I adjusted a truss rod (yay me)

Grumpyrocker

I know, I know. Probably something most of you have done many times. But I've never done it. For much of my (counts...) near thirty years playing guitar I was totally ignorant of so much musical and technical stuff. That's what you get for teaching yourself.

But anyway, been playing my Les Paul Traditional a lot recently now I've finally found a big padded strap that stops my dodgy  shoulder hurting. I could tell something was off with the guitar. And after doing the regular sort of checks it was clear there was a bit too much relief on the neck of the Les Paul. Not lots, but enough that it's keeping the strings a bit high.

Not bad way to start, not on any of my sub £400 guitars, instead the only one I own over that, by some margin.

A quarter turn and all is well. Probably need to raise the bridge a smidge now but it feels so much better now. Anyway sorry about the boring post, I'm just pleased I've managed to do something I've read a lot about and always been a bit too shy to try. 

Philtre

Really important to know how to do this, well done. I'm constantly tweaking the trusses on my guitars to get the right balance between neck relief and bridge height. Changes with the weather. Trusses at the base of the neck are bit more of a faff.

Maynehead

Good to hear...

By the way, doing your own setup is addictive... you’ll be levelling and crowning your own frets this time next year!

jdgm

Congrats then!   IMO worth checking whenever you change strings, if there's time  - a quarter turn then back, just to see what the effect is and how loose/tight it is.  Of course if it starts getting stiff (your rod puns here please), stop and go back. 

Once you've done it a bit......

Grumpyrocker

Philtre said:

Really important to know how to do this, well done. I'm constantly tweaking the trusses on my guitars to get the right balance between neck relief and bridge height. Changes with the weather. Trusses at the base of the neck are bit more of a faff.

I've not been doing any live playing in recent times so all my guitars sit in a room that doesn't change much so I probably won't have to do it too much. 

I think all four of my guitars have the adjustment at the headstock end thankfully.

noisepolluter

Philtre said:
Trusses at the base of the neck are bit more of a faff.

Oh god. I have to take the neck completely off my Schecter Strat to adjust it - there isn’t even a hollow in the body next to the truss rod. Does discourage me from tinkering with it I suppose! 

Well done OP for successful truss rod tweak - can make a big improvement. Have you checked your pickup heights yet?

Grumpyrocker

noisepolluter said:

Philtre said:
Trusses at the base of the neck are bit more of a faff.

Oh god. I have to take the neck completely off my Schecter Strat to adjust it - there isn’t even a hollow in the body next to the truss rod. Does discourage me from tinkering with it I suppose! 

Well done OP for successful truss rod tweak - can make a big improvement. Have you checked your pickup heights yet?

Yes. This current bout of tinkering actually began a week or so again when I adjusted the string height and pickup height of all my guitars. It was then when I noticed the issue with the Les Paul and it's taken a week or so to pluck up the bravery to adjust the truss rod.

My EC-256 was sounding a bit crap and I was considering changing the pups - but I actually got it sounded fabulous by adjusting pickup height and the pole pieces. 

Philtre

noisepolluter said:

Philtre said:
Trusses at the base of the neck are bit more of a faff.

Oh god. I have to take the neck completely off my Schecter Strat to adjust it - there isn’t even a hollow in the body next to the truss rod. Does discourage me from tinkering with it I suppose! 

On my Fenders you can just loosen the bolts and snap the neck backwards. See this at 3:50:

HAL9000

noisepolluter said:

Philtre said:
Trusses at the base of the neck are bit more of a faff.

Oh god. I have to take the neck completely off my Schecter Strat to adjust it - there isn’t even a hollow in the body next to the truss rod. Does discourage me from tinkering with it I suppose! 

Well done OP for successful truss rod tweak - can make a big improvement. Have you checked your pickup heights yet?

Agree that adjustments at the heel end are a faff. However, wasn’t the original thought that it should only need tweaking once in a blue moon (and even then, only if the blue moon fell on the second Sunday after Lent)? I believe Leo pretty much intended that it would be a ‘set and forget’ thing, and not something to give a quarter turn every time the weather changed.(

Voxman

Well done that man...only started to tweak truss rods myself a couple of years ago...and I've been playing for over 47 years now!

jonnyburgo

Nice work mate, you’ll be be surprised how many people guitars to a tech for stuff that is DIY 

bodhi

Happy first truss rod adjustment days (HFTRADs) should indeed be celebrated.  I remember how chuffed I was when I did that the first time.  It was actually the start of not feeling too scared to try and set up my own guitars.

Arjailer

bodhi said:

Happy first truss rod adjustment days (HFTRADs) should indeed be celebrated.  I remember how chuffed I was when I did that the first time.  It was actually the start of not feeling too scared to try and set up my own guitars.

Yep, breaking through the "I don't wanna **** it up" fear barrier was a great feeling   

I first started doing my own setups a few years ago after my dad got me "How to Make Your Electric Guitar Play Great" for my 40th birthday. He'd done my setups for ~25 years for me - guess he decided I was a big boy now and should learn to do it myself   

First time adjusting truss rod and intonation was a bit hairy, but after a couple of successful setups I've now lost my fear of it - I'm happier doing that than I am changing strings, which I still hate