Set-Up 101: Adjusting your Stratocaster’s truss rod
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!
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