Taking off the neck to adjust truss rod...

[Geri O]

View attachment 3290570 View attachment 3290571 All of my basses have this mod done to them. IMO, all basses that adjust at the heel should all have this.

Do you perform this mod yourself or do you have it done? I’d love to make this mod on my Mike Lull M5V (slotted straight head just under neck). Where do you get the wheel?

May not be worth the trouble. I have to very slightly adjust the truss rod with the season changes. Only twice a year, in case anyone wondered...

 

[bassnyc1]

I had it done by a very professional luthier, well known around here. Totally worth it for me.

 

[Mark Desmo]

Anyway, anybody with an ounce of sense would realise pretty much straight away, that a very simple and very shallow and very small routed channel in the body next to the truss rod end, and a corresponding cutout in the scatchplate, would give ever so easy tool access for truss rod adjustment.

Easy peasy Japanesey.

No drucking farmer.

 

[Gianni "Orlandez" Orlati]

Adjusting the truss rod without loosening or taking the neck off on quite a few Fender basses with vintage-style truss rods that adjust at the heel.

Is the tool’s tip stiff enough for the purpose?
It doesn’t look like it is actually ...

 

[Mark Desmo]

Is the tool’s tip stiff enough for the purpose?
It doesn’t look like it is actually ...

The paint tin thing don't look too clever - good idea but it doesn't look wide enough to me, but the other one looks reasonable. The 'Truss Rod Crank for Tele' thing on page 1.

 

[Gianni "Orlandez" Orlati]

Here’s the rationale, IT WAS PRACTICALLY A NEW INVENTION IN THE EARLY FIFTIES. The main consideration was to mass produce instruments with semi skilled labor. The initial product was so much better than anything else available, that it was put into production as is. From a production standpoint, without the benefit of earlier examples, machining the necks that way worked. It was a shoestring company that couldn’t even employ people year round. Development was stunted while chasing sales. Then Leo got sick and sold. He made enough money to start again and start refining as pressures to move product NOW were not as high.

Leo made modern music possible. Slicing a legend apart is pretty easy with 20/20 hindsight. Set aside your experience of the last five decades of benefits of development before calling it stupid.

But I’m sure you are all flawless.

Agreed but this doesn’t mean that nobody can’t say that part of the design is basically unoptimized and it should have been bettered ... I heard that the first Esquires’ necks were not provided with a truss rod as Leo believed that being the neck made of hard-rock maple it would never have noticeably sagged under the eccentric pull of the guitar’s strings ... this shows a fundamental lack of knowledge concerning the properties of the materials Fender was going to use during the first years of production at the factory ... kind of lack of experience justified by the fact that nothing like that had been done before and the same repeated with the P and jazz basses subsequently after ...
The neck of my otherwise excellent Am. Orig. ‘60s jazz bass is very sensible to seasonal climatic changes and hence I had to struggle to put the things right there, especially when concurrently changing between several types of strings ... in the end, totally annoyed by the need of disconnecting the neck from the body for adjusting the truss rod tension, I took a long Phillips screw driver and turned it through the bass’ very beautiful pick-guard ... it has been scratched a little and it’s a pity ... I’ll sand when I’ll have time ... however now the operation can be done without struggling too much .. in the end an instrument has to be played and, for this, a proper setup is important

 

[Mark Desmo]

I bet some of you guys go on car forums and retrospectively criticize the designers of 1950's automotive drum brakes.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Do you perform this mod yourself or do you have it done? I’d love to make this mod on my Mike Lull M5V (slotted straight head just under neck). Where do you get the wheel?

May not be worth the trouble. I have to very slightly adjust the truss rod with the season changes. Only twice a year, in case anyone wondered...

We've covered this a few times here on TB; how to convert a classic Fender heel-access truss rod to a spoke wheel nut. I'd have to dig to find the threads. It's not a bolt-in modification, but it's not difficult. Stew-Mac sells the basic part, a spoke wheel head truss rod nut:

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

It does have to be fitted carefully with some spacers, and a clearance notch needs to be cut in the body/pickguard. It's a neat solution if you have a Fender that needs constant truss rod tweeking.

 

[mesaplayer83]

Is the tool’s tip stiff enough for the purpose?
It doesn’t look like it is actually ...

I have one of those paint can openers, and it works quite well for adjusting the truss rod on my '76 P and Mustang reissue:

 

[Geri O]

We've covered this a few times here on TB; how to convert a classic Fender heel-access truss rod to a spoke wheel nut. I'd have to dig to find the threads. It's not a bolt-in modification, but it's not difficult. Stew-Mac sells the basic part, a spoke wheel head truss rod nut:

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

It does have to be fitted carefully with some spacers, and a clearance notch needs to be cut in the body/pickguard. It's a neat solution if you have a Fender that needs constant truss rod tweeking.

Thanx, Bruce and sorry for not catching it elsewhere.

The adjustment screw is quite a ways (by some standards, I guess) under the end of the fretboard. The threaded portion of the wheel would need to be maybe 3/4" long, then account for the washers. Not to mention a bit of the body and pickguard needing to be removed to accommodate the wheel.

Sounds like that, in my case with the Lull, it's not really worth the trouble. These necks have been pretty stable, as I said, I tweak them slightly twice a year (humidity swings back and forth like big-band dancers here). I've been doing fine with the screw and a large flat-bladed screwdriver for 2 years now. And as we all know, and as I and my girlfriend of almost 20 years keep saying......"If it ain't broke, don't fix it"...

Thanx for the info, it's still good to know.

 

[Vinnie Boombatz]

Is the tool’s tip stiff enough for the purpose?
It doesn’t look like it is actually ...

Stiff enough? What do you think it's made out of...cream cheese? I've been using that exact tool for at least 9 years now and never had one mar a truss rod nut, and never had the tool break or bend. My tool's tip is ALWAYS stiff enough for the purpose!

 

[Gianni "Orlandez" Orlati]

Stiff enough? What do you think it's made out of...cream cheese? I've been using that exact tool for at least 9 years now and never had one mar a truss rod nut, and never had the tool break or bend. My tool's tip is ALWAYS stiff enough for the purpose!

Er.. calm, calm Vinnie ... stiffness of a structural section directly depends on the section’s material elastic module and on the section’s thickness .. in your tool it is the latter that seems a little scant for some hard-to-rotate truss rods ... however if you say it works I believe it’s working !

 

[96tbird]

Yeah, this all makes me wonder why Leo didn’t invent the locking tremolo system. He mustn’t have been very smart. (sarcasm)

 

[Fun Size Nick]

Is the tool’s tip stiff enough for the purpose?
It doesn’t look like it is actually ...

The paint tin thing don't look too clever - good idea but it doesn't look wide enough to me, but the other one looks reasonable. The 'Truss Rod Crank for Tele' thing on page 1.

It doesn't need to be particularly wide (you don't need a driver that's the width of the slot, a much smaller one will do), nor be able to exert a lot of force. If the nut is sufficiently lubricated (a little bit of graphite or petroleum jelly will do for years) and you manually backbow the neck to relieve the pressure on the nut, it will turn quite easily with a little push on one side of the slot. I never remove the neck to adjust my '74 Jazz's truss rod, nor did I have to for the late '70s P that had the same kind of truss rod nut.

 

[Mark Desmo]

It doesn't need to be particularly wide (you don't need a driver that's the width of the slot, a much smaller one will do), nor be able to exert a lot of force. If the nut is sufficiently lubricated (a little bit of graphite or petroleum jelly will do for years) and you manually backbow the neck to relieve the pressure on the nut, it will turn quite easily with a little push on one side of the slot. I never remove the neck to adjust my '74 Jazz's truss rod, nor did I have to for the late '70s P that had the same kind of truss rod nut.

Hi Nick, thanks for that.

Actually I looked at the paint tin thing again, and I can see it's got a wide enough span now (my memory of my first look at it, was that it was much narrower)

Also I'm a big fan of a dot of petroleum jelly on the nut.
Also I'm a MAJOR FAN of putting a backbow on necks before adjusting truss rods - that has always just seemed like common sense to me.

I am now definitely 'on your team' on this one.

Just gotta find my paint tin opener now!

Cheers,

Mark.

 

[Fun Size Nick]

Hi Nick, thanks for that.

Actually I looked at the paint tin thing again, and I can see it's got a wide enough span now (my memory of my first look at it, was that it was much narrower)

Also I'm a big fan of a dot of petroleum jelly on the nut.
Also I'm a MAJOR FAN of putting a backbow on necks before adjusting truss rods - that has always just seemed like common sense to me.

I am now definitely 'on your team' on this one.

Just gotta find my paint tin opener now!

Cheers,

Mark.

Cheers Mark! I am also 'on your team' that a slightly more generous allowance in the scratchplate and body would be very helpful. The way this is done on Fender's American Professional basses is nice and discreet to my eyes.