When a quality guitar leaves the factory, the truss rod is adjusted according to the maker’s taste in setup specs. But a change in string gauges, climate (especially a change in humidity), or simply the player’s taste may require an adjustment, even on a new guitar. If you have a guitar that played great when you got it, but has developed a higher, stiffer action over time, it may be time to learn how to adjust your truss rod so you can keep the action just the way you like it.
An adjustable truss rod is a slim steel rod embedded in the neck. One end is threaded for an adjusting nut and is accessible at either the peghead or through the soundhole. The other end is anchored to give the adjusting end something to tighten against.
There are two styles of adjustable truss rods: single-action (“one way”) truss rods, and double-action (“two way”) rods. One-way rods straighten the neck against string tension and upbow; two-way rods not only straighten the neck against upbow, but can also force a backbowed neck into either a straight or upbowed configuration.
A Truss Rod Is Not For Adjusting Action — Haze Guitars
Your truss rod needs adjustment when the neck of your guitar has too much or too little upbow or too much backbow.
Tightening or loosening the adjustment nut adds or lessens pressure on the rod and neck. As a general rule, tightening the nut moves the neck away from the string pull and removes upbow; loosening the nut allows the neck to relax into an upbow again (especially when helped by the strings’ pull).
However, with a one-way truss rod, if the neck warps away from the string pull, no amount of loosening the truss rod will pull the neck straight, because the truss rod only works against the pull of the strings. This is why, in the 1980s, double-action truss rods began to be used widely.Perhaps the most important component of any guitar is the neck, it’s the interface of the guitar, so it pays to ensure the neck is in good shape. In the following article, I’m going to show you how to inspect, and adjust the neck of your acoustic guitar via the truss rod, to ensure your guitar plays and sounds great. But, if you are in a hurry I’ve summarised the steps below:
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To adjust the neck of your acoustic guitar first ensure the guitar is tuned to concert pitch. Next, identify the problem e.g. insufficient neck relief can cause fret buzz and/or dead notes. Too much relief can affect intonation and string action. Next, access the truss rod (located inside the soundhole on acoustic guitars) and, using a nut driver or hex key, turn counter-clockwise to increase neck relief or clockwise to reduce neck relief. Always work in small increments e.g. a quarter turn at a time.
For a more detailed explanation of truss rod adjustment continue reading below, and if you are interested in learning more about acoustic guitar maintenance click the link to check out some of our other articles.
This could be due to changes in temperature and/or relative humidity or simply be the result of prolonged tension from the strings gradually forcing structural changes over time.
Guitar Truss Rod Adjustment Guide
To combat these changes on steel string guitars (and some, but not all classical guitars) an adjustable steel rod, known as a truss rod is inserted into a channel, lengthwise, in the guitar’s neck, just beneath the fretboard.
Just as trusses used in construction are designed to manage tension and evenly distribute forces, truss rods are used to counter the tension placed on the neck from the strings, essentially preventing your guitar’s neck from becoming bowed.
There are two specific types of truss rods, single-action, and dual-action. Single action truss rods, as pictured in the diagram above, are threaded on one end to accommodate a washer and nut. They sit within a curved channel inside the neck and when tightened flatten out, reducing neck relief.
Truth About Truss Rods
They can only be adjusted one way. However, when tension is reduced e.g. the truss rod is loosened, and neck relief increases.
Dual-action truss rods feature a second rod (hence the name dual-action). There are different types of dual-action truss rods available, but the main advantage of them is that the truss rod can be adjusted both ways.
In the example below, we can see the top bar is fixed to washers on each end of the lower bar. Adjusting the position of the washers forces the top bar to arc outward if the washers are closer together or inward if the washers are further apart.
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While a dual-action truss rod might sound like an upgrade, many guitarists still prefer single-action truss rods as they contribute less weight to the neck and require less wood to be removed as the channel is shallower.
Ok, now that we know what a truss rod is, the different types, and how they work we can move on to assessing the neck of the guitar and identifying potential issues we can attempt to fix with the truss rod.
There are three main areas of concern when inspecting a guitar’s neck that your truss rod can help with. And, while truss rod adjustment isn’t the sole answer for all, it can be part of the solution. These include:
Henrix 38 Inches Bass Wood Acoustic Guitar With Die Casttuners And Dual Action Truss Rod
String action refers to the distance between the underside of the strings and the fretboard. If the action is too high, the guitar becomes more difficult to play, requiring more force to push down the strings.
If too low, the strings might ‘buzz’ against the fret wires resulting in ‘fret buzz’ and dead notes. String action is mostly controlled by the height of the two points of contact for the strings e.g. saddle and nut but adjusting the amount of relief on the neck also has a big impact on your action.
Dead notes are notes muted by the preceding fret due to being lower, which effectively dampens the note being played. You can read more about dead notes and how to fix them here.
Basic Acoustic Guitar Setup And Adjustments
If the neck has a twist, the alignment of the bridge saddle, frets and nut are affected. This is a serious issue and can result in the guitar becoming unplayable. In some cases adjusting the truss rod can help, but in the majority of cases, will require the skills of an experienced luthier.
To adjust intonation we’ll need to either reduce or lengthen the scale length of individual strings e.g. the length of string suspended between the nut and saddle. On electric guitars, this isn’t difficult, as most electric guitars feature adjustable saddles.
However, on the acoustic guitar, adjusting intonation usually requires fine adjustments to be made to a standard saddle with a file, or the use of a compensated saddle. However, truss rod adjustment can also help, as changing the amount of relief the neck has also affects the length of the guitar string able to vibrate.
Making Your First Guitar Purchase A Great One
For example, introducing additional relief (the neck bows inward) shortens the distance between the nut and the saddle (scale length) slightly, which also reduces the length of the guitar string suspended between the two.
Make sure the guitar is tuned to standard pitch. There’s no point inspecting and making adjustments to the neck if not under the usual amount of tension from the strings.
Before visually inspecting the neck you should also play the guitar and note any issues you feel or hear. Play each fret on each string up and down the neck and look out for fret buzz, dead notes, intonation issues, or high action before visually inspecting.
How To Adjust A Truss Rod Acoustic Guitar
Keep in mind, when working on your guitar that while you might identify specific issues such as fret buzz or high action when assessing the neck, the truss rod controls many aspects in terms of playability and will usually affect each of these things in different ways.
For example, you may find when introducing more relief to the neck to reduce the occurrence of fret buzz that the string action becomes too high for your liking, and you may then need to reduce the height of the saddle.
So keep in mind we are often looking for results that give us “the best of both worlds” e.g. making adjustments that benefit each potential issue, rather than fixing one thing only to negatively affect another. The trick is to make small, incremental changes and check how it affects the guitar before going further.
Ibanez Help....neck Relief Is Not Very Even...
Ok, with that out of the way let’s begin by looking for one of the more serious problems that can occur, neck twist.
While guitarists will mostly be interested in adjusting the truss rod to fix problems specific to neck relief, it’s a good idea first to rule out the possibility of the neck being twisted, as this is a more serious problem.
You may have noticed that when people inspect guitars they hold the guitar in front of them with the neck facing out and look along the length of the fretboard. I suspect a lot of us just do this because we see other people do it 🙂 but the main reason this is done is to check for a twist in the
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