convincing work using CF TOW strands along neck backstraps to prevent the dreaded "ski jump" inherent to some bolt on designs. On my third neck build now with CF bars, so I guess I drank the Coolaid, but the first build is now 5 years old, and remarkabky stable. What % of that stability is due to the CF rods reamains mysterious.
 
#78
Yes! I have a Dave Maize ABG that suffered a poor trust rod adjustment that broke it. The repair included pulling the fretbd etc. While there my tech put two graphite rods inside. The concept of them not being parallel caused even greater stability. The neck has been stable for more than a decade of seasonal changes. The sustain is unbelievable. The sound was great, now it's more amazing. The increase of volume and projection of tone is significant as well.
 
#79
It seems like a lot of people are assuming that all carbon fiber support bars are the same and they're not. They can be built to any degree of stiffness desired. I have a Geoff Gould era Modulus Q5 that has no truss rod. The neck is so rigid that none is required. The flipside is that you either like the relief of you don't. Some later Modulus necks were still graphite but built to be more flexible and had a truss rod installed to adjust relief. Some companies may have put carbon support in the neck to say that they did it and some may have done research to see which degree of support works best with the other aspects of their neck construction.

This topic brings up two important questions:

Does the Mothman have carbon fiber rods in his neck?

and

What is the best carbon fiber support rod for metal?

Rick B.
 
#80
My guess is that graphite rods, like truss rods, quarter sawn, stringers and roasting are all attempts to provide extra strength to a bass neck, which will then allow a narrower/thinner neck profile. If we all liked baseball bat sized necks none of these innovations would exist.
 

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