Truss rod nut question

BeardyAndy

i have an Allparts tele neck with a heel adjust truss rod. Trouble is i want to add a little more relief to it but the nut just unscrews so i can tighten it to add relief and thats it!
its just off dead straight and when i’m tuned half step down and drop Db (as half the stuff we seem to play is) i get nasty fret buzz.

is this fixable? I cant think of a work around. 

Andyjr1515

A step up in string gauge might be enough to do it.  The extra string tension pulls the neck a little further bowed and might give you the necessary neck relief with the nut fully loose.

ICBM

I would try heavier strings first as Andyjr said, and maybe raise the bridge slightly. As long as there is some forward relief at all, it should be enough.

If that isn't what you want and it isn't a double-acting truss rod, the usual best solution is to dress some relief into the frets by doing it with the truss rod deliberately tightened to produce a back-bow - so that when released, there will now be a slight dip in the frets in the middle of the neck.

Heat treatment can sometimes work but is more difficult to get right and will often slowly undo itself over time as the wood moves back to how it naturally wants to be.

FelineGuitars

ICBM said:

I would try heavier strings first as Andyjr said, and maybe raise the bridge slightly. As long as there is some forward relief at all, it should be enough.

If that isn't what you want and it isn't a double-acting truss rod, the usual best solution is to dress some relief into the frets by doing it with the truss rod deliberately tightened to produce a back-bow - so that when released, there will now be a slight dip in the frets in the middle of the neck.

Heat treatment can sometimes work but is more difficult to get right and will often slowly undo itself over time as the wood moves back to how it naturally wants to be.

What John said above - we do this at times for players with the no relief adjustment available in their guitars.

A more extreme version is a refret and level the board with some backbow in it so it then ends up with some relief when you back off the rod.

BeardyAndy

Andyjr1515 said:

A step up in string gauge might be enough to do it.  The extra string tension pulls the neck a little further bowed and might give you the necessary neck relief with the nut fully loose.

Good shout, hadn't thought of that. I'm running 10-46 but am transitioning over to 10-52s and broke a 10 last night so need to put an order in.

Thanks all.