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Do I REALLLY Need a Truss Rod? REALLLY?

#21
sargebaker said:
I bought one of these: http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdpr...odHeader=Truss+Rod+-+Double+action+welded+nut

Where are you guys getting 10$ truss rods? :p
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Actually, "martin style rods @ stu-mac are about $14, but you're only going 1 direction with it.

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So far the only rods i've used a hot rods, first the "spoke wheel", which was about $24. Then the last ones I purchased were the 1/8 allen ($20.)

$10 truss rod? I think your basic one way is barely over $10 (Stu-mac), unless you make your own, that's a much different story.
 
#22
Obviously you can build whatever you want.

Are truss rods an necessity? No.

The reason truss rods were invented and are used in virtually every wood design known today is that wood has a mind of it's own. Even if you come up with a perfect combination of lumber that will pull into perfect relief the wood is still subject to environmental conditions. Humidity and temperature will continue to vary and because of that the neck geometry will change, too. Even if that were not true, a change in string tension will alter that perfect relief. So does a change in tuning.

Builders who use composite materials, which tend to be more stable in changing environments, will also tell you that it takes a lot of experimentation to find that proper formula to give the proper range of relief with out a truss rod. The remedy for a relief problem on an early neck from some of these builders is a plane and refret. There appears to be some evidence that after a couple of decades a few composite necks have relaxed and pulled into excessive relief. Again, the remedy is either a plane and refret or neck replacement.

How much work do you want to do?

Even if you've come up with the perfect lamination a truss rod is a good insurance policy against day to day and month to month fluctuations.
 
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#25
#27
i hope this 25$USD truss works like nobody's business. I saw a truss rod in person for the first time today and I feel like it's the scam of the century... two steel bars welded together with a nut... Coulda made my own. Maybe one day I will just to prove I'm in no shortage of BS:p
 
#28
sargebaker said:
i hope this 25$USD truss works like nobody's business. I saw a truss rod in person for the first time today and I feel like it's the scam of the century... two steel bars welded together with a nut... Coulda made my own. Maybe one day I will just to prove I'm in no shortage of BS:p
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Yeah they’re over priced along with most everything else instrument related. If you have welding equipment you can make one much cheaper.

I make my own, the steel bars cost about $4 from Home Depot and the nut I like to use comes from Stew Mac at $3.70. So yeah I would say $25 is a bit much

The one-way LMI bars are nice, but the adjustment nuts on them are not that great, they are about $18 http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdpr...ameProdHeader=Truss+Rod+-+Standard+welded+end The ones I build use the same size stock as the LMI, but with the nicer Stew Mac nut.Invalid Link Removed
 
#29
I know I’m a decade+ late to this discussion but I keep wondering the same thing. I have two steinberger sand both have fantastic necks and low action (graphite doesn’t care about moisture) or tuning.

So, if I build a bass with wood and reinforced with a titanium bar and then get the frets PLEK’d .... wouldn’t I end up with perfect frets and not have to even think of a truss rod, temperature, humidity, or setups (after the first, of course) ever again? I’m not talking about the tiny titanium rods from stewmac, I talking about a 1/4” x 1/2” x 24” bar.

Thanks in advance for constructive input.
 
#31
Besides adjustability to compensate for wood moving, adjustability is really nice because it lets you build dead flat and then dial in the exact relief you want afterwards. Which, I can say after having just built a neck without a truss rod, is a huge convenience that's easy to overlook - versus trying to guess at how much relief you'll need while compensating for the curve added by string tension, building a curved neck, and hoping that you get the curve EXACTLY right because there's no way to change it once it's done.

I hope this doesn't come across wrong, but if I were you, I'd be asking myself, why am I trying so hard to avoid a solution that is easy and effective?

If you have access to a plek machine and are interested in building without a truss rod because you can use the plek to dial in relief, I'd go look for @Bruce Johnson's threads on using CF tow underneath the truss rod. The traditional approach of putting stiffening bars in the face of the neck right under the fretboard isn't really an ideal design from a structural standpoint. To create the ultimate stiffness, you want the carbon or other reinforcement as close to the back of the neck as possible where the neck is in tension. Routing a deep slot and putting carbon in the bottom of it is probably the best approach.
 
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#32
I agree with the consensus, there is no compelling reason NOT to add a trussrod, it adds a tiny amount of weight and a huge amount of insurance. Even a very well made neck will move seasonally. Modern DA rods are reliable and require only an average 1/4" x 3/8" deep flat bottom slot, easily routed. I have only one bass with no rod, my Steinberger. It doesn't move, so it doesn't need one, the relief is cast into it, but all my wood neck basses inevitably move. I can't think of a single good reason not to include one.
 
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#33
Thank you all for the responses!
1. Why not CF? Titanium in 1/4x 1/2x 24 won’t flex at all and I assume that the same non flexing CF rod would have to be bigger. All I’d have to do is route a flat channel 1/4 in deep and 1/2 wide. Wood does bend ....but not with this bar in it.

2. the whole idea/desire behind this is to avoid problems I’ve seen/heard of in the past that are not present in my steinberger(s): never have to adjust, both have very low action, don’t require adjustment when down-tuning, can leave them in a car without worrying about temperature (a friend’s bass got destroyed a long time ago in his car in Texas heat, so the fear has stuck with me), I have a bass with finish cracks on the neck presumably because of rapid temperature change (occurred before I bought it), I live in TN when heat/cold/humidity extremes are noticeable w/ low action (steinberger excluded), changes in strings/gauges can require adjustments, truss rods break (although I literally just received today my first SS truss rods from allied luthier and they greatly alleviate my concerns -very nice). Very valid question (and appreciated) - maybe I am overly concerned with these factors... ?

3. I absolutely did not know that steinberger cast a curve into the neck?? It looks (both look) perfectly strait to me (?). Is there any information available detailing this?

4. PLEKing (my understanding) makes all frets along each string exactly the same height and is performed with the neck strait. The results are phenomenal, imo. This, coupled with a neck that does not move, (I would imagine) would have the same outcome as a steinberger (pending part 3.). That’s the reason I brought this up- I just like the idea of a neck that does not bend with the climate.

Thank you guys very much- I greatly appreciate the info and any other points.
Greg
 
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#34
Put a good straightedge on your Steinberger and measure with feeler gauges, mine (86’ XP-2) has around .011” relief at the 9th fret. Since the neck is completely rigid, that was cast into it. I remember reading about the casting process in some quotes by Ned Steinberger years ago, can’t remember where though. There is no such thing as an absolutely flat neck that doesn’t buzz, strings vibrate in a elliptical pattern, not just back and forth, so you have to have some relief on any bass or guitar, or the string will hit the frets at the midpoint of the string where the greatest string “excursion” is. I don’t know of another modern era bass that has no truss rod. Here’s an interesting Stewmac video where Erlewine adds CF rods to a Richie Valens guitar with no trussrod:
 
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#35
Titanium rods may be stiff enough but titanium is very heavy if you compare it to carbon (or even wood) in terms of specific modulus. Even mediocre quality carbon fiber products have a stiffness to weight (young's modulus to density) around four times higher than titanium. Actual pure carbon fibers are around twenty times higher than titanium. A neck stiff enough to completely resist string tension made with titanium as the main material for stiffness would be REALLY heavy.

Some of the problems you're describing can definitely be avoided with careful design, but none of them are really caused by truss rods. In other words, you could certainly design a neck that would be more resistant to temperature fluctuations, but still use a truss rod, and get the best of both worlds. Many builders nowadays are using carbon reinforcements to basically achieve that.

Any bass will need some curve (relief) to play correctly, I bet if you measure your steinbergers under string tension you'll see that they're slightly curved. If you built a neck that was literally dead flat even under string tension, you would not be able to set the action very low at all, because you'd need to get the string up high enough off the fretboard that it had room to vibrate when you plucked it. On a dead flat neck, the angle between the fretted string and the fretboard gets too small as you go up the neck towards the head. With a neck that's got some curve in it, the angle stays more consistent and the string has room to vibrate even when fretted up near the head.

Hence the issue I mentioned above - if you have no truss rod to allow you to dial that curve in, you need to build it in and you need to guess at how much the curve will change due to string tension so you build it with the right amount when it's flat. Even if the answer is "not much" it can make a difference, having the relief wrong by thousandths of an inch can make the difference between a sweet playing bass and one that buzzes unless you set the action high.
 
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#36
Trust me, put one in no matter what it takes or costs. Surprising what these little pieces of wire (strings) can do over time. It’s kind of like having a spare tire for you vehicle, better to not need it and have one versus needing one and not having it. Been there, done that.
 
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#38
I don't understand why you wouldn't want one? Cheap insurance. I built with ebony for the neck and installed two titanium double acting truss rods (definitely not cheap).
IMG_4577.JPG
 
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