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Post subject: Truss rod adjustment
Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2016 7:45 am
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Ok, this is something that nobody ever seems to discuss and I cannot find anywhere......Fender vintage truss rod adjustment or more specifically, the use of the host body vs a surrogate body during adjustments. My recently acquired, pre-CBS '61 Jazz has no adjustment routing slot cut into the body, at the truss rod position under the pick guard. This does not allow me to engage the truss rod for adjustment, (though I see where there was a small attempt before). Therefore, I must either route the body to reach the slots (yea, that's gonna happen) or the neck requires removal and reset on a surrogate body that has the routing present in order to adjust the neck......Does this mean that the bass neck will have to be restrung on the surrogate body for adjustment as well? My tech told me that not all Vintage Fender JB's are like that and that he would have warned me of this if he knew I was shopping.....Does that also mean my hard earned money has fetched me a vintage 'Lemon"? And if this is also true, why is this the case....what was Fender thinking? As well however, my 73 does have the body slot (?) for truss adjustment...


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Post subject: Re: Truss rod adjustment
Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2016 8:16 am
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Truss rod adjustment used to be something that was required only very infrequently, unless maybe you lived in Tahiti or the South Pole, or changed the string gauge. Originally, you'd remove the neck, make small adjustments, reinstall the neck and strings, play the thing, rinse and repeat. No, it was not convenient - please see the first sentence of this post. Even now, with our new-fangled modern ways, many would advise letting the adjustment "set" for a couple days to stabilize.
*Sigh* Whatever happened to instant gratification?


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Post subject: Re: Truss rod adjustment
Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2016 10:02 am
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What he (↑) said.

Fender did not start adding a notch in the body for truss-rod relief until the late '60s, with the same reasoning and caveats as above.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Truss rod adjustment
Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2016 11:32 pm
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The pro way of vintage truss rod adjusting, from 3:50 on:


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Post subject: Re: Truss rod adjustment
Posted: Fri May 06, 2016 5:25 am
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To directly try and answer a couple of the questions here...

First, no, I do not think you got "a lemon" by any means. It is worth remembering however that there ARE some inherent differences between earlier vintage instruments and the more contemporary selection. You want annoying? I used to have a 1938 Kay acoustic...family heirloom that used to belong to my grandmother...no truss rod AT ALL. Yes, this vintage instrument sounded INCREDIBLY sweet, but it really didn't matter because it was completely unplayable.

Now as far as adjustment on such an instrument as this bass goes, without having watched the video to see "how the pros do it", this would be my suggestion. -If- the neck needs a more extreme adjustment, I might very well use said surrogate body, so that said adjustments could be done incrementally over the course of a few days (or even a few weeks). Yes, you will need to invest in strings if you go this route....there's really little point in doing a truss rod adjustment on a neck that isn't properly strung up. You will also want to check the bridge on the surrogate and MAKE SURE it's set similar to the vintage....if the bridge is set too high or too low, you could end up over or under-compensating with your adjustments.

Now that said, if this is more a simple matter of "tweaking", my advice would be to address this with your string changes instead...and it may take a while and a few string changes to really find "the sweet spot". -If- you're careful, you could probably loosen the neck a bit with the strings on and make an adjustment, tighten it up and check it and if it's not right, loosen the neck again...lather rinse repeat. That said, personally I'd just make the small tweaks with each string change myself to lesson the wear and tear on the neck, wood and neck screws.

I do agree with the whole "what was Fender thinking?" here. Personally I've always assumed that most of it was because Fender was a California based company....maybe the folks in CA don't know how drastic and severe the weather can be in places like here in Ohio (or our Northern brothers up in Mich). New or vintage, the majorty of my harem tends to go at least a little wonkey every spring and fall...and that doesn't even include those winter gigs where the instrument goes from a climate controlled basement to a cold car that warms up on the way to the gig then into a bar that could be ANY temperature, LOL!

Either way, again I would again say that no, it's probably not a lemon at all, simply the nature of the beast. After all, you probably wouldn't buy a '61 Thunderbird and expect it to have an HEI electronic ignition...sooner or later ya gotta learn how to set the points and dwell. Welcome to the world of vintage.

:-)


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Post subject: Re: Truss rod adjustment
Posted: Sat May 07, 2016 10:49 am
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Since this topic still is alive, a couple short(?) comments - some IIRC and some from before my time with instruments.

In the good old days, Fender was both proud and struggling with the bolt-on neck construction; remember the pic about Hugh Garriott standing on a Tele neck..?
The necks weren't really planned to get a 'truss rod adjust treatment' on a day-to-day basis. Not many string gauges available, either.
Those days the truss rod was more to "keep the neck straight", not to "control relief".
So, absolutely no lemon...

I've never used a surrogate body to adjust a truss rod - don't really see the point.
I agree, on heel adjusters adjustments are a bit guesswork, but it doesn't take long to know 'exactly' how a certain instrument behaves with a 1/8 turn...

And yet some tips (in addition to the video if that procedure looks too scary): put a capo on the first fret, and loosen the strings real slack, then loosen all neck joint screws so you can lift the neck straight up, enough for adjusting. It's a two minute job.

lomitus wrote:
I used to have a 1938 Kay acoustic...family heirloom that used to belong to my grandmother...no truss rod AT ALL. Yes, this vintage instrument sounded INCREDIBLY sweet, but it really didn't matter because it was completely unplayable.

Probably nothing that a neck reset, planing the frets (or worst case: fretboard) couldn't fix. :wink:


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Post subject: Re: Truss rod adjustment
Posted: Tue May 10, 2016 7:43 am
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evets618 wrote:
Truss rod adjustment used to be something that was required only very infrequently...
It still is. If people truly understood the truss rod they wouldn't be mucking with it all the time. For reasons beyond my understanding people equate relief with action and for reasons even more unintelligible to me they think the seasons have something to do with it. Where I live the seasons fluctuate rather widely. Temps range from -40C (-40F) to 40C (100F). I adjust truss rods all the time .... on other people's guitars that they haven't picked up in decades or that their kids monkeyed with or that never did get a setup, ever. I can't remember the last time I had to do one of my own. It's years.

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Post subject: Re: Truss rod adjustment
Posted: Sun May 22, 2016 10:49 am
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BMW-KTM wrote:
evets618 wrote:
Truss rod adjustment used to be something that was required only very infrequently...
It still is. If people truly understood the truss rod they wouldn't be mucking with it all the time. For reasons beyond my understanding people equate relief with action and for reasons even more unintelligible to me they think the seasons have something to do with it. Where I live the seasons fluctuate rather widely. Temps range from -40C (-40F) to 40C (100F). I adjust truss rods all the time .... on other people's guitars that they haven't picked up in decades or that their kids monkeyed with or that never did get a setup, ever. I can't remember the last time I had to do one of my own. It's years.
+1

No longer living on the coast, I too have (-40F) to 40C (100F). While I might agree that truss rod adjustment may be considered for initial setup(s) primarily should it not meet the needs, for me more attention is and was needed with fret work to take care of neck shrinkage and sharp fret ends due to seasonal changes and humidity. Thankfully, I have a great experienced tech that saved my fingers. YMMV.

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