Single action truss rod adjustment?

robgilmo

So tonight I am going to polish the frets and set the relief up, its got a little too much relief. So, on a single action truss rod, to straighten the neck is taking the string tension off best? And clockwise turn looking down the neck from the headstock? Its a 1996 mex strat. I have a feeling the rod may not be working correctly as I tried to straighten it last week end and a half a turn did nothing to it but that was with the strings tensioned.

ICBM

It's not usually necessary, but it won't do any harm and can make it easier. If you really want, you can clamp the end of the body to a bench/table, bend the neck backwards by hand to relieve the tension on the rod, then tighten the nut. This can be useful with a rod which is at the point of needing too much force to turn the nut otherwise. (And is mandatory on pre-1985 Rickenbackers due to the rod design.)

robgilmo

Cool, I will try that, the nut does seem to have normal feeling resistance when I am turning it but god knows the last time this neck was adjusted.

amarok1971

Would now be a good time to remove the nut, check it and oil the threads before you try tightening it further? I always grease the truss threads on new purchases.

robgilmo

How do you do that then? Does it just screw out?

amarok1971

It depends what kind of nut it it, is it a bullet one?

robgilmo

I don't know, its down inside the hole, according to fender its a 3/16'' hex, I think a 4.5mm allen key does it.

amarok1971

Hmm It may not come out... have you tried?

ICBM

robgilmo said:

I don't know, its down inside the hole, according to fender its a 3/16'' hex, I think a 4.5mm allen key does it.

Whatever you do, don't use a metric key - there's a very good chance of damaging the inside of the hex nut, then you're truly stuck.

The USA Standards are very bad for this - they use a 1/8" Allen nut, which is *not* the same as 3mm. If you use a 3mm key you will almost certainly round the nut and it can't be removed without taking the walnut plug out.

If it's a Mexican it will have a 3/16" nut which is equivalent to 4.76mm, so a 4.5mm is too small and will also risk slipping and rounding the nut.

robgilmo

I should have one that fits in my shed, I haven't tried to take it out, waiting for the kids to go to bed so I will have a look tonight, but if it doesn't need to come out perhaps I should reside on the side of caution, I still need to adjust it though.

robgilmo

So, strings with no tension, I turned it a quarter of a turn, it was a tiny bit stiff but didn't feel like it was going to break anything. I gave the neck a bit of a massage as well , not sure if that helped ort not. It was on 0.4 before and now its 0.25 so it looks like it was either too lose the first time around or it just needed the extra push, or a massage!
Thanks guys.