You may want to use capos to hold the string down. The string will become a straight line between the two frets. Press down the string at the first fret and press down the string on the fret where the body and neck meet. If you do not have a straight edge, you can simply use your strings as a straight edge. If your neck is not straight, light will shine through the gaps.
Simply play the straight edge against your frets or fretboard and shine light behind it. Steps for Adjusting an Electric Guitar Truss Rod Step 1: Check the relief or back-bow in the your guitar neck With a straight edgeĬhecking the straightness of your neck is relatively simple if you have a straight edge or a notched straight edge. Using one of these is the only way to get an accurately flat neck.
A notched straight edge is design to go over the frets, so you can measure the neck itself without any interference from the frets because the frets can be different heights that will give you false readings. This way you can easily measure how much relief or back bow your neck has. The absolute best way to get an accurately straight neck is to use a straight edge. You will be able to adjust any guitar with this set! So if you are anything like me, you will need a big variety of wrenches to straighten all of your different guitar necks. Unfortunately, they come in all different sizes and shapes. Most trussrods use either a nut or socket headed cap screw to tighten or loosen them. There are three common sizes of nuts that most guitars use, so here is a set of the three most common sizes. Most Stats and Gibson guitars use nut to straighten the neck. Here is a list of tools you’ll need to adjust your truss rod and make your guitar neck nice and straight. Tightening or loosening a dual action rod will bend cause the truss rod to bend in either direction. Loosening a single action rod will not “bend” your neck in the other direction it simply relieves the pressure from the neck and allows the string tension to pull the neck in the opposite direction.Ī dual action truss rod, on the other hand, does actually bend your guitar neck in both directions. In short single action truss rods bend the neck one way when it’s tightened. Electric guitar truss rods come in two main styles: single action or one-way truss rods and dual action or two-way.
Today, almost all guitars are fitted with adjustable truss rods that can be adjusted using an allen wrench or screw driver in either the nut or the heel of your neck. Here is a little more history about Martin Guitars. It’s kind of crazy to think that Martin used these non-adjustable truss rods up until 1984. If the neck did bow because of extreme weather conditions or faulty craftsmanship, there was nothing you could do to fix your neck short of tearing it apart, straightening your neck, and inserting a new T-bar rod. The only real purpose of these T-bar rods was to stabilize your neck and keep it from bowing. These rods were often a T-bar or piece of square tubing inlayed in your neck. Truss rods have changed quite a bit since Martin first introduced their non adjustable design back in the early 20th century. More “modern” truss rods not only help reinforce the neck but also help bend the neck back into a straight position. It stiffens your neck and helps eliminate relief and back-bow in the neck.