Truss Adjustment for Playing Action

First published December 21, 1999 on Stickwire

From: "Stick Enterprises, Inc." <stick@earthlink.net>
To: STICKWIRE-L@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM

Concavity of the fretboard would be the same as a bow, but since the truss rod acts only on the fretted area, such a bow would make the action (the proximity of strings bottoms to fret tops) too low toward the pickups, not too high. And the action would be too high at the other end, toward the nut.

You can visualize it, and it actually turns out so. An arched (or back bent) fretboard has the opposite effect, with strings too low at the nut end, sometimes even fretting out, and too high toward the pickups.

Also, the truest test of the straightest fretboard is as follows. Prop up your instrument on a well lit table or desk with light in front and slightly above you, so that the light reflects off the frets, allowing you to see height and shadow. Hold down all melody strings onto the 1st fret and see how closely they clear the 2nd fret. Then hold them down at the 2nd fret and notice the similarly close clearance over the 3rd fret, and so on up the frets to the highest one.

If the board is straight, all clearances over each successively higher fret will be uniform all along the board. This is true of the three highest pitched bass strings as well.

I hope this helps, Emmett.

© 1999 Emmett Chapman