Acoustic Guitar Neck Adjustment, Acoustic Guitar Truss Rod

Why Guitar Truss Rod Helps?

Guitar truss rod is the part to counteract the tension of the strings on the guitar neck. Also, it is an important hot rod to keep the straightness of acoustic guitar neck.

With truss rod, the adjustment is easy. Just tight or loose the tension of truss rod by clockwise or counterclockwise the nut of the truss rod to correct the forward or backward bow of the neck.

When we can sure the straightness of the guitar neck is corrected well? Well, when we say straightness of guitar neck, it is not absolutely straight, we mean a very slight forward bow.

When it is firstly invented, the truss rod can only be adjusted along forward direction. It is called single action truss rod.

As time goes by, there is a guitar truss rod that can be adjusted along both forward and backward direction. It is names as 2 way truss rod or dual action truss rod. This gives acoustic guitar builders more freedom. Thus, it is very popular today.

We recommend 001A high quality dual action truss rod.

What is Guitar Neck Adjustment

Guitar neck adjustment refers to the adjustment to correct the shape of the neck when deformation (mainly unwanted bending) occurs.

A guitar neck is a long, narrow part of an acoustic guitar that runs from the body to the headstock, featuring the fretboard and frets. It is crucial for playability and tone.

For most of time, we thought that a guitar neck keeps straight. But, in fact, the neck deforms (bending towards or backwards) because of tension of strings or environment (moisture, etc.). And the deformation heavily influences playability or destroy the whole guitar if not be corrected timely.

The neck adjustment is now mainly through adjusting the tension of guitar truss rod.

When is the Time to Adjust Guitar Neck?

Is it necessary to adjust guitar neck regularly?

We don’t think so. It is not necessary to adjust guitar truss rod in your acoustic guitar neck regularly. Actually, it is difficult for us to define the word “regularly” here. However, there are some symbols that your guitar tries to tell you to adjust the guitar neck truss rod.

Firstly, when you find that the acoustic guitar is very hard to play, the first thing you may want to check is the guitar neck. If the deformation is found, it is the time to adjust it.

Another typical situation is string buzz. Normally, string buzz is caused by the overbending of the neck. This is frequently caused by the tension of strings.

Once the guitar is stocked in the box without playing for a long time, it is the time to be careful of the affection of environment. We are talking about moisture and temperature here. As we all know that the guitar neck can easily deform when temperature is too high or too low and the moisture in the air is too low. Thus, when the guitar is stocked without playing for a certain period, it is necessary to check the guitar regularly like once a day.