Chords for How To | Truss Rod Adjustment | Fender
Tempo:
131.7 bpm
Chords used:
D
A
Eb
Dm
G
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
[A] [D]
[Eb] [A] [Dm] [D] [N] Hi, this is John Dreyer for Fender University, and I'm here with Chris Fleming from Fender R&D.
In this video, we'll discuss the basics of adjusting your truss rod.
Now, Chris, where do we start?
And actually, before we start, are there certain skill levels involved in making these adjustments,
and is there a risk of permanently damaging your instrument?
Yes.
I would recommend that unless you're comfortable with mechanical things and you're sensitive
enough to tell when something's going too far or not far enough, it might be better
to have an authorized repair person adjust your truss rod for you, because you can damage
it if you over-tighten it.
Okay.
Now, there are a couple different styles.
There's the modern style and then the vintage, so we'll go through both, but if we want to
get started, we'll Okay.
We'll start with the modern style.
First of all is this tool, which is an Allen wrench.
It comes in the kit with your guitar, which is used for the truss rod adjustment.
Now, you'll notice here at the top of the headstock is an opening, and behind that is
a truss rod.
This is designed to fit right in, and you can tighten or loosen the truss rod.
Now, the reason there's a truss rod on a guitar is because the tension of the strings tightened
up onto the bridge there with the tuners will create a forward pull and will create what
we call relief or a space between the strings and the fret.
So, what we need to do is, first of all, check to see where the adjustment is.
If it's buzzing, chances are that the truss rod is too tight.
If it's very stiff and the strings are far away from the fretboard, that means that the
truss rod's probably too loose.
So it's important that you understand which way you need to go for the truss rod to adjust
it correctly because you don't want to over-tighten it.
If you continue to tighten it, it could strip out the screw back here that we're in.
So how this works is, from where I'm standing now, clockwise, moving this direction, will
tighten the truss rod.
And then moving the opposite direction, counterclockwise, will loosen it.
And you should never have to turn more than about an eighth to a quarter of a turn to
get adjustment of a truss rod.
If you go too far, you can definitely strip it.
So if we have a bow shape, so we want to tighten it, so that means it's a little bit loose.
And if you say like a back bow, the opposite way, like a hump, that means it's too tight
and we need to loosen it.
Now in some cases, when you get the truss rod adjusted to the right area and you need
to go a little further and it's too tight, I will take a nut driver like this and you
can place it over the truss rod and that will help give you some leverage.
But you need to be really careful.
Having a leverage like this makes it very easy to go too far.
So you really want to take your time with this.
Normally, in a setup, I would use a feeler gauge to see where the string is around the ninth fret.
The distance between the string at the ninth fret and the fret is how you measure relief.
And what you want is a slight amount, I think it's about .010.
These days, because I've done this a lot, I just do it by feel.
I can tell by feeling if there needs to be more relief or less relief.
And certain styles like more relief.
Blues players like to have more resistance, so they will make more relief, whereas metal
players or jazz players in some cases that play very fast and fluid might want a really,
really low action, so they'll do it almost straight.
Okay, so that's the basics of headstock adjusting truss rod.
All right, Chris, let's take a look at the vintage style.
Okay, it's a little bit more complicated and definitely more difficult to do.
So again, this is something if you're not comfortable with this type of mechanical stuff,
much better to take it to your local repair guy.
The concept's the same except on a vintage instrument like this one, the truss rod adjusting
screw is on the bottom of the neck instead of up on the headstock.
So in order to do this adjustment, the first thing you have to do is loosen the neck.
This is a little tricky.
So what I do is loosen the screws in the bottom first, and I do that quite a bit.
Okay, I'll go up maybe a quarter of an inch, three-eighths of an inch.
Do you need to detune the strings at all?
I don't.
No?
Okay. I don't.
You can if you want, but I kind of have fun wrangling it.
And then I'll loosen these a little less, and then what you're going to have is the
neck's going to be tilting forward.
But what I do next, excuse me, John, I lean like this to bring the neck up like that.
Okay, so you see here that we've exposed the screw fully.
You want to do that so that you don't tear up the pickguard or mar anything else on the instrument.
Again, just like on a guitar, if I turn it clockwise, I'm going to tighten the truss
rod, which will bring the strings closer to the top of the fretboard.
And if the strings are already too close to the fretboard, I'm going to go counterclockwise,
and that'll loosen the truss rod and make the neck bow a little bit, and that'll bring
the strings up above.
So I'm not going to adjust anything on this instrument because it's already playing well.
So after you've adjusted it, now this is the tricky part with the vintage style, is you
have to kind of guess.
You can't really tell like on a head adjust because you're going to have to take it back
down, make sure everything's in tune, look at it again.
So it's a lot more laborious, and you may choose to have a service guy do it for you.
So after I'm done with this, I'm going to take it and pop it back together.
So I'm going to tighten it back up, kind of going around the neck plate.
It looks worse than it is, but it is kind of laborious and takes a bit of know-how,
so you may choose to have somebody who's practiced this a lot do it.
There we go.
Then once you've adjusted the truss rod, you may need to readjust saddles.
You're probably going to need to, you're going to need to retune it for sure.
But that's it, John.
Okay, well great.
Thanks for the tips.
And for more information, please visit Fender.com forward slash university.
[D] [G] [D] [E] [N]
[Eb] [A] [Dm] [D] [N] Hi, this is John Dreyer for Fender University, and I'm here with Chris Fleming from Fender R&D.
In this video, we'll discuss the basics of adjusting your truss rod.
Now, Chris, where do we start?
And actually, before we start, are there certain skill levels involved in making these adjustments,
and is there a risk of permanently damaging your instrument?
Yes.
I would recommend that unless you're comfortable with mechanical things and you're sensitive
enough to tell when something's going too far or not far enough, it might be better
to have an authorized repair person adjust your truss rod for you, because you can damage
it if you over-tighten it.
Okay.
Now, there are a couple different styles.
There's the modern style and then the vintage, so we'll go through both, but if we want to
get started, we'll Okay.
We'll start with the modern style.
First of all is this tool, which is an Allen wrench.
It comes in the kit with your guitar, which is used for the truss rod adjustment.
Now, you'll notice here at the top of the headstock is an opening, and behind that is
a truss rod.
This is designed to fit right in, and you can tighten or loosen the truss rod.
Now, the reason there's a truss rod on a guitar is because the tension of the strings tightened
up onto the bridge there with the tuners will create a forward pull and will create what
we call relief or a space between the strings and the fret.
So, what we need to do is, first of all, check to see where the adjustment is.
If it's buzzing, chances are that the truss rod is too tight.
If it's very stiff and the strings are far away from the fretboard, that means that the
truss rod's probably too loose.
So it's important that you understand which way you need to go for the truss rod to adjust
it correctly because you don't want to over-tighten it.
If you continue to tighten it, it could strip out the screw back here that we're in.
So how this works is, from where I'm standing now, clockwise, moving this direction, will
tighten the truss rod.
And then moving the opposite direction, counterclockwise, will loosen it.
And you should never have to turn more than about an eighth to a quarter of a turn to
get adjustment of a truss rod.
If you go too far, you can definitely strip it.
So if we have a bow shape, so we want to tighten it, so that means it's a little bit loose.
And if you say like a back bow, the opposite way, like a hump, that means it's too tight
and we need to loosen it.
Now in some cases, when you get the truss rod adjusted to the right area and you need
to go a little further and it's too tight, I will take a nut driver like this and you
can place it over the truss rod and that will help give you some leverage.
But you need to be really careful.
Having a leverage like this makes it very easy to go too far.
So you really want to take your time with this.
Normally, in a setup, I would use a feeler gauge to see where the string is around the ninth fret.
The distance between the string at the ninth fret and the fret is how you measure relief.
And what you want is a slight amount, I think it's about .010.
These days, because I've done this a lot, I just do it by feel.
I can tell by feeling if there needs to be more relief or less relief.
And certain styles like more relief.
Blues players like to have more resistance, so they will make more relief, whereas metal
players or jazz players in some cases that play very fast and fluid might want a really,
really low action, so they'll do it almost straight.
Okay, so that's the basics of headstock adjusting truss rod.
All right, Chris, let's take a look at the vintage style.
Okay, it's a little bit more complicated and definitely more difficult to do.
So again, this is something if you're not comfortable with this type of mechanical stuff,
much better to take it to your local repair guy.
The concept's the same except on a vintage instrument like this one, the truss rod adjusting
screw is on the bottom of the neck instead of up on the headstock.
So in order to do this adjustment, the first thing you have to do is loosen the neck.
This is a little tricky.
So what I do is loosen the screws in the bottom first, and I do that quite a bit.
Okay, I'll go up maybe a quarter of an inch, three-eighths of an inch.
Do you need to detune the strings at all?
I don't.
No?
Okay. I don't.
You can if you want, but I kind of have fun wrangling it.
And then I'll loosen these a little less, and then what you're going to have is the
neck's going to be tilting forward.
But what I do next, excuse me, John, I lean like this to bring the neck up like that.
Okay, so you see here that we've exposed the screw fully.
You want to do that so that you don't tear up the pickguard or mar anything else on the instrument.
Again, just like on a guitar, if I turn it clockwise, I'm going to tighten the truss
rod, which will bring the strings closer to the top of the fretboard.
And if the strings are already too close to the fretboard, I'm going to go counterclockwise,
and that'll loosen the truss rod and make the neck bow a little bit, and that'll bring
the strings up above.
So I'm not going to adjust anything on this instrument because it's already playing well.
So after you've adjusted it, now this is the tricky part with the vintage style, is you
have to kind of guess.
You can't really tell like on a head adjust because you're going to have to take it back
down, make sure everything's in tune, look at it again.
So it's a lot more laborious, and you may choose to have a service guy do it for you.
So after I'm done with this, I'm going to take it and pop it back together.
So I'm going to tighten it back up, kind of going around the neck plate.
It looks worse than it is, but it is kind of laborious and takes a bit of know-how,
so you may choose to have somebody who's practiced this a lot do it.
There we go.
Then once you've adjusted the truss rod, you may need to readjust saddles.
You're probably going to need to, you're going to need to retune it for sure.
But that's it, John.
Okay, well great.
Thanks for the tips.
And for more information, please visit Fender.com forward slash university.
[D] [G] [D] [E] [N]
Key:
D
A
Eb
Dm
G
D
A
Eb
_ _ _ [A] _ _ [D] _ _ _
[Eb] _ [A] _ [Dm] _ [D] _ _ _ [N] Hi, this is John Dreyer for Fender University, and I'm here with Chris Fleming from Fender R&D.
In this video, we'll discuss the basics of adjusting your truss rod.
Now, Chris, where do we start?
And actually, before we start, are there certain skill levels involved in making these adjustments,
and is there a risk of permanently damaging your instrument?
Yes.
I would recommend that unless you're comfortable with mechanical things and you're sensitive
enough to tell when something's going too far or not far enough, it might be better
to have an authorized repair person adjust your truss rod for you, because you can damage
it if you over-tighten it.
Okay.
Now, there are a couple different styles.
There's the modern style and then the vintage, so we'll go through both, but if we want to
get started, we'll_ Okay.
We'll start with the modern style.
First of all is this tool, which is an Allen wrench.
It comes in the kit with your guitar, which is used for the truss rod adjustment.
Now, you'll notice here at the top of the headstock is an opening, _ and behind that is
a truss rod.
_ This is designed to fit right in, and you can tighten or loosen the truss rod.
Now, the reason there's a truss rod on a guitar is because the tension of the strings _ tightened
up onto the bridge there with the tuners will create a forward pull and will create what
we call relief or a space between the strings and the fret.
_ _ So, what we need to do is, first of all, check to see where the adjustment is.
If it's buzzing, chances are that the truss rod is too tight.
If it's very stiff and the strings are far away from the fretboard, that means that the
truss rod's probably too loose.
So _ it's important that you understand which way you need to go for the truss rod to adjust
it correctly because you don't want to over-tighten it.
If you continue to tighten it, it could strip out the screw back here that we're in.
So how this works is, from where I'm standing now, clockwise, _ moving this direction, will
tighten the truss rod.
And then moving the opposite direction, counterclockwise, will loosen it.
And you should never have to turn more than about an eighth to a quarter of a turn to
get _ adjustment of a truss rod.
If you go too far, you can definitely strip it.
So if we have a bow shape, so we want to tighten it, so that means it's a little bit loose.
And if you say like a back bow, the opposite way, like a hump, that means it's too tight
and we need to loosen it.
Now in some cases, when you get the truss rod adjusted to the right area and you need
to go a little further and it's too tight, I will take a nut driver like this and you
can place it over the truss rod and that will help give you some leverage.
But you need to be really careful.
_ Having a leverage like this makes it very easy to go too far.
So you really want to take your time with this.
Normally, in a setup, I would use a feeler gauge _ to see where the string is around the ninth fret.
_ _ The distance between the string at the ninth fret and the fret is how you measure relief.
And what you want is a slight amount, I think it's about .010.
_ _ _ These _ days, because I've done this a lot, I just do it by feel.
I can tell by feeling if there needs to be more relief or less relief.
And certain styles like more relief.
Blues players like to have more resistance, so they will make more relief, whereas metal
players or jazz players in some cases that play very fast and fluid might want a really,
really low action, so they'll do it almost straight.
Okay, so that's the basics of _ _ headstock adjusting truss rod.
All right, Chris, let's take a look at the vintage style.
Okay, it's a little bit more complicated and definitely _ more difficult to do.
So again, this is something if you're not comfortable with this type of mechanical stuff,
much better to take it to your local repair guy. _
_ The concept's the same except on a vintage instrument like this one, the truss rod adjusting _
screw is on the bottom of the neck instead of up on the headstock.
So in order to do this adjustment, the first thing you have to do is loosen the neck.
This is a little tricky.
So what I do is loosen the _ screws in the bottom first, and I do that quite a bit.
Okay, I'll go up maybe a quarter of an inch, three-eighths of an inch.
Do you need to detune the strings at all?
I don't.
No?
Okay. I don't.
You can if you want, but I kind of have fun wrangling it.
_ And then I'll loosen these a little less, and then what you're going to have is the
neck's going to be tilting forward.
But what I do next, excuse me, John, _ I lean like this to bring the neck up like that.
Okay, so you see here that we've exposed the screw fully.
You want to do that so that you don't tear up the pickguard or mar anything else on the instrument.
_ Again, _ just like on a guitar, _ _ if I turn it clockwise, I'm going to tighten the truss
rod, which will bring the strings closer to the top of the fretboard.
And if the strings are already too close to the fretboard, I'm going to go counterclockwise,
and that'll loosen _ the truss rod and make the neck bow a little bit, and that'll bring
the strings up above.
_ So I'm not going to adjust anything on this instrument because it's already playing well.
So after you've adjusted it, now this is the tricky part with the vintage style, is you
have to kind of guess.
You can't really tell like on a head adjust because you're going to have to take it back
down, make sure everything's in tune, look at it again.
So it's a lot more laborious, and you may choose to have a service guy do it for you.
So after I'm done with this, I'm going to take it and _ pop it back together. _ _ _
So I'm going to tighten it back up, _ _ _ _ kind of going around the neck plate. _ _ _
It looks worse than it is, _ _ but it is kind of laborious and takes a bit of know-how,
so you may choose to have somebody who's _ practiced this a lot do it. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ There we go. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Then once you've adjusted the truss rod, you may need to readjust saddles.
You're probably going to need to, you're going to need to retune it for sure.
_ But that's it, John.
Okay, well great.
Thanks for the tips.
And for more information, please visit Fender.com forward slash university.
[D] _ _ _ [G] _ [D] _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _ [N] _
[Eb] _ [A] _ [Dm] _ [D] _ _ _ [N] Hi, this is John Dreyer for Fender University, and I'm here with Chris Fleming from Fender R&D.
In this video, we'll discuss the basics of adjusting your truss rod.
Now, Chris, where do we start?
And actually, before we start, are there certain skill levels involved in making these adjustments,
and is there a risk of permanently damaging your instrument?
Yes.
I would recommend that unless you're comfortable with mechanical things and you're sensitive
enough to tell when something's going too far or not far enough, it might be better
to have an authorized repair person adjust your truss rod for you, because you can damage
it if you over-tighten it.
Okay.
Now, there are a couple different styles.
There's the modern style and then the vintage, so we'll go through both, but if we want to
get started, we'll_ Okay.
We'll start with the modern style.
First of all is this tool, which is an Allen wrench.
It comes in the kit with your guitar, which is used for the truss rod adjustment.
Now, you'll notice here at the top of the headstock is an opening, _ and behind that is
a truss rod.
_ This is designed to fit right in, and you can tighten or loosen the truss rod.
Now, the reason there's a truss rod on a guitar is because the tension of the strings _ tightened
up onto the bridge there with the tuners will create a forward pull and will create what
we call relief or a space between the strings and the fret.
_ _ So, what we need to do is, first of all, check to see where the adjustment is.
If it's buzzing, chances are that the truss rod is too tight.
If it's very stiff and the strings are far away from the fretboard, that means that the
truss rod's probably too loose.
So _ it's important that you understand which way you need to go for the truss rod to adjust
it correctly because you don't want to over-tighten it.
If you continue to tighten it, it could strip out the screw back here that we're in.
So how this works is, from where I'm standing now, clockwise, _ moving this direction, will
tighten the truss rod.
And then moving the opposite direction, counterclockwise, will loosen it.
And you should never have to turn more than about an eighth to a quarter of a turn to
get _ adjustment of a truss rod.
If you go too far, you can definitely strip it.
So if we have a bow shape, so we want to tighten it, so that means it's a little bit loose.
And if you say like a back bow, the opposite way, like a hump, that means it's too tight
and we need to loosen it.
Now in some cases, when you get the truss rod adjusted to the right area and you need
to go a little further and it's too tight, I will take a nut driver like this and you
can place it over the truss rod and that will help give you some leverage.
But you need to be really careful.
_ Having a leverage like this makes it very easy to go too far.
So you really want to take your time with this.
Normally, in a setup, I would use a feeler gauge _ to see where the string is around the ninth fret.
_ _ The distance between the string at the ninth fret and the fret is how you measure relief.
And what you want is a slight amount, I think it's about .010.
_ _ _ These _ days, because I've done this a lot, I just do it by feel.
I can tell by feeling if there needs to be more relief or less relief.
And certain styles like more relief.
Blues players like to have more resistance, so they will make more relief, whereas metal
players or jazz players in some cases that play very fast and fluid might want a really,
really low action, so they'll do it almost straight.
Okay, so that's the basics of _ _ headstock adjusting truss rod.
All right, Chris, let's take a look at the vintage style.
Okay, it's a little bit more complicated and definitely _ more difficult to do.
So again, this is something if you're not comfortable with this type of mechanical stuff,
much better to take it to your local repair guy. _
_ The concept's the same except on a vintage instrument like this one, the truss rod adjusting _
screw is on the bottom of the neck instead of up on the headstock.
So in order to do this adjustment, the first thing you have to do is loosen the neck.
This is a little tricky.
So what I do is loosen the _ screws in the bottom first, and I do that quite a bit.
Okay, I'll go up maybe a quarter of an inch, three-eighths of an inch.
Do you need to detune the strings at all?
I don't.
No?
Okay. I don't.
You can if you want, but I kind of have fun wrangling it.
_ And then I'll loosen these a little less, and then what you're going to have is the
neck's going to be tilting forward.
But what I do next, excuse me, John, _ I lean like this to bring the neck up like that.
Okay, so you see here that we've exposed the screw fully.
You want to do that so that you don't tear up the pickguard or mar anything else on the instrument.
_ Again, _ just like on a guitar, _ _ if I turn it clockwise, I'm going to tighten the truss
rod, which will bring the strings closer to the top of the fretboard.
And if the strings are already too close to the fretboard, I'm going to go counterclockwise,
and that'll loosen _ the truss rod and make the neck bow a little bit, and that'll bring
the strings up above.
_ So I'm not going to adjust anything on this instrument because it's already playing well.
So after you've adjusted it, now this is the tricky part with the vintage style, is you
have to kind of guess.
You can't really tell like on a head adjust because you're going to have to take it back
down, make sure everything's in tune, look at it again.
So it's a lot more laborious, and you may choose to have a service guy do it for you.
So after I'm done with this, I'm going to take it and _ pop it back together. _ _ _
So I'm going to tighten it back up, _ _ _ _ kind of going around the neck plate. _ _ _
It looks worse than it is, _ _ but it is kind of laborious and takes a bit of know-how,
so you may choose to have somebody who's _ practiced this a lot do it. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ There we go. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Then once you've adjusted the truss rod, you may need to readjust saddles.
You're probably going to need to, you're going to need to retune it for sure.
_ But that's it, John.
Okay, well great.
Thanks for the tips.
And for more information, please visit Fender.com forward slash university.
[D] _ _ _ [G] _ [D] _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _ [N] _