Truss Rod - ADJUSTED

Apologies in advance if this isn’t the place for this type of post, but I did something correctly on the Sterling SUB (the single pickup model) this afternoon and I’m pretty stoked.

When I brought the Squier back last week, I went with the Sterling SUB like I initially had only in a mint green color. It was in good shape, not really abused and played well enough. I was nervous about getting one off the wall, but just went for it.

I brought it home and used it for roughly a week before noticing there was a lot of string rattle toward the base of the neck on fretted and open E.

Checked the neck - straight so far as I can tell with no visible twisting.
Checked to make sure we were in tune - all in tune.

Looked up how to properly diagnose an issue with the Truss and based on where the rattling was, I think I may have gotten it sorted. About a quarter turn counter clockwise seems to have made the noise go away and while I haven’t attempted to tune the strings again, I think I may have gotten it right!

If I did it wrong, it’s ok. I still did something on my own.

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Right on, man! Feels good doing it for yourself. :+1:

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Congrats, that’s the trickiest part of setting up your bass, and the rest is cake in comparison. Well done.

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2 things to keep in mind.
First - Some (not alot, and it is personal preference as to how much) Fret buzz is OK, especially if it shows up when playing more aggressive.
Second - I find, especially with new bass set ups, that I need to adjust periodically to get things right. Right away, I find myself making adjustments as often as daily for the first week and for about the first month, I am still making minor tweaks to get things just right.
Although,
This is more with string actions, and adjustments to the bridge saddles, not so much the truss rod, so if you find you need to eliminate any more rattle or buzz from any one of the strings, and your truss is where you like it, you can simply raise the saddle for the string. you want to adjust, small 1/4-1/2 turns per side (2 screws to adjust for each saddle) should do it. just raise it ever so slightly until. it goes away.

And on the other hand, If you think you can lower your action on any given string, based on the truss rod adjustment you made, you can also lower it small amounts, just making sure you don’t add any buzz.

And always start each adjustment with the instrument TUNED.
So
Tune
Adjust
Re-tune
Check
Etc…

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@T_dub great, great advice! The noise was more of a rattle. Adjusting the Truss definitely helped, but I think a lower action setup may be in order.

Oh, made sure the strings were tuned :slight_smile:

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@howard we’ll see how it feels over time!

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@eric.kiser thanks, man!

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Congratulations @architecht13
Adjusting the truss rod is not something I relish due to me being a little heavy handed as the number of snapped exhaust studs, engine casing bolts , stripped threads etc in my past will pay witness to :flushed:

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@Mac thanks man. Very careful with it!

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Best way to be :+1:
Saying that I’ve just used a scaffold pole as a lever to remove 5 rotor studs on the Harley rear wheel… carefully :joy::joy::joy:

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@Mac, first time I ever had to remove the front wheel on my car… What gorilla torqued this one up? Just lucky the tire went flat in my garage and not on the side of the road (I don’t carry a pipe like that with me).

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That’s the stuff x5 @russki98 :+1:
It’s those rattle guns they use at the tyre places a lot of the time with wheels. Although they can set the torque to the correct specs they don’t :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:
The Harley on the other hand was me and red loctite :joy:

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I am impressed with your pipe lever.
One of the old manuals for a range rover actually said “Find the longest bit of pipe you can find”
And when I was working on the Mirage fighter aircraft, I actually saw the maintenance procedure for putting the radar main unit back in where it said “Using the natural elasticity of the airframe…”

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I have been dealing with something similar. Recently changed the strings back to factory default (D’Addario Nickel Wounds Medium) on My Cort A4 which is a neck through and either they have higher tension or it is a season thing I have found out that I have a lot of neck relief (about 1.5mm where 0.3mm was suggested for my neck radius).

So I sweated a lot straighting the neck up. At some point I decided to loosen the strings at every adjustment so I am not loading too much tension on the rod so I went:
-tune
-measure
-detune
-tighten the truss rod
-tune
-measure

I got as low as 0.3mm which is practically a flat neck for me! So had to raise my action a lot on the bridge. Now all seems to go nicely as long as I am happy with my low action setup. I don’t believe I have too much buffer for higher action…

Also!
I was watching a drunk guy on YT doing bass setups and he mentioned how the neck throughs should have also truss rods all the way and that was a curious…

Do you guys think that neck throughs need a more “special treatment” ?

image

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There’s quite a lot of things the truss rod would need to get through to before getting out on the far end…
And I don’t think it would be necessary. While the neck is quite thin and subject to bending, the body part of the neck through is really thick and has the wings fixed to it, giving it even more stability.

Not really sure that it would make a difference if it were feasible.

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I agree with @Krescht on this one. No need to go all the way, and if you did go all the way, You might have to be really careful to not cause problems.
Also, I am not sure the design of the truss would work properly, or as effectively if it went the entire length.
Idk for sure, I don’t know all the ins and outs of truss design, but my mind tells me if it went all the way, it would not adjust where and how you want to adjust the neck.

About special care or treatment, no, I font really think they need anything special.
In the event of a bad fall, or drop, if the neck wad broken or damaged, it could harm the integrity of the entire bass, where if a bolt on suffered the same accident, you have option yo replace the neck with a new bolt on.

If you had a neck thru that snapped in half, of course you might machine a pocket / land to nest a new bolt on neck as one repair option.

Of course, if your neck thru bass suffers that much damage, you might want yo just get a new one, it might be the cheaper option.
If the bolt on suffers that accident, it may not cost too much to have a new neck installed.

Idk all this info for sure, but as far as care for the neck thru or bolt on, I would just care gor them greatly, store them where they wont fall, and try to prevent damage at all times

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Hi architect13 great idea for a post, came across this video today on setting up a bass, found it very easy to follow what Mr Sadowsky was explaining.

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