Friend asked me to post this on his behalf, hope you guys can help him

So I made the plunge a little while back due to how groovey I found the new Stratocasters

I bought a maple neck 2012 American Standard and it quickly became my number one until a weird thing happened a few weeks back

Middle of a jam a string pops and I hear a weird ' crack ' and see something fly off the top of the headstock

The action is still great on the guitar everthing is good except I noticed that the area around the truss rod adjustment hole, that small brown tear shaped area looks like it has moved forward and cracked the varnish from the surrounding area.

Guitar still plays great, brought it back to the store which is an authorized Fender repair and warranty center, they claim they've never seen anything like it and it worried me a fair bit.

Anyone know what I could be dealing with ?

Just another thing, the guitar was setup from the store to my liking so I never touched any of the guitars setting / truss rod adjustment and like I said, everything is still perfect on the guitar except for that area

Take it back to where you bought it right now. Let them deal with it. Maybe a warranty issue.

Took it back to the store, have a sinking feeling from their questions that they're going to try to weasle money out of this from me, I am not used to having issues with my Strats so this is a bit of an unbelievable situation for me

Money for what? New guitar, they set it up, something gives in the truss rod. They are a real Fender dealer, correct? If they start haggling, move up the feeding chain to the Fender rep before opening your wallet!

Good call ! will see how it turns out

Sounds to me like they tightened the truss rod too much. Overtightening the truss rod to correct for too much relief puts pressure on the back of the walnut insert and it can push out, or in your case, fly out. They did the set up. Fixing it is their responsibility.

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Bill

Wow thanks a bunch, that really feels spot on !

Do a search on it. There have been several posts about this very thing happening.

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Bill

Hi Bluesky ! I have, can't find anything, any help would be mucho mucho mucho appreciated

Yeah, like the store, I'm not buying it either. There is no way that the walnut plug could "pop out" like that. It could only be forced out by someone with an Allen wrench that didn't know what they were doing. Your friend is giving you some BS.

bluesky636, not the back of the neck, the walnut plug on the headstock. The OP "posting this for someone else"....ummm, yeah.

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---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

The way that the Bi-Flex rod works, when you need more relief than string tension alone can give you, you unscrew the adjuster until there's no tension on the rod (up until there it works just like a normal rod), then you keep unscrewing until the adjuster hits the rear/inner surface of the walnut tube. As you unscrew it farther ("tightening" it against the walnut cylinder) it forces more relief into the neck. There's a sleeve bushing anchored under the 7th fret inlay (if you pop out the inlay there's a screw that holds the bushing) to keep the rod from popping the rear skunk stripe loose.

It's pretty rare to need more relief than string tension can provide -- usually the truss rod needs to be tightened a bit to reduce relief even with light gauge strings. But with a super-stiff neck and/or ultra light strings and/or the neck has a bit of a natural backbow without string tension, sometimes it's necessary to engage the Bi-Flex feature.

That obviously puts stress on the walnut tube and the glue joint. If your neck requires an extreme amount of pressure against the tube, the wood might eventually shear. If the Bi-Flex is engaged and your guitar was in a hot car trunk all day, the glue joint might soften. If the Bi-Flex is engaged and you yank really hard on the neck while jumping around on stage, you could apply a sharp transient increase on the adjuster's pressure against the walnut tube. People who don't know how to adjust a Bi-Flex sometimes unscrew the adjuster too far and pop the tube loose.

If you could document that the neck had a natural backbow and needed a lot of relief added via the Bi-Flex you could argue that the neck was initially defective. (If possible, ask the guy who set it up if he remembers how he had to adjust the rod.) But the other causes aren't really due to manufacturing errors.

Pull the tube out, clean off the old glue, clean up the hole, screw the adjuster in past the neutral point (so it's applying a little tension to the rod), wipe a little TiteBond on the outside of the tube (not too much -- you don't want it oozing out into the adjustment area or gooping up the adjuster's socket), press the tube into the hole until it's flush. Give it several days to harden, touch up the finish, readjust the rod.

I'll weigh in with shimmilou here.....Hmmm....sounds fishy...or is that skunky...

We need pics to see and decide wether there is too much or I should say not enough info from the owner as to what really happened and who actually played with the truss rod adjustment.

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

And then there's the possibility of being covered under "The Lemon Law" (if you have one where you live) for this. If I were you, I'd contact Fender immediately for assistance. Make sure you get the name of the rep you speak to.

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You dig?

Many people here already know how a Bi-Flex works, but a lot of people don't. There's an earlier version of the blueprint that shows a large metal washer/plate inset under the string nut, so when you backed out the adjuster it pressed against the wide washer and applied no force directly to the walnut tube. But after a year or two they dropped the washer and put their faith in the glue joint. The current Bi-Flex applies pressure to a metal washer that's free-floating and the same size as the walnut tube, so the pressure is entirely applied to the walnut tube.

shimmi,

I hate to disagree with you but I will. The luthier that I work part time for said he sees it all the time. He even showed me a guitar he had in for repair. If the truss rod is putting too much pressure on the walnut insert, it can slowly push out or pop out suddenly when the glue finally gives way. Since neither of us were there to see it happen, I am willing to give the OP the benefit of the doubt regardless of who the guitar belongs to.

And who said anything about the "back of the neck". I know that the OP is talking about the walnut insert that surrounds the truss rod hole and so am I even if it wasn't clear to you.

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Bill