how's the truss rod work?

[Armacielli]

I know what it is, where it goes, what it's supposed to do, but not really how it works. I have a stew mac hot rod and I'd like to understand how it does what it does. enlighten me.

 

[()smoke()]

it's a rod placed in a curved channel, so imagine viewing a section of the neck from the side: the rod will appear to 'droop' like a hammock, with wood directly above and below it...so when you tighten the nut on the end, imagine that's like pulling the end of the hammock--the droop starts to flatten out, or in other words, the bottom of the curve moves upwards...so, as curve flattens out, it pushes the wood on top of it upward, which is like straightening the relief out of the neck

that's it in a nutshell

edit: i just realized you have a 2-way adjustable truss rod...similar principle, but without the curved channel...imagine 2 sticks bundled together with the ends held fixed...now imagine the bottom stick shrinks lengthwise--it will begin to pull the bundle into an arch when viewed from the side because it's pulling the ends of the top stick together but the top stick isn't shrinking, so it has to bend...it works the opposite way too so that you can lengthen the bottom stick, resulting in a u-shape instead of an arch (which would be adding more relief to your neck)

 

[JxBass]

The Fender support site has a good overview on how to adjust the truss rod, string height, etc. It's what I use to do setup on my basses. Invalid Link Removed