Fender made this video so if it brought out the Fender "haters"- haven't read much of that on here- there is only one group to blame
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Fender Truss Rod Tutorial...is this a joke?
- Thread starter TheIndieKid
- Start date
Fender made this video so if it brought out the Fender "haters"- haven't read much of that on here- there is only one group to blame
My post is directed to the legions who simply must go on about the design flaw of the original Fender truss adjustment. You are correct, Fender certainly deserves some blame for a questionable tutorial video, but do we really need to hear the endless whining about the "vintage" truss adjustment? And it is certainly ironic that the bass in the video could have easily been adjusted with out removing the neck as is obvious to anyone who has ever adjusted one of these annoying things.
Smooth_bass88
vaxx!
- Oct 31, 2006
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I've been adjusting the truss rod on my basses for many years. You literally just loosen or tighten it as necessary based on your needs. It's really that simple.
I've dealt with too many of these old guys to join the "sacrilege!" crowd. Chances are, it may look brutal but will cause no less wear over the decades than taking off the whole neck, re-inserting the screws and so forth. Techs like the one in the OP's video are the kind I go to. Their motto "work smarter, not harder".
I'm a Fender skeptic and still I don't think this is a bad example of anything except for editing...
I also know this reply is buried so to the 14 people that actually read it...HIIIII!
I'm a Fender skeptic and still I don't think this is a bad example of anything except for editing...
I also know this reply is buried so to the 14 people that actually read it...HIIIII!
Everybody's a critic! It's a bass - a tool made of wood and metal. It's not the Shroud of Turin! It doesn't need to be handled with kid gloves. 
Well, from the mechanical perspective, I'm still going to say that the adjustment method presented has way too much risk for me. Here's how I'd do it.
First, mill a small recess to gain access to the truss rod nut slots
- Loosen strings way up
- Leave neck tightly attached to body
- Adjust truss rod
- Retune
- Check relief - repeat as needed
No chance of buggering up the neck pocket; no chance of stripping the threads (in wood, for crying out loud) of the neck; no chance of displacing or losing a shim if present; no chance of bending the neck screws; no chance of buggering up the slots in the truss rod nut because you're trying to turn it under full tension.
No, I am not a Fender technician, just a dumb old mechanical engineer with 35 years experience with all kinds of machinery and a woodworker with 50 years experience in how wood behaves. And that's what I would do. As far as I'm concerned, any joint under load that uses wood screws should be considered a one-time or at most two-time proposition. Don't be running those screws in and out and in and out and in and out, not if you want them to hold.
Maybe the technique shown makes sense if you're being paid by the shop hour so you want to be done as quickly as humanly possible, and because you're in a shop, that one time in twenty when the neck screws do strip out you have the parts and tools to quickly install the metal bushings or however it's typically fixed. But to present it in a video clearly aimed at the individual player not the professional tech, I think it's misleading.
All that said, if it's truly a rare collectible instrument then that first bit (mill a slot so you can get to the adjusting nut) is out, and then you probably have to do something different. But how many people are reallly playing on suich instruments regularly?
First, mill a small recess to gain access to the truss rod nut slots
- Loosen strings way up
- Leave neck tightly attached to body
- Adjust truss rod
- Retune
- Check relief - repeat as needed
No chance of buggering up the neck pocket; no chance of stripping the threads (in wood, for crying out loud) of the neck; no chance of displacing or losing a shim if present; no chance of bending the neck screws; no chance of buggering up the slots in the truss rod nut because you're trying to turn it under full tension.
No, I am not a Fender technician, just a dumb old mechanical engineer with 35 years experience with all kinds of machinery and a woodworker with 50 years experience in how wood behaves. And that's what I would do. As far as I'm concerned, any joint under load that uses wood screws should be considered a one-time or at most two-time proposition. Don't be running those screws in and out and in and out and in and out, not if you want them to hold.
Maybe the technique shown makes sense if you're being paid by the shop hour so you want to be done as quickly as humanly possible, and because you're in a shop, that one time in twenty when the neck screws do strip out you have the parts and tools to quickly install the metal bushings or however it's typically fixed. But to present it in a video clearly aimed at the individual player not the professional tech, I think it's misleading.
All that said, if it's truly a rare collectible instrument then that first bit (mill a slot so you can get to the adjusting nut) is out, and then you probably have to do something different. But how many people are reallly playing on suich instruments regularly?
A couple of things. If you loosen the neck whilst it's under string tension and then push against the tension, it's almost impossible to damage anything because you're pushing against the force of the strings. You just can't push it that far. Fender necks are immensely strong. How many broken Fender necks do you see compared to broken Gibson's? And there's nowhere near enough change in the angle of neck to damage the screws (or anything else) either. A lot of massive over-reactions in this post!
Is there any downside to having the trussrod access at the nut instead of the heel? I have a MIJ Squier from the 90s that has the truss rod access at the nut and it works fine.
The better the access, the better. So much easier to do a truss rod adjustment under full string tension.
I think the strings will force the neck into back now when you do like the original video. It would mean less force required to turn the truss rod, and no need to clamp the neck or force it into back now yourself. When you do it with the neck in situ and strings in full tension, the opposite would be the case. The strings would be forcing forward bow and making adjustment require extra force.
Ok. Sorry, to clarify, I was referring to adjusting the trussrod on a neck that was still in place and attached to the bass, like Fender professional J Bass that can be adjusted at the heel without loosening the neck.
Sure, if everything's new and clean and well lubricated and there's not very much tension on the truss rod now, you should be able to adjust it without loosening the strings, but since you don't necessarily know what you've got in there, why not just loosen the strings? I'd sure rather loosen and retune the strings several times, taking little bites at the truss rod adjustment, than run the risk of buggering up the slot or allen recess in the truss rod nut.
Interesting thread with a lot of freaking out over a manufacturer's support video. I know this makes me sound like an ass, but one can tell who the experienced builders and techs are... 
