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I am going to be installing an 18" double action truss rod in to a strat style solid guitar neck that i am building. The truss rod access will be at the headstock. Im having trouble deciding where i should make the route. Looking at other fenders, the route only goes about half way to the second fret, but i understand that they are single action truss rods. To have the access at the head stock, it looks like I'm going to have to start the route just before the nut slot. As i cannot find any info online about how this is done, does anyone know whether this is a good placement or not?
Thanks

Are you routing from the back, as is typical for fender, or from the fretboard side?
With a double action rod, I'd recommend going in from the fretboard side so you wouldn't be depending on the glued-in skunk stripe to hold the rod. With a single action rod, there is no force exerted on the glued-in stripe. That's not true with a double action rod.
Either way, the slot should end close to the nut, between the nut and the first fret. Then drill a hole from the headstock into the slot for adjustment access. The headstock geometry doesn't work well for covers, so it's usually an open hole or bullet nut.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Yes, i will be routing from the back as i am building a solid neck. I never thought about the force that will be exerted on the skunk stripe, but i think if i install it properly, i think it should hold up fine. Thanks for the input, i just wanted to make sure there are no negatives about routing the channel closer to the headstock.

If you don't have to route from the back I would refrain from doing so. Much easier to glue on a fretboard and easier to repair down the road. If you do have to as part of the construction style you've chose, I would recommend a thinner rod, like the ones at allied luthierie. Stewmacs are too thick for my taste because I like to make my necks rather thin.

I have built a guitar with a two way rod routed from the back, and it is holding up well so far. The slot is routed to about where the nut is and the end of the rod pokes through at about 3/4" north of the nut. I drilled that hole with an extra long 1/4" drill bit starting from the back route. If I recall correctly, the rod has extra support near the nut by continuing past the initial route and into the drilled portion. At the other end of the slot, there's a piece of wood to keep it from moving down and losing the solid support it has near the nut. I hope that makes sense to you.

I glued in the strip with epoxy. You really need to pay attention to dimensions here. The overall neck thickness needs to be thick enough that your filler strip has a decent amount of gluing surface. If it's gonna end up veneer thin, you might have a problem. One thing you can do here to help with that is to route your slot a little deeper, maybe to 1/8" thickness between the rod and the fretboard surface (equivalent to a 1/8" thick fretboard.) I didn't think about that until after I glued in the strip on mine. In retrospect, I could have done this to make my neck thinner. You'll probably hear differing opinions on how thick the strip needs to be. If you can do 1/8" that should be sufficient, although you might be able to do thinner, mine might be by a little bit. And I think the extra support from the rod poking through the hole toward the headstock helps.

Hope that helps you.

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Ernie Ball slices off about a fretboard thickness with a bandsaw, installs the truss rod and glues it back in place. You can't tell it's ever been cut.

The direction of adjustment makes a difference as well. Adjusting to reduce relief forces the ends of the rod against skunk stripe. The adjustment end is supported by the adjustment nut sliding into the hole, and the other end can be supported by extending the skunk stripe past the end of the truss rod route. I'd be concerned about going the other way, which is not typically necessary but I did have to do on my first three. That would force the middle of the rod against the stripe.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

A related question, if I may?
How much wood do you like to keep behind this type of rod(allied and similar)? I'm talking about the length of the rod, not either end, as I keep plenty of wood there. Assuming no skunk stripe.
I have been maintaining 1/8" to 3/32" behind the rod itself, but would like to push my neck a bit thinner than that, if it's possible.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

The wording of your question was a bit confusing, but I'm assuming you mean the thickness of wood behind the truss rod. I have gone so thin one time as to have a bulge on the back of the neck near the nut area. This was a glued on fretboard. It wasn't bad enough to actually crack or break through, and it was only at the very end of the rod where the nut is. It made me very nervous, but the instrument was structurally sound. In that little bulge spot, the wood is probably less than 1/16" thick. Just a matter of not paying attention to my measurements in that case.

The first neck I ever made was probably 1/16" behind the truss rod or close to it. That neck is perfect, I want to make more exactly like it. Ultra thin and perfect d-shape. What you can do to help your cause is route the fretboard to have a channel with 1/8" thickness, or to even use a very thin fretboard instead.

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http://www.tinyhouseandland.com

Thanks, you understood perfectly. This is exactly what I wanted to know.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

The Allied rod does not require as deep a slot as the StewMac rod, which allows a thinner neck.
I like to keep 1/8" wood covering the rod, I suspect 3/32" is probably adequate.
Of course, this also depends on how much load you need to put on the rod. If you reinforce the neck with carbon fiber, a little more wood over the rod might be appropriate, it takes a lot of force to flex a carbon fiber reinforced neck.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Thanks, Rodger.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.