Fender 1/8" stripped truss rod nut & STEWMAC Gripper wrenches

I thought I should let you know so that you would be able to make an informed purchasing decision if you were confronted with the same issue.

A MIA Fender guitar I purchased new overseas had a frozen truss rod nut which I wasn't able to turn either way. The Allen key was fairly loose to start with and it soon lost any grip it had in the truss rod nut. No point in contacting Fender. How many hoops they're going to make you jump through before they throw their "expert opinion" at you that you caused the damage and stripped the nut due to misuse -- even though I used the Allen Key supplied by Fender and wasn't able to nudge the nut one bit.

I ordered the right size Gripper wrench from StewMac, which is supposed to grip and turn stripped nuts. It didn't at all. Absolutely no difference between the regular Allen wrench and this supposedly effective tool which works wonders according to YouTube videos.

Isn't it criminally negligent on Fender's part to use such a small size Allen nut where a large amount of force and torque are applied to turn a truss rod, which will inevitably lead to the stripping of said nut? Does Fender hope to sell replacement necks as the truss rods fail?

Please be advised that you can't simply pull out somehow the stripped nut and replace it. According to Youtube videos, you're supposed to heat the wooden plug around the truss rod nut with a soldering iron in order to soften the glue to thus extricate it as the plug comes unglued. I tried this. The wooden plug completely disintegrated (didn't even look like solid wood) and didn't come loose. Since the thing was butchered anyway, I scraped off the remains to at least reach the truss rod nut and free it, having thus removed the plug that blocked it.

No luck. Unlike what's shown in the videos, the wood of the actual neck shaft encased it, preventing its removal. With such a disaster at hand, I opted for an autopsy at least to figure out the rest of the problem. I snapped the fingerboard off and removed the truss rod nut.

The hole in the nut where the Allen wrench is supposed to fit is only a few millimeters deep! So not only is it only 1/8" wide, there is not even enough surface area for the Allen wrench to make meaningful contact with the inner walls of the nut hole and establish sufficient grip to be able to apply enough force to turn the truss rod.

So there I am. I paid 1500 dollars for a brand new, supposedly quality, American-made Fender guitar which is a total loss due strictly to Fender's willful application of faulty design into their guitars. I feel totally betrayed by a big corporation into whose products I poured thousands of dollars to date.

Epilogue: I had also purchased some MIM and Player series Fenders. I noticed that the truss rod nut size which is still a relatively small 3/16" on the MIMs, went considerably up to a much bigger and more meatier dimension of around 5mm in diameter in the Player series, thence becoming a more durable and reliable part which will not strip easily over years of regular use. (I don't know what the situation is with the newer still Fender product line.)

FYI.

Take care.

 

Technically, perhaps.
However I doubt that they'll do that without lots of effort and pressure from my side -- and, at my age and this point in my life, I'm not interested in trying to reason with people who put that awful piece of design out there in the first place, to convince them of anything. I have become quite reticent about dealing with people about anything in the kind of world we live in today. Plus, I'm currently residing overseas far from home, so that could only represent itself to be a giant PITA if I tried. In addition, the guitar wasn't even purchased in the same country where I am living right now. (I bought it in Paris, France, in the Lefties only shop called Le Gaucher on Rue Douais if I recall correctly.)

I kept the truss rod nut as a souvenir of my dashed dreams of at last being able to afford instruments that I could only dream about in my youth. The neck was thrown in the garbage bin yesterday.

I'm seriously considering doing the same with the dozens of other Fenders I feverishly acquired over the last couple of years, after having recorded what will probably turn out to be the last musical output of my life.

Moral of the story: avoid Fenders and other guitars with small nuts. Those StewMac Gripper wrenches will not save you if you run into trouble with them. Didn't help me any.

Side note: I have a Hagstrom LP style guitar (acquired used from a possibly dishonest eBay seller) which also had a very small size truss rod nut hole, stripped also. I contacted Hagstrom directly. Whoever was the boss himself at the time, God bless his soul, sent me two (2) replacement truss rod nuts and followed up to check if I had fixed the problem. I had. It was possible to extract the nut on the Hagstrom once I was able to loosen it. No "self destruct" situation built into the design like on the Fender. Thumbs up for Hagstrom.

 

I think I already explained why?

 

This was a brand new guitar purchased from an authorized seller in France. I'd have taken it back to the shop and returned it or have it repaired. But I'm in another country right now where the locals aren't even willing to change faulty pots on new guitars that they sold you.
Anyway, as I explained before, I feel betrayed by a huge corporation who willfully designed a guitar to break, period.
Frankly, I'd feel humiliated to be seen with a Fender in my hands right now.

 

I am in complete disagreement with you. What you're saying is very wrong. I don't want to speculate why you'd do such a thing, but are you affiliated with Fender?

This was a NEW guitar purchased from an authorized dealer. So not a case of the previous owner having stripped the socket by over tightening it.

First of all, you cannot even turn a truss rod -- which is an item under considerable pressure even with all strings loosened -- without a proper tool that's securely and tightly attached to the proper aperture on a sturdy nut. Frankly, a 1/8" size socket on a truss rod nut amounts to willful sabotage on the part of Fender -- which they don't even put on their cheaper MIM lines.

No-one is going to apply enough pressure to snap the truss rod in normal operation. You couldn't do that unless you purposely went for it. Before the truss rod broke; either the neck would have moved in extreme fashion which would induce you to back off what you're doing; or the fretboard might begin to separate (like on older Rickenbackers with hairpin trussrods); or, as in most cases, the nut would simply stop turning, having used up all its travel to the point where the threads on the truss rod end.

I NEVER twisted the truss rod nut hard enough to round out the socket like you suggested. There was never enough grip in the socket to move the nut at all. I repeat: I wasn't able to turn the nut AT ALL either way. It didn't budge even a fraction of a mm.

Furthermore, Fender themselves prove you wrong: on the new Fender Player series guitars I also purchased, the socket size is even BIGGER than the 3/16" size Fender used in the standard MIM guitars. Eyeballing it, I think it's also bigger than the standard 4mm sockets used on the majority of non-US guitars out there but I haven't checked, so I'm not sure about that.

If Fender worried about too much torque being applied to their truss rods by hapless customers, why do they now install truss rod nuts with even bigger sockets? Those are great by the way. Easy to turn and adjust without any slippage.

 

This was a new guitar supplied with only one Allen wrench in the pouch Fender put there. This was not a case of using the wrong size tool. I have another one of the same guitar (different color) which also came with the same Allen wrench. I tried it also with the same results.

 

OK, great. This was not a case of that.

 

That's fine, too. But why did you post this then?

 

I know what you're saying.
There was only one larger size Allen wrench in the pouch. I tried the other wrench in the other guitar's case also. Same result.
The second guitar is alright -- that is, the truss rod is functional and I'm able to adjust it, so far.

As you could have figured out for yourself if you had read the whole thread; I even purchased the infamous StewMac Gripper wrench which is supposed to work on stripped sockets/nuts. Absolute waste of money.

No luck for you, though.

The failed neck is already in the garbage truck being hauled away to (Fender) guitar hell.