A back bowed neck can cause all sorts of problems, so if you have one, it’s the first thing you’ll want to fix as you run your guitar through a setup. The good news is, a back bow is usually easy to fix. In this tutorial I’ll explain the full process of detecting and fixing a back bow, from start to finish.
Cause
The normal cause of back bow is an over-tightened truss rod. If your truss rod is too tight then the neck will usually bow backwards. In order to fix this, you’ll want to loosen the truss rod and relieve the pressure it’s exerting on the neck. You can do this by turning the truss rod nut (or bolt) counter clockwise with a hex key or socket wrench. As you do this, the tension exerted by the strings will pull the neck forward (this is why it’s important to keep your guitar tuned to pitch when you’re trying to straighten out your neck).
The Adjustment
Now it’s time for the actual adjustment. Use a hex key or socket wrench to do this. (The type of tool you use here depends on the type of truss rod in your guitar).
1. First of all, obey the golden rule of setup and TUNE YOUR GUITAR TO PITCH. (E, A, D, G, B, E)
1b. If you have a truss rod cover, you’ll want to remove it now.
2. Loosen your truss rod using a hex key or socket wrench by turning it a quarter turn or so counter clockwise (counter clockwise = to the left).
3. Use a straight edge to see if you were able to remove the back bow from your neck. (If you don’t know how to do this click here ).
4. Continue steps 1 through 3 until the back bow in your neck is gone. (Be careful not to over do it. over loosening or over tightening a truss rod could cause it to snap, and you don’t want that to happen.)
5. Now you’ll want to do one last check to make sure you didn’t loosen your truss rod too much (this would cause a forward bow). Repeat step 4, above. If you loosen your truss rod too much, then you might notice a forward bow in the neck. This is easy to fix. Just repeat steps 1 through 3 above, but tighten the truss rod by turning it to the right this time. (Remember the rhyme: “lefty loosey, righty tighty.)
6. Okay, last step. Do one more visual assessment on you neck to be sure you’ve completely eliminated any back bow and haven’t caused any other neck problems.
Complete?
Now that you’ve fixed the back bow in your guitar’s neck, you’ve completely changed your guitar. You’ll want to continue running your guitar through a setup at this point. This will help eliminate any other problems that straightening your guitar’s neck might have caused or may cause in the future.
WARNING! – Running your guitar through a setup could cause it to sound and play better than it ever has before.
Continue Setup –>
- Tip -
Some luthiers suggest letting the neck rest overnight before continuing the setup. This will allow the neck to settle into its new tension position.
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You can also continue this tutorial and find out how to run your guitar through a setup, by clicking the link below.