Truss Rod Weights

[Bob Connor]

What sort of weights are your truss rods?

We've been using Gotoh two way as per the pic below.

They weigh in at 174 grams.

Just interested in what everyone else is using, how much they weigh and your impressions of them as a viable truss rod and ease of installation.

Bob

[Kim]

Bob, I only have Allied's older style double action, they weigh in at 118 grams.

Cheers

Kim

[Dennis Leahy]

What the hell is Hesh using in his 4 pound guitars?

Dennis

[Hesh1956]

I like the new Allied 2 way which is also about 118 grams, second choice is LMI two way rod which is 118 gram too.

But the new Allied rod is the best rod ever, very smooth, stainless steel, no weld globs outside of the 1/4" width that have to be ground off. Very nice product. It has a geared like action so it turns very freely and easily.

[Serge]

I bought all my truss rods from Shane Neifer and my last guitar was a tiny bit over 4 pounds but i never weighed them, they feel like they are really light though, really easy to install too.

[Shane Neifer]

I just weighed the ones I have.

Gotoh double acting (like Bob's) 184 grams

LMI double acting 118 grams

The single acting that I have made up by the same dude that made Larrivee's for YEARS!..107 grams.

If you add two pieces of carbon fibre to the single acting you are still only at 149 grams. That is the combination I use, the single with cf.

Shane

[Allen]

I've use the LMI 2 way rod and while lighter, I don't like it much. I also used their single action rod (ordered it by mistake) and it left me unimpressed. Both rods required filing big globs of weld off before they could be installed. I've been using the Gotoh rod on the cutaway and now on the current Petite Jumbo.

I really like the Gotoh. Not the least is that I can get them in Oz and the price is really good. Much easier to adjust than LMI's and with the U channel housing the rod, I think that they add a fair bit of stiffness to the neck. You're also routing out a fair bit more wood to install them, so I imagine that when it comes down to weight savings, the lighter rods might not be as far out in front as they first appear.

Carbon fiber rods would be great, but by the time you pay exchange and shipping they get pretty darn pricey. I'd love to find a local supplier that could be cost competitive. I've email a few Luthier suppliers here, but they quote me a price more than I've paid by sourcing them from the US.

I've also read I think on the MMIF some threads about truss rods. Mario said that he's used the old Martin style t-bar in some guitars, and would use it in all of them if the market would allow. One reason he gave was that sometimes mass is a good thing, especially if it helped the strings drive the top.

I don't know enough about that, so let's here from some of you that might have some experience with this.

[Bob Connor]

G'day Shane and welcome aboard.

Looks like the LMI or Allied ones are the way to go.

Hey Shane, can you have a go at your blokes at Canada Post and tell 'em to stop charging so much for postage to OZ.

Surface from Canada is about the same as USPS air from the States.

I think most of us here get our Lutz from Tim (which comes from you I believe) but there's some other nice stuff on your site that is either too expensive after you factor in postage costs or takes up to sixteen weeks to get here if it comes by surface.

Apologies for the whinge but I think everyone loses out because of it.

For those of you Australians who haven't heard of Lutz it's a Sitka/White Spruce hybrid which makes sensational soundboards and has been compared to European Spruce. Very stiff and very light. The Blackwood 12 string I'll be finishing in the next few weeks has a Lutz top.

Shane is one of only a couple of suppliers of Lutz which is found in a specific region of Canada.

Bob

[Dave White]

I use the Gotoh 2-way rods - mainly beacause I can get them here in the UK at a good price - but also because I like them in terms of their function and effect on the neck bow when you adjust them. I'm not that bothered by the weight aspect. I definitely want a 2-way rod in my instruments. I tend to build slimmer neck profiles and at some stage the truss-rod will need to be used to keep the neck relief where it should be. Also I "hate" using epoxy (apart from Z-poxy which is meant to go everywhere!) and if you get a little backbow from gluing on a fingerboard with fish-glue the 2-way adjustability is nice insurance. I like to think of the fretboard to neck join as a "tonal" one and for this reason like the idea of hot-hide or fish glue - probably more so in hollow necked guitars like the Weisses I make.

As for the cf rods I always put two in a neck with a truss rod - not just for stiffness, but for "tonal" reasons. Mike Doolin explains this well in his "Intonation" articles:

"I have a client whose ears are a phenomenon of nature. She can hear intonation discrepancies that I have to strain to discern. This remarkable ability is both a blessing and a curse: she sings absolutely perfectly in tune, and tunes her guitars perfectly by ear, but little intonation discrepancies in her guitars drive her nuts! Having her as a client has motivated much of my investigations into guitar intonation. I'm happy to say that she's more satisfied with the intonation of her Doolin Guitar than any other she owns, and believe me, I had to work pretty hard to achieve that distinction.

She brought me a very nice Martin "M" model which she had played for years. She had taken it to a good repairman who had trued the fretboard, refretted the neck, and compensated the saddle, but it still sounded wrong to her so she brought it to me to see if I could do any better. I agreed that it wasn't playing in tune, so I did a detailed intonation study of every fret on every string.

What I found surprised me so much that I borrowed another Martin (a dreadnought) and did the same intonation study, with the same results:

All the strings were in tune at the 12th fret, and reasonably close at every other fret, except at the 2nd, 3rd and 4th frets, the low E was quite sharp and at the very same frets, the A was quite flat! This completely blew my mind. I checked the fret placement, and it matched my precision fretting template perfectly. There was no excessive fret wear or neck warpage since the guitar was newly refretted. I tried several brand-new sets of strings and got the same results, from both guitars. How could different strings be out of tune in opposite directions at the same few frets, when they were both in tune above and below those frets? I would have thought that the fret would have to be slanted or staggered to accomplish that.

I did the same detailed intonation study of one of my guitars, and every fret played in tune, no exceptions. I'm not saying this to prove that I make a better guitar than Martin, I only mean to say that something I was doing saved my guitar from this anomaly that was common to both of the Martins I studied. So what was I doing different?

All I can do is speculate, but I believe that the problem was resonances in the necks of those two Martins. I inlay two strips of graphite in my necks, one on either side of the truss rod. Graphite is about 15 times stiffer than wood for the same amount of material, and stiffer means higher frequency. I speculate that the Martin necks had resonances close to the notes that were playing out of tune, and that those resonances were pulling those notes sharp or flat. I knew that graphite would make my necks more resistant to warpage, and had noticed that it prevented "dead spots" as well - every note on my guitars has about the same tone color and sustain. I think that the graphite also raises the resonant frequencies of my necks above the fundamental frequencies of the notes on the neck. Since the neck doesn't sympathetically resonate with any note more than any other, it doesn't sap away any energy, and it doesn't drag the pitch of any note away from where it should be.

At least, that's my theory. The use of graphite as neck reinforcement has become pretty commonplace, and I was happy with the results even before this weird intonation experience. Now I'm even more sold on it."

I also wince when I see how much I have to pay for the cf rods but they are a pretty specialised product so you don't have a lot of choice. I also need them for my cf flying-buttress system and they are a "core" part of my design. Cheapest is to by them in bulk from Los Alamos Composites (who I think make them for the major US suppliers) and it works out at about half the price of Stew-Mac.

It does amuse me sometimes that people worry that with cf rods in the neck they are so "stiff" that they won't allow the truss-rod to adjust the neck. This is not the case. Also when people say the neck is stiff and stable because with the cf rods in they can stand on it with no movement. This is the same force as string pull, but not in the same directions, and you would have to stay standing on the neck for a number of years to truly test it - it's about the remorseless string pull over time. This is why I think you need truss rods.

[Allen]

Thanks Dave, that was more of an explanation about what carbon fiber can do to a neck than I've been able to learn so far.

What size do you use in your necks?

[Dave White]

Allen,

I use the 0.2" x 1/4" size that Stew-Mac sells as I bought the 0.2" router bit. I normally buy the 24" lengths as the offcuts from the fingerboard rods on these are long enough for the cf buttress braces. Although they don't show this size on their website Los Alamos Composites will sell this size rod.

[Serge]

Hi Shane, welcome here bro, looking forward to see the shop and the billets pics once in a while my good man!


Serge

[Serge]

Great post brother Dave, many thanks, i'll be considering the cf rods as well, makes plenty of sense that the frequencies will rise with stiffer material that is also light which is what we aim when building the neck.

Not cheap but well worth it!