American Bi-Flex Truss: Maxed!!!

[Silence Kid]

Was making incremental adjustments each day; then I hit "the wall;" a point of excess resistance. The neck relief is close to where I want it, but not ideal, especially if I ever go to heavier strings. Lucky me, it does not seem stripped.

...So Fender makes brass truss rod washers, apparently to fix this. My question is... Can I just back off the rod hex nut like a "normal" (non-bi-flex) rod? It freaks me out that when you back the nut out it will "force" the neck to concave... But from what I can tell removal of the hex nut doesn't require a special procedure. Is that correct?

...If I go this route, how many washers should I use? My gauges say I'm at something like a quarter mm of relief at this point.

...How tempted should I be to say "it's probably just glue from the fretboard/skunk stripe" and keep cranking?

And at last: how tempted should I be to either just deal with it, or take it to a tech?

 

[Demanic]

Re: American Bi-Flex Truss: Maxed!!!

Keep pushing it and you may strip the threads. If you want to think it's just excess glue, the risk is yours to take.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: American Bi-Flex Truss: Maxed!!!

Tempted to remove that part from the original post, just so it doesn't become the focus of the thread; I put it there because that point has been brought up with frequency on other forums w/ relation to bi-flex rods, so wondered if it was somewhat "normal."

Even though I feel like I "know better" than to just crank, if everyone else's experience is that they had a gummed up rod I'd want to know that. Understood it's my risk anyway.

In reality I'm more curious of whether anyone has experience with removing the hex nut and installing washers. That is new ground for me, esp. with the bi-flex.

EDIT: So I guess that specific to the US/bi-flex guitars, the walnut plug needs to be removed. That's even more of an issue because my guitar has a matching headstock and it would create finish issues. So... I think the focus of this thread has changed again to, "is there any possible way to deal with this, without removing the walnut plug " Uggh. Now I do need to weigh the cost of that, vs. the cost of a new neck or the risk on carefully continuing to tighten, or dealing with it (knowing me, I can't just deal with it.)

 

[Obsessive Compulsive]

Re: American Bi-Flex Truss: Maxed!!!

I would leave it alone, especially if it's playable without much effort, and I would go down in gauge as well, as I did with my Charvel So Cal, whose truss rod isn't yet maxed out but never seems to reach 180 degree.

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: American Bi-Flex Truss: Maxed!!!

I'm not a person who can put up with this (I probably should be the one with the user name "Obsessive Compulsive.") I'd sooner sell it or part it out than play it in a way that is to me compromised, even if 90% of people would be fine with it. I've already got 9s on it, don't want to go to a lower gauge. So what I've done so far:

Slacked the strings with the rod still tightened/maxed; the neck went flat per my straight edge. Released rod pressure to neutral, to allow the wood time to decompress. With the rod nut backed out and no strings, there is neck relief (I've made sure not to back out to the point where the bi-flex rod is actively adding relief.)

From what I gather, some combination of clamping/flexing may help things along. If it comes to that I'll take it to a luthier and ask for an opinion, but first I'll allow it to sit for a day, string it back up, and see if I can complete my setup as desired. My ideal preference is just short of no relief, and true to that this guitar has seemed to "like" it as I remove relief from the setup; very frustrating, hopefully one way or another this neck can spring back.

...

(...My experience with truss rods: I've had cheap guitars that have had "stuck" rods where I've just not cared and cranked them down; I've never broken one, but not really eager to try that on this guitar. I acquired a couple guitars in the past year that had the opposite problem (stuck with back-bow,) in those cases I loosened the rod entirely and man-handled the necks to add relief; in one case, this worked fine, in another it caused finish damage to the side of the neck and an eventual de-lamination of the fretboard from the neck; even though I was able to myself clamp and re-finish the neck so the damage is now un-detectable, I'm also not eager to try anything so extreme with this guitar.)

 

[Obsessive Compulsive]

Re: American Bi-Flex Truss: Maxed!!!

I am actually pretty obsessive with truss rod. I sold an Ibby last year cause the truss rod got stripped and backed out from buying a Fernandes cause the seller has lost the truss rod key and I didn't have any wrench that matched the respective nut. If the Charvel hadn't been a So Cal I would've sold it too long time ago.

I read about hanging a heavy object right on the center of the neck for several days, in order to somehow reshape the neck but I am skeptical about this.

The ultimate solution is planing the neck then a complete refret; tedious and costly for sure.

 

[dave74]

Re: American Bi-Flex Truss: Maxed!!!

I'd think hanging any weight would just be a temp fix anyways, as it would eventually balance out again with the string's pull and go back to where it is now.
Humidity can help "strengthen" the neck and get it back near straight, but again it's a temp fix until the climate gets really dry again.

Sell it I'd say, as painful as it is.
I'm the same way really. I have to be able to get the relief just right or it's not worth having IMO.

You might try some humidity to straighten it a bit, and then see if you can budge the rod a bit more tight.
If so then let it sit back in the 50% range a day or two and see if it bows too much again.

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: American Bi-Flex Truss: Maxed!!!

Maybe I need to ask; is it normal for a neck with the truss rod neutral to still have relief? Mine has about a mm of relief, loosened and with no strings.

I read that clamping the neck to a back-bowed state (with rod loose) and then tightening the rod can "help" the rod along and get the adjustment to stick. Assuming I'm not out of threads. I have some clamps, and I think I can do that; still weighing taking it to a tech. I'm more accustomed to techs messing with things to the point where they're worse than what they were, so that's why that's not the first thing I want to do.

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: American Bi-Flex Truss: Maxed!!!

Bit of an update: overnight removed, it seems to have settled a bit. I tightened and then loosened it again with the strings/neck removed, and it seemed to bounce back well/not stick concave.

I took it to a tech for final/full adjustment to be safe; he got it flat as my preference (with a minuscule amt. of relief) and described it as being pretty well in spec., didn't encounter any resistance adjusting... I wonder if the rod has a cross-thread path that it was stuck in? Hope this isn't a time bomb, I'm keeping my eye on it and trying not to think too much about it because it really is a great playing neck, nice fret job etc.

 

[AlexR]

Re: American Bi-Flex Truss: Maxed!!!

Well, necks are wood. As you shape it some of the structure that allows it to stay straight as a blank is removed. As much as possible during the process the QC will make attempts to keep the neck flat, but it could really go any which way - 2 way rods were developed for this very reason.
Many of the necks I have built myself have a slight backbow at neutral - this is not a design feature but mild incompetence - so mine need some pretty heavy strings and the odd work with fret dressing to make ok - but over time they can change as the wood settles.

 

[kramersteen]

Re: American Bi-Flex Truss: Maxed!!!

4 way truss rods are going to be the next big thing.

 

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: American Bi-Flex Truss: Maxed!!!

Burn it....and give into the fruitfull and joyous ocd....