So I had this recommened to me on youtube so thought i'd give it a watch
He has excellent craftsmanship and I do see what he's trying to acheive with the couple mechanism and that but I'm not sure I could get behind a guitar without a truss rod in this day and age?
Essentially he's using an incredibly rigid D tube carbon fibre rod which takes a rather large chunk out of the neck blank. Basically, he's stating that this D tube will give you a totally flat neck and he's relying solely on string tension to give relief. Surely this is a risky prospect? being able to dial in the perfect amount of neck relief is such a core part of any guitar setup, how will he be able to make it playable with a range of string gauges and tunings?
I might be mistaken but I am not a fan of the idea! Thoughts?
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It's a bit like nut height - a lot of people think it's a 'player preference', but in practice - as long as you're not a complete gorilla - the same height of just microscopically higher than the first fret is correct for all styles and string gauges.
That would be tricky, since the normal way of doing that is to set a deliberate back-bow using the truss rod and then level the frets...
You would have to do it with external clamping, although that should be possible.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
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the carbon fibre is epoxied into the neck, too.
It's possible for them to be so stiff the strings don't add any relief at all... so I'm always thankfully I included a truss rod to dial it in.
These days, when I favour a more flexible neck, controlled with the truss rod... everything is under tension. Its a more vintage flavour than a very stiff neck, which can sound very direct and modern.
If I do use any CF reinforcement I now go for hollow rod, epoxied in. It adds predictability and stability without making things too stiff.
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