You can adjust the curvature of your Stratocaster’s neck by adjusting the truss rod. The truss rod adjusts the amount of ‘relief’ in the neck, and plays a significant role in the action of your guitar’s strings; too much relief and your strings will be too high off the fingerboard, too little relief will cause ‘dead strings’ and ‘fretting out’.
To determine if your Strat’s truss rod needs adjustment, sight down the edge of the fingerboard from the headstock looking toward the body, with your guitar strung and tuned to standard pitch. A properly adjusted truss rod should leave a slight concave curve to allow for string bending.
Depending on your particular model of Stratocaster, the truss rod adjustment will be found in one of two places. On modern Stratocasters, the truss rod adjustment nut is found at the headstock, just above the nut. On vintage Stratocaster, the truss rod adjustment is found at the heel of the neck.
To adjust for too much concave curvature in your neck, turn the truss rod nut clockwise. To adjust for a convex curvature in your neck, turn the truss rod nut counter-clockwise. Tune to pitch and repeat the adjustment as necessary.
The Fender-recommended neck relief for the distance between the top of the 8th fret and the bottom of the 6th string is as follows:
| Neck Radius 7.25″ 9.5″ to 12″ 15″ to 17″ |
Relief .012″ (0.3 mm) .010″ (0.25 mm) .008″ (0.2 mm) |
The wacky and wise JP from Strat-O-Blogster offers this bit of advice as well:
If I might add another tip to that, it’s also good to warm up the neck with a heating pad, and slowly turn that rod a little bit at a time until you reach the desired relief point. This is especially important with older instruments.
Thanks JP!
This post is tagged Fender Stratocaster, Neck Relief, Setup, String Height, Truss Rod
[...] set-up your guitar before your play at, due to more or less string tension, which may affect the relief of the neck, bridge alignment, spring tension on the trem claw, or string [...]
You wrote:
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>”The Fender-recommended neck relief for the distance between the top of the 8th fret and the bottom of the 6th string is as follows”
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Well, there is a very important pieces of information missing… which is HOW this distance is to be measured. Whithout the correct procedure, these numbers mean absolutely nothing and can mislead readers into setting up their necks far too straight, making the instrument simply unplayable!
Actually, this distance should be measured **while holding down the string onto the first and last fret**.
From the Fender website:
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“Affix a capo at the first fret and depress the sixth string at the last fret”.
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I guess you realise the huge difference it makes for the numbers!! Measuring the distance while the string is in its ‘natural’ position, and lowering this to ~0.10, is simply nonsense.
Besides, Fender’s own recommandations, that have been copied here, seem to have the measurements mixed up: these seem to be the numbers while holding the string down at the 12th square (which is another standard procedure), not the numbers while holding the string down onto the last fret. At least it would make far more sense to me, according to my experience.
Best regards
Wizzu
nice post, and good notes from Wizzu…
I’ve always wondered how exactly to view the neck and determine if the truss rod needs adjusting. I THINK mine does, so I’ll use this info when I take a look later.
Cheers!
to adjust my truss rod, wich you may have to do with seasonal changes,you can use a medium size pick under the 8th fret string,while the string is held down at the 1st & 19th fret or lower, it should slide under withvery little grab, or set it a little loser for bendig. thanx for your site,peacegitarbabies,s.b.