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So let me preface this story for those of you who don’t know me well, I’ve been building Guitars for 50 years and also have done repair and major restoration.

I have built 25 Guitars this year so far… About six months ago I decided to switch to a new truss rod .
I previously have been using the Martin style 2 way rod (I believe they’re mostly made in China) up until this point with no problems, but I was enticed to try one of these ultra lightweight rods(one way) For the weight savings.


About two months ago or so I was getting ready to install a mostly completed neck on one of my guitars, and for some reason, decided to try turning the truss rod nut and much to my surprise the nut was stripped!
I did not over tighten this rod. I didn’t do anything wrong. It was simply defective.

Well, my heart sank because I had installed at least 10 maybe 15. (I’m not sure at this point )of these rods in some of the last year‘s production.

I still had two guitars with these rods in my possession that hadn’t sold, and I tried turning the rods. The nut wasn’t stripped, but the rods did absolutely nothing!
As opposed to the Martin style rods, which you could turn an eighth of a turn and they would take out significant relief from the neck

So I called up the company I bought it from which is one of the few remaining big Lutherie supply houses in the world And they said they would have the manufacturer call me… He never did….

Fast forward to three days ago, a customer who I sold a very ornate 12 string guitar too texted me in said he tried adjusting the trust nut and it was stripped so I told him to send me the Guitar back.

So I know the solution it’s to take the fretboard board off (these are glued dovetail joints with the trussrod access from the inside of the guitar)
But I’m not up for that. For the amount of work in aggravation that is I, d just build a new guitar.

So I guess my real question is what would an ethical or good company do about this? It’s many thousands of dollars of damage in essence.

I forgot to mention that they did have the manufacturer call me although he said he felt bad about the whole thing. He never really offered any solution other than things that wouldn’t work like removing the truss rod while I told him you can’t do that with this type of construction if it was a access from the head, they say you can pull out the rod and put another one, but that is a moot point.
He also admitted that he had some of these type go bad on him, but they were able to pull out the rods from the head and he sent them new ones.

And just for the record these rods cost $40 as opposed to $9 for the Martin style.


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Wow, that hurts. A car dealer has insurance so that if your car falls off the lift, they can replace it. A small business making truss rods probably doesn’t have such insurance. Even if he wanted to, he may not be able to cover your losses. If he has business liability insurance, suing him may get you a settlement, but that could be a long fight. I bet there are attorneys here who know much better than I how to proceed that way.

On to cutting your losses: If you pull your necks, just like you were doing a reset, could you pull the rod out and replace it? Sacrifice one of the useless rods. Pull the shrink wrap and see if there’s any fix to the construction or design that would make it reliable. With the fix applied, you could just replace the rods and reglue the neck. If the rods are ultimately useless, your existing neck would have to be modified for a different rod, or you’d have to make new necks—quicker than a whole new guitar.

Dang! Good luck working this out.

I agree with Bob, first thing to try is pulling the rod out of the neck to see if you can turn 10-15 fingerboard removals into 10-15 dovetail resets. Still a lot of work, but good practice if you don't do resets regularly, and hopefully you won't have to do any refinishing. EDIT: Just saw your reply to Bob, so this is a no-go.

An alternative fix would be to forget the truss rod and compression fret them.

Assuming I'm looking at the right web page, it clearly states they've been tested to 35 inch-pounds, so I think the fault lies with whoever did the testing and failed to recognize their lack of functionality and/or that they'd been damaged by the test.

It's pretty clear the manufacturer wasn't expecting them to be entombed in such an expensive prison, but since the supplier page doesn't explicitly forbid it, it will be a battle between them who has to take responsibility for that assumption.

Yeah, thanks for the advice, but that all sounds good on “paper“ but in reality there’s no legal standing because how you approve that and it will be you’d end up spending more money trying to then you’ll never get back. It’s a waste of time… And as far as taking the n necks off, like I said, I have no interest in that I’ve done so many neck resets in my life and I finally got away from that. It only takes me 50 hours to build a guitar by the time I did all that stuff It’s just not worth it to me.
Also, those rods take a different route. It’s wider and shallow than what I’m using so the fretboard would have to come off. It’s just not worth it.

Also, my necks start out nice and straight… So it’s just like building a guitar without a trust rod which some people still do it actually access reinforcement anyway so it would probably last five or 10 years before the neck got to the point where it wouldn’t play and you could always sand the board so I’m gonna give them away as presents to people telling them what happened of course

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Unfortunately, we lawyers have to be careful about giving advice to people who are not our clients, and maybe giving advice regarding laws in jurisdictions in which we are not licensed to practice. The best way to get legal advice is to talk to a lawyer licensed in the state in which you do business.

Having said that, it is a good idea to not focus solely on the liability of the manufacturer/seller of the truss rods. Brad might have insurance that helps him out in this situation. It would be a good idea, Brad, to talk to your insurance agent to see if any of the insurance you carry can provide you with some help. You never know unless/until you ask.

Good luck. This is a scary possibility for all makers/sellers of instruments. I figure a maker will take his/her lumps if their own work is what causes the problem, but it is upsetting to think that, through no fault of your own, you have to deal with legitimate customer issues.

Sorry to hear about your troubles Brad. If I could make a suggestion about the future truss rods. . Blanchard makes the best rods hands down. give them a call because they can custom make any size and or specs. I have elec and acoustic rods from them. I also started utilizing spoke wheels on my bolt on necks. prob not what you want to hear now.

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That sucks. If you’ve had it to here with pulling necks, perhaps consider hiring out to someone who hasn’t.

Yes, I’ve heard good things about them…
But I have gone back to the Martin style rods for good Other than them being a little heavy they are bulletproof…


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Aside from learning this painful lesson One I learned a long time ago is to just depend on myself…


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Although I run a legitimate business (sole proprietorship) I don’t have any Insurance.


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Quite a while back I had an LMI rod break in a new archtop, couldn’t pull it and had to remove the fretboard and refinish the neck. Testing the rest of the rods in that batch by placing them in a routed channel and clamping a board over them and giving them a good twist resulted in the welds breaking in half.
LMI’s response was basically “tough poop, we’ll replace the broken ones”. Would not compensate for the time and cost of replacing. Chinese rod.

I switched to the Blanchard and never looked back. I totally trust it but test each before installing.

Sorry this happened Brad, really sucks. I’d probably document it on your website and offer to deal with the defective ones under warranty. Not sure what else you can do. A lawsuit might cost more time dollars and angst than dealing with the defective ones.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

If you give them away, you might want to remove your logo. If one ended up changing hands, and the backstory didn’t go with it, it could hurt your reputation.

This totally sucks and I would like to know who the seller and maker of the truss rods are. Seems to me that the supplier has a duty to help make things right here as well as the manufacturer. I'm not speaking of in terms of legally I'm speaking of ethically if they wish to participate in our industry. I understand why you haven't said (I didn't read all the posts) but this is a BIG deal as you know.

Please feel free to PM me and I keep secrets so no worries.

I always advise people to buy the best truss rod then can and you did exactly that paying four times what you were paying for a great rod that you know worked well. You spared no expense in an effort to up the value of your instruments with a less massive truss rod. I also know you to be a very experienced and great builder!

I sometimes read about people thinking they got a great deal buying a dozen no-name, import rods and I cringe knowing that if the rod fails it can be the end of the instrument if someone can't afford the repair. For us to pull a neck, pull a board, remove a rod, install a new one, refinish the neck, reinstall the neck, reset the neck angle (since we are right there) and then do a proper fret dress which is always a good idea when a neck is reset would be north of $1,800 and we would decline anyway since we turn away over 60% of what comes our way because we are too busy.

Wanted to mention something about the Blanchard rod (the Martin two way is excellent too) Mark (Blanchard) is best known as a builder of high-end guitars. He completely gets what our concerns are because he is one of us a guitar building luthier.

Very sorry this happened to you Brad.

EDIT: No need to PM me Brad I think I found them on my own. Thanks

I been doing this 30 years I use martin style truss rods and always check them before installation. When the 2 way rods first came out I tried them from know luthiery suppliers and I had 2 fail. As an engineer , the nuts welded or soldered to a threaded rod are suspect. That small rod just needs a bit of heat and the temper changed. After that I have never swayed from the martin style 250 guitars later no failures. Quality doesn't cost , it pays.
sorry you had to go through this , most of us have. You learn and move on

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I totally agree with you..as the saying goes "If it ain't broke-don't fix it"

seems to me like the only recourse at this juncture is to simply out everyone...if they refuse to step up and do the right thing then they don't deserve to be in business...had a "few" fail eh?...uh huh...multiply by an exponent is more likely the truth...but hey, just keep selling them...

I remember from my career as an orthopedist that Titanium is quite notch sensitive. Implants or internal fixation devices that were scratched deeply or dinged could fail in that area. Some of the early Ti bike frames and components suffered similar failures.

If this is the rod I'm thinking of that could be the issue. I don't think Titanium is a good metal for truss rods.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

It's not titanium-aircraft aluminum-I can't remember the alloy #

First of all, my sympathies, Brad. I don't think anything I can say will help you much. Most of us try to do the best we can, but sometimes we get screwed. However, some of what follows may help others avoid a similar catastrophe.


Given what you have said about repairability, the really high ground means replacing the guitar, and accepting the original back. What to do with the original? One method of repair I've heard of involves pulling the frets, milling out a slot from the top of the fretboard, pulling the truss rod from the top, replacing it then filling the slot in the board and making good. If you can make that work, it should at least give you cost recovery.

Now some background about me: Most people who have heard of me know about my engineering background. Far fewer know that once upon a time I ran a welding quality assurance company. Cutting a very long story short, I don't put welded truss rods in my guitars; ever. When I do put a truss rod in (always, both in steel string and classical guitars) they are put in so that they can also come out. The archetypal example is the "bolt on, bolt off" neck design where it takes less time to get the neck off than to get the strings off, the truss rod is accessible and it can be pulled with little trouble.






Changing or rotating a truss rod from playing to playing again can be done in about 15 minutes.

Something to consider for those thinking about making a career out of this.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Yes and at the very least they should be pulled from the market until such time as the reseller (and manufacturer) can ensure that it won't happen again and all old stock has been pulled.

I’ve certainly made a career out of this… But I have no intention of changing the way I build Guitars.
I finally have my system of building down to a science and very happy with it the way it is as are my customers.
Whatever I have to do to make it right, I will do, but I have no desire of taking the Guitars apart I just assume give them their money back or build them a new one.


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Well,Here's their response-of course I knew it would come down to this....


Hi Brad

I heard you called this morning

Unfortunately, I’m in Chicago until Friday for business and won’t be able to call back

We have sold close to 600 of these rods and had only a couple failures, mostly from being used in basses and 12 string guitars with much greater tension. These rods were designed and made for a specific purpose and if people don’t install them correct or the wood is not dry or it has to work too hard to perform because the wood is warped, that is totally out of our control. Mike tests each rod with a special jig and we do all we can to make sure they don’t fail.

If you don’t know we make ###### guitars, over 1500 of them now and have had a few failures of truss rods, we do use a different rod, but it happens and it’s out of my control.

We will replace the rod with the same one or can replace with another kind. We explain on the site how to get them out and replace them.


I’m happy to discuss further when I get back. Sorry you will need to repair these but I feel like we have given enough information in the site as to these are removable and replaceable.


Here's what I wrote back to him...

In the interest of clarity and truth…

I installed them correctly

I only use well seasoned wood.

My guitars are low tension either 24-3/4” scale or 26-1/2” tuned down to B

2 stripped nuts out of a dozen rods is an incredible failure rate.

Wow- blamed it on the customer.... "we're good, you're bad".
He might have, at the least, asked to have them back to analyze the failure.

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

Yes, apparently they have no interest in that .
they’re just gonna keep selling them like nothing happened even though both the supplier and the manufacturer said they’ve had failures on two different types of rods…


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