Major truss rod adjustment on brand new neck?

[newmexstrings]

Hi guys-----

Strung my brand new Thinline Tele together the other day, and the neck had a major bow to it. Took the neck off and tightened the truss rod nut, it was completely loose, so I went a half turn instead of a quarter (as I've heard is about the most you want to adjust at a time...). It got a little better, but is still bowed and fretting out all over the place.
My question is this: is it common for you guys to have to tweak a truss rod a bunch on a brand new, finished W neck? This is my first guitar neck from them, so I don't know. My bass neck that I bought last year needed hardly any adjustment and plays like a dream. 

Thanks.

 

[big bob]

my tele neck had a slight up bow, 3/4 of a turn fixed it . some players fancy a little up bow, I like the neck flat..

 

[callaway]

It depends on what style of neck you have (pro, vintage modern, etc.). I just installed a pro tele neck (rosewood with 59 back) and it required about 1.5 turns at the heel, then another 1/4 turn on the side-adjust nut in order to get relief down to about 0.010" at the 7th fret.

 

[Alfang]

I just had to adjust one of my necks truss rods, I just changed to a heavier guage set of strings and was shocked at how much I had to turn the truss rod to get things back in ballance

So string guage has an influence, and maybe this time of year has something to do with it.  I'm guessing Warmoth maintains a constant temperature and humidity in their shop year 'round. Probably the average humidity of their area.

So shipping out to our up and down humidity / temperature  areas may have an influence on the neck,  This is all a guess on my part

 

[mayfly]

I always need to tweak the truss rod of my W necks.  I work at it over a period of several days until they are pretty much perfectly straight.

 

[blue313]

I always need to tweak the truss rod of my W necks.  I work at it over a period of several days until they are pretty much perfectly straight.

+1.  Pretty much any neck I have to tweak gets a three "bye" before I'll tweak it again. 

I agree with what everyone's saying here.  There's a lot of factors involved, but you tend to need more turns when you're initially setting up a guitar as opposed to just performing maintenance.  Not always, just usually.

 

[shanejw]

The Rosewood neck on my LP took almost 2 full turns to get it straight.  Had a really bad bow in it when I first strung it up.

 

[newmexstrings]

Thanks so much for the advice. I'll do a few more turns and see what happens. Almost time to post pics...It's all assembled, but not wired and not set-up correctly. I want it to be playing and sounding great before I post pics in the gallery, is that weird? I get nervous with truss rods b/c I had one break on me once, on a beautiful 1944 Gibson L-7, so I've always got that in the back of mind when I'm tweaking that nut....

 

[Chris of Arabia]

Given that Warmoth deliver necks without the truss rod being tensioned in any way, why would it come as a surprise to find that when strung for the first time, the truss rod needs adjusting to compensate for the string tension that is being applied to it? It's a mechanical device that on delivery is "at rest". You might as well complain about a tyre that goes flat when first fitted if you don't bother putting air in it.

 

[newmexstrings]

Definitely not complaining, just trying to find out other people's experiences. I see your point though. Thanks.

 

[rahimiiii]

Warmoth has no idea how will the neck be used they can't just set the truss rod to something that will work out of the box. If there are no unusual tension as you're turning the rod then it's ok. You should feel slight tension as you tighten the rod and if you feel excessive tension then stop. Now if you're feeling excessive tension but the neck is still really underbowed, then there might be a problem. Do not force the truss rod you will either strip the thread or break the rod or neck. Some people recommend that if excessive tension is needed to correct a bow then you should clamp the neck into the correct bow then ease the rod into it.

 

[stubhead]

I usually snuggie it up to flat before I even put stings on, then let it pull itself out in a way that explains to me how much more... I think they're shipped completely loose, it's gotta be at least engaged in the process of resisting 200 lbs. of string pull.

 

[simple]

Yep, we normally loosen the truss rod fully after production. When you get it and it acclimates to your environment and you're ready to assemble, tighten the truss rod up to get the neck as straight as possible sighting down the fretboard, (better to have relief than back bow if you have to error one way or the other). Once assembled, the string tension usually puts back just right amount of relief back in for playing.

It is normally recommended that you loosen the truss rod tension of any neck that is not under string tension for an extended period of time.