Truss rod is loose but I need more relief?

[cap217]

Not sure how to put into words this very simple issue and because of that I cant find what I am looking for. I found a bunch of info on people wanting to straighten their necks and they cant tighten their truss rod anymore but nothing about adding relief and not being able to loosen the truss rod.

The neck is straight but I would like a little more relief in it. The truss rod (heel placement) seems to be fully loosened. If I loosen it more, I am able to turn it with no effort. I assume at that point, it reached its max. THe weird thing is that 2 of my guitar necks are like this. THey are both straight but at the max relief point.

Is this common? How do I fix or work with this?

 

[KokoTele]

How much relief is there? You want very, very little.

This is not uncommon, particularly with a new neck, but they almost always start to develop some relief over time.

 

[Colt W. Knight]

Tighten the rod, level the frets, then you will have some built in relief

 

[Pepi]

I had some of this weirdness on my new CV50. I ended up going with 11s that made it perfect. I really love this guitar with 11s on it. Plays like butter.

 

[Tuxedo Poly]

Could be a double acting truss rod. They have a middle slack point.
You tighten clockwise to remove front bow (excess relief) and anti-clockwise to add relief.
There's a pdf at Godin
http://www.godinguitars.com/Double Action truss rod adjustment.pdf
I wouldn't experiment though until you confirm it is double acting.

Fender call them bi flex truss rods.

 

[jefrs]

Heel end is traditional not double-action, unfortunately.

I suspect the truss rod is jammed.

Do check that the truss rod nut will unscrew right off. It is just a long nut with a cross-head end. There should be a thrust-washer underneath it against the wood. If that thrust-washed is jammed, it will not release the truss rod. The original thrust washer on mine was rather thin and flimsy. The thrust washer should fall out. If it does not then it is a neck off job to see if you have one, and to pull it out - bend a hook into a cut-off end of guitar string perhaps.

With the washer out you might lightly tap the end of the rod using a wooden softening block to "push" it up into the neck and loosen it off from binding in the neck, it is actually screwed into another nut at the headstock end. The way mine was put in made me suspect a certain amount of glue from the skunk stripe. If you whack it hard then you might break something such as popping out the skunk stripe, just enough to assure that the rod is free in its channel.

The truss rod on my Baja suffered a similar problem. The nut jammed onto the truss rod and the entire rod unscrewed. I withdrew the rod and freed off the nut and cleaned up the threads. Then I cut a slot into the end of the truss rod for a screwdriver so I could screw it back in or if necessary in the future, remove it again. After checking that everything would go back together, I applied Loctite to the headstock end and screwed it in tight and waited for the Loctite to set. Then I reassembled with a new stainless steel thrust washer and put the cross headed nut back on. Everything now works perfectly and adjusts very much better than it did before.

 

[cap217]

Heel end is traditional not double-action, unfortunately.

I suspect the truss rod is jammed.

Do check that the truss rod nut will unscrew right off. It is just a long nut with a cross-head end. There should be a thrust-washer underneath it against the wood. If that thrust-washed is jammed, it will not release the truss rod. The original thrust washer on mine was rather thin and flimsy. The thrust washer should fall out. If it does not then it is a neck off job to see if you have one, and to pull it out - bend a hook into a cut-off end of guitar string perhaps.

With the washer out you might lightly tap the end of the rod using a wooden softening block to "push" it up into the neck and loosen it off from binding in the neck, it is actually screwed into another nut at the headstock end. The way mine was put in made me suspect a certain amount of glue from the skunk stripe. If you whack it hard then you might break something such as popping out the skunk stripe, just enough to assure that the rod is free in its channel.

The truss rod on my Baja suffered a similar problem. The nut jammed onto the truss rod and the entire rod unscrewed. I withdrew the rod and freed off the nut and cleaned up the threads. Then I cut a slot into the end of the truss rod for a screwdriver so I could screw it back in or if necessary in the future, remove it again. After checking that everything would go back together, I applied Loctite to the headstock end and screwed it in tight and waited for the Loctite to set. Then I reassembled with a new stainless steel thrust washer and put the cross headed nut back on. Everything now works perfectly and adjusts very much better than it did before.

It is a USACG neck. Its from 2011 so maybe this is the case.

 

[jefrs]

I've never met a USACG neck but if has truss rod constructed like Fender then try what I wrote above.

A guitar neck with a truss rod should have a natural (un-tensioned) slight forwards bow, added to by string tension, for the truss rod to counteract.
It should never bow backwards without added tension, be too straight, this is not a natural condition even with a double-action truss rod. Such a neck may have a S-shaped curve ("humped") - do sight down the fretboard from bridge.

 

[Vizcaster]

If you lay a straightedge on the frets, and tighten the trussrod nut, does the backbow get worse? if so, then the rod isn't jammed, but your neck simply has some back bow. rare, but it happens.

I'd take Colt's approach: tighten the nut just enough to put a little tension on the trussrod, then dress the frets (level and crown). Some makers use this method as a way of improving tone and sustain (Fender Master Builder Dennis Galusaka, for instance).

 

[Pepi]

If you lay a straightedge on the frets, and tighten the trussrod nut, does the backbow get worse? if so, then the rod isn't jammed, but your neck simply has some back bow. rare, but it happens.

I'd take Colt's approach: tighten the nut just enough to put a little tension on the trussrod, then dress the frets (level and crown). Some makers use this method as a way of improving tone and sustain (Fender Master Builder Dennis Galusaka, for instance).

Backbow was what my neck suffered. Going to a heavier strings just gave me what I needed in relief to make the guitar a player again.