Sterling Ray4 - maxed out truss wheel

[Gustopher]

Howdy! As the title says, my daughter has my old Ray4 and when I was checking it out for her and seeing how the setup was... I found that I needed to take out a little relief so I gave the truss a wheel a slight turn and it was already pretty much touching the neck. I need a little more adjustment than I am getting right now, is there anything I can do to add a little more range to this adjustment wheel or am I out of luck. It wasn't a pricey instrument, but it is actually very nice and I have changed the electronics, tuners... etc and she loves the thing. It still plays pretty well, but lower action would be preferred and right now the relief is keeping that from being possible. Any thoughts on this style of truss rod wheel? Thanks!!!

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Howdy! As the title says, my daughter has my old Ray4 and when I was checking it out for her and seeing how the setup was... I found that I needed to take out a little relief so I gave the truss a wheel a slight turn and it was already pretty much touching the neck. I need a little more adjustment than I am getting right now, is there anything I can do to add a little more range to this adjustment wheel or am I out of luck. It wasn't a pricey instrument, but it is actually very nice and I have changed the electronics, tuners... etc and she loves the thing. It still plays pretty well, but lower action would be preferred and right now the relief is keeping that from being possible. Any thoughts on this style of truss rod wheel? Thanks!!!

I believe those are all single acting, single rod type truss rods so it should be possible to unscrew the adjuster and add a washer or two under it and replace the adjuster. In this case it’s probably also a good idea, with the strings still loose, to manually flex the neck into a back bow, tighten up the truss rod then tune up and hopefully the neck will stay in a back bow with the strings up to pitch and you’ll need to loosen the truss rod slightly to get the correct relief.

 

[Turnaround]

The fact that the truss rod wheel is nearly touching the neck is irrelevant. It's a single action truss rod and the wheel will always be close to the end of the neck. And it is common for Ray's truss rod nuts to be hard to turn. It's especially hard if the neck has formed an up-bow. Before going further you need to know the condition of the neck. Loosen the strings completely and then loosen the truss rod completely. Then with a straightedge see if there is any bow in the neck. If there is, the neck will need to be hear treated. The truss rod is designed to counter the string tension, not straighten a warped neck.

But if the neck is flat when you test as I suggested, you should remove the spoke wheel, lubricate its threads and add a washer between nut and truss rod. that should get you back in business.

EDIT: I see that Matt beat me to the posting. His advice is good.

 

[Gustopher]

Thanks fellas, I will remove the neck tonight (unless work keeps me too late, lol) and see how things look when it's loosened up. Hopefully I'll be able to report back with something positive. If all else fails, it isn't unplayable as it is and I could always put on a lighter string set.

 

[Gustopher]

Good news. I removed the neck and the truss worked both ways and the neck was nice and straight. I was able to give it a slight back bow and now under tension it is set the way I wanted. Thanks fellas, there was more adjustment left before bottoming out. Loosening it first probably helped it move better too.

 

[Gluvhand]

Good news. I removed the neck and the truss worked both ways and the neck was nice and straight. I was able to give it a slight back bow and now under tension it is set the way I wanted. Thanks fellas, there was more adjustment left before bottoming out. Loosening it first probably helped it move better too.

It's also easy to pass the truss tool through the wheel to the wood and feel that resistance and think it's the wheel itself that's tight.