One of the issues with this guitar was that the neck was very flexible. Pushing down on it with one finger, as shown in this image, was enough to cause bending (there are several reasons this is happening that we will address throughout this post).

In order to do replace the truss rod, we will need to remove the fretboard from the neck. We do this by applying heat and slowly working the two pieces apart.

We also had to remove the faceplate from the headstock but, we cannot apply heat directly to it, as we could with the fretboard. Direct heat would damage the finish so, we heat up a knife and work at the glue from the side.

Here, you can see the metal washer around the truss rod has been pushed beyond the slot it would normally sit in. It has been pushed so far that it has compressed and split the wood in the truss rod channel. We will remove this old rod and clean out the channel of the broken wood.

Here, we are measuring the depth from the top of the neck to the bottom of the truss rod channel and getting 0.5230 inches. From the bottom of the truss rod channel to the back of the neck, there is less than 1/8" of wood. Structurally, this doesn't do much for the instrument so we will build this up a little before replacing the rod.

We rout out the channel to provide a uniform surface for the new rod. Another issue that had prevented the previous rod from working properly was that this channel had been routed straight. Typically, a single action truss rod channel would be deeper towards the middle of the neck to allow the rod to slack and tighten appropriately. With a uniform depth, the rod is forced to stay straight and not function as it should.

We went this route because the rod itself is housed in an aluminum chassis which has the required curvature for the rod to function built into it. This housing also prevents any glue from getting to the rod inside and also provides a lot more rigidity to the neck to prevent the flexing seen earlier. Lastly, the truss rod bears against the chassis when in use so, no matter how much it is tightened, it will not damage the wood around it. Once the new rod is in place, we glue the fretboard back on.

This was a pretty standard job as far as frets go. Once this is completed, we will then refinish the back of the neck and headstock to address the crack caused by the old rod.

Here you can see the new finish on the neck and that the crack has been closed and covered. This guitar also got new tuners after it left the shop. One thing special to note is that with the refinishing of the neck and headstock, we were able to retain the integrity of the serial number.