A few addenda - It's considered good practice to turn the trussrod's end nut no more than 1/4 turn or so a day. I mean, after the whole initial setup where you tighten it from nothing to (X). And I think it would apply more readily to woods on the large-grain and brittle-ish side of the forest - wenge maybe? And it's probably meant more for an older neck that has "settled" into it's groove. On a new neck, if it's acting stupid like
"Hey- NECK! I just turned your trussrod 1/3 of a turn and NOTHING happened, numbnuts!"
I will... well oddly enough I'm more inclined to jack on it if it's a GOOD-quality piece. You can take it over your knee, or I will rest it upon my reasonably well-padded ribcage, get a hold of the butt and head and give it a good firm YANK!* A good deal of the instructions you run across in magazines are designed to 1) fill column inches; 2) Sell products. Furzample,
Premier Guitar (which IS he best of the non-$40 to $100 ultra-sniffery rags) , umm,
Premier Guitar insists that you have to restring a guitar every time you adjust the rod! As though every 13-year-old hasn't already figured on the capo trick - clamp em' down at the nut, loosen strings, remove neck and have your way with it. Did I yet mention that D'Addario, GHS, Ernie Ball, DR, Elixer, Thomasveldernik-Inkfelderwhatever, Rotosound and their
dogs all run big pricy ads in your magazine - OF COURSE you need to throw away strings all the time.... :laughing7:
OK, well, while my chute's greased -
You can run across really bad advice on the net, there's some bass site I stumbled into a few years back. It' s nicely written, on a gentle yellow background, good grammar, just gives you that warm trusting "This guy'll look out for me!" kinda feeling. And he insists that you should never mess with a bass's bridge because the guys at the factory set it right, and the way to adjust action height was cranking around on the trussrod! :headbang1: If he had just spent half the time he spent making his bee-u-teefull website on reading some books and LEARNING WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT....
The advice in magazines isn't usually geared towards destroying yer git like that fool, but there's another issue with many websites, "pro" YouTube channels and the magazines - and that is, they hire the most knowledgeable, successful repair and tech guys - and these people have shop habits and methodology entirely oriented around work speed, volume production and sinking heavy moola into expensive tools that can only pay for themselves with - work speed & volume production! Like this month, I think it's
Premie again, they have an article about putting new tuning pegs on some old thing with crappy tuners. And the guy jumps through hoops talking about how to not destroy the value of a fine vintage piece, tracking down the exact right bushings and all, nar-de-nar nar - this might apply to what, 3% of the people who might want a guitar to stay in tune? :icon_scratch: Just get to the point already! And he insists a few times that it's
extremely dangerous to tighten the bushings on tuners with a crescent adjustable wrench, because it "may" slip and destroy my valuable, $25,000 vintage PooPooCaster! BUT - I'm not in a hurry, I don't need to do twenty of 'em before lunch, and I have NO hope of "recouping an investment" on a special $20 guitar tuner-bushing deep well socket kind of thing. And if for some reason I do go all spazzy and scratch my guitar - isn't it called "real relic'd"? :headbang1:
The place where this goes completely off the tracks is in finishing, of course. Gibson, Fender and their disciples use and USED processes that were really wasteful, production oriented, steps that only make sense on an assembly line... wasteful of product, but FAST FAST FAST in a high volume factory. Any time you see a process that involves slobbering on a real thick coat of oil or filler, and then... wait 20 minutes and scrape it all off. And throw it away? :icon_scratch: What are you supposed to DO for the 20 minutes, learn French? No, you're supposed to be slobbering goo on the next nineteen things you're working on, because the guys who formulated the commercial stuff were selling it to big factories and they dug right down to the little polymerizin' molecules coming up with something that
works for finishing 50 guitars or bed frames or dressers at a pop. But don't let me get going... :toothy12:
*(No not that kind. A PULL...)
arty07:
