Official Luthiers Forum!

...a client broke a truss rod off of one of your guitars. I realize I need to do the right thing and fix it but on the other hand, he must have been wailing on it to break the head clean off the bolt (I haven't seen it yet he just described it to me)
How the heck do I get it out? I fear that I'm pulling the fb off getting it out, replacing it, regluing the fb and then somehow trying to fix the finish.
Any tips?

Paul--If you are lucky to have used ebony for the board, you can remove the frets, rout down the center of the board (to remove the wood over the rod) and pull the rod out. Install new rod, then replace a center filet of ebony which you could easily slot by hand using the existing slots on either side of the new wood. Ebony is so forgiving w/ this type of work.

Or, you could just pull the entire board off and get at the rod that way. Whichever, this should not be considered warranty work.

Steve

_________________
From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

i fear the results of accidentally hitting the top of the rod with the router bit in the suggested method. one might e lucky and miss it, or unlucky enough to hit it. given the inflexibility of murphy's first law of the universe,well...

i would recommend the latter approach, remove the fingerboard.

though i have to agree that this is not warranty work. i've seen stripped brass nuts which are bad enough but it takes a real ham handed idiot to twist off the end of the rod. before this happened i would have expected some wood to give way. how did he exert enough torque to do that with an allen key. or do you use a rod with a hex nut that he attacked with a 24" breaker bar?

Steve, sounds like an interesting approach. But it scares me a bit. Like Crazy says, I'd hit the rod or get the channel off center or something dumb like that.
If I pull the board, what's the best way to do it without having to refinish the whole neck? Or should I say, Is there a way?
No, I'm not considering this warranty work. I'm one to take care of my customers but try to not let them walk all over me. If he really throws a fit, I'll do the work for free but I'm certainly going to make sure that he's the bonehead here.
He claims that he only twisted the rod 1/4 turn and tried to accuse me of having it tightened all the way. 1)no, I didn't and 2) if it were, he should have felt that it wasn't going to turn and stopped before he broke the darn thing. He knows just enough about guitars to make himself very dangerous.
Is it POSSIBLE that StewMac sent me a bad rod with a bad braze? If so, is there any way they will pay for the repair? ...I didn't think so.

bad rod is a possibility. when you get it out look at the weld/braze. if it has inclusions or voids you have a good basis for a new rod but most warranties expressly exclude consequential damage to the extent permitted by law.

It is a pain in the you know what but I would remove the fret board. I think it is the only safe approch

duh....

hadn't had my coffee yet!!!!

the other rather obvious problem with routing is that the frets would have to be removed!!!!!!!crazymanmichael38489.4812847222

What type of glue was used. I have pulled fret boards that were glued down with Titebond as well as ones glued down with Epoxy. I wouldn't call myself a repair guy but there isn't anysuch thing for 8 hours in any direction so I do repairs. To pull the fret board I have used a heat gun and putty knife to lift it and in vboth cases I was able to lift the board and then reglue it with only a light fret dressing needed. It isn't that tough to do, just go slow.

Arvey, yes I've pulled boards before. Usually though they are on my own mistakes and prior to lacquer. I think there is going to be an obvious line where the board came off when it is all said and done.

if you are using lacquer the touch up shouldn't be so bad.

if you use a bolt on remove the neck.

i use a long narrow spatula to loosen the board in combination with a slightly wedge shaped blage to apply lifting tension.

cut the line with a razor knife before trying to remove the board. will reduce the liklihood of large chips. crazymanmichael38489.5067592593

Ah yes I french polish all mine so wasn't thinking of the lacquer. On the ones I've done with Lacquer I cut the line first and then laid some wet cloth on the Top around the Fretboard extension, covered that with some thin metal and started at the fret board end, slowly heating and prying up with the knife. I didn't remove the neck even though it was a bolt on as the neck was attached before the lacquer sprayed. I replaced the truss rod (easier said than done as this trus rod had been epoyed in) and re glued the fret board. No touch up was needed. That fretboard was epoxied on and came up really easy. Again I am nmo pro but it worked for me.

i prefer to use a hi-tech insulating shield to protect the top whilst heating the fb extension: card board with alfoil. if the guitar was sprayed with the neck on also best to cut the fb ext./top lac as well. i worry, perhaps too much, about causing blushes in the lac if the wet cloth gets too hot.

i have a very neat little heater perfectly sized for loosening fb ext.'s which i found in a junk shop for $1 or $2. don't know what its intended purpose was but works perfectly for this task. i just work it up the board to loosen the rest as i go. heat lamps, the expensive, purpose shaped heating blankets sold by lmi, all will do the job.

Paul,
I had a similar situation with an electric guitar a few years back. Frank Ford has a great fix when the rod breaks at the nut end ( hopefully closer to the end). It involves a little "gizmo" he designed that hogs out the wood ( I am assuming the rod adjust's at the head stock end) a little. Then re-threads the remaining rod and allows you to install a new adjusting nut. You may need to have this "gizmo" made by a local machinist but I can state from experience...IT WORKS! Frank had some great photos and details at his frets.com site. Not sure if it's still there but worth a look see.

_________________
Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

Paul--don't sell yourself short. We've seen your work...whichever way you choose to go, you'll make it look easy. If you worry about running down the neck in a straight line, you could make a simple jig to guide the router.

CMMichael--the frets are coming out / off anyway, no?

_________________
From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

[QUOTE=Steve Kinnaird]

CMMichael--the frets are coming out / off anyway, no?[/QUOTE]
Why do the frets have to come out Anyway?

i can't see an reason to need to take the frets out of it.

in the router method you add a goodly bit of a refret to the job, rather than just the possible need for a light dressing, in addition to the risks, to yourself and the instrument, of hitting the rod itself. that really scares me. on some rods the anchor blocks sit proud of the shafts and i don't think that hitting one would be a pleasant occurance.

Well, maybe it's just the way I'd approach the task. If the fretboard's coming off, then going back down, I would pull the frets first. Once glued back, I would replane the fingerboard flat (all that heat can do funky things), then replace the frets. That may not be standard procedure, but the way I would approach it. So pulling them to rout the f/b seemed like a non-issue to me. It sounds like you envision keeping the frets in place while pulling to board and then regluing? You are a better workman than am I!

As for hitting the rod, if the router is set at 2 hairs shy of the bottom of the board, so that it doesn't cut all the way through, then finishing up the groove by hand would present no danger. To me, it sounds like the rod is shot anyway, and the router bit is not that precious--so that if it were accidentally hit, I wouldn't worry. But that's a Texan for ya.

Tell you guys what--forget the whole idea. All I was trying to do was save Paul some finish work.

Oooh--Paul, an even better idea-- come in from the back of the neck and pull that rod out. Cover over the resultant groove w/ a skunk stripe a la Fender. You've then got some finish work to do, but no fretboard yanking.   

_________________
From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

What kind of rod is it? Didn't know that stewmac had one with a braze. A braze can definitely cause embrittlement.

Paul,

Check out F.F.'s resolve...



http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Technique/TrussRods/ BrokenRods/TaylorRod/taylorrod.html

_________________
Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

[QUOTE=Steve Kinnaird] You are a better workman than am I!

[/QUOTE]

Probably not a better workman just lazier. It has worked for me a few times but that doesn't mean it is the best way to do it. probably just lucky

Say, if it's a HotRod, and you didn't tack it in place with silicone or anything of the sort, you should be able to pull it out. In theory. Not that I've ever tried, but it is a 'removable' truss rod..

Paul,

Where did you get the truss rod? I know that there have been some reports from other forums of truss rod breaking prematurely. It might be advisable to torque them up in the future to test them out before installing.

Steven

Hey guys, thanks for the advice. I'm on the road right now so I haven't seen the problem yet. Will see it on Friday when I get home. I'm pretty sure I'll be pulling the board. I can probably drop fill the seam pretty well. I'll keep you posted if you wish. Paul