Carbon Fiber Neck Rods

Used the 1/8 X 3/8 rod in a fretless banjo neck. The strength feels fine so far but these do not replace an adjustable rod. After making the neck and checking carefully to make sure it was straight and flat, I put in the carbon fiber rod, without anything else. When attaching the finger board a slight warp developed. There was no adjustment as I had not put in an adjustable rod. Planing very lightly did take the slight warp out, but I would not use one of these without including an adjustable rod next time. In fact for a banjo I would not bother with this but just put in the hotrod adjustable support.

I built the laminated neck in this thru-neck over 12 years ago. I recently cut it out of the original guitar it was built into and designed the curly mahog custom in the attached picture around it because I loved the neck so much. I used three 1/8" x 3/8" carbon rods down the center and two 1/4" x .200" rods on either side of the center stack. What it produced is a very solid and stiff neck with INCREDIBLE tone and sustain from a super light-weight honduran mahogany neck...WILD! I would warn new builders to always include an adjustable truss rod unless you have the tools and know how to true in a non-adjustable neck correctly. I started using carbon rods 14 years ago in my guitar building and every neck I have built since then includes at least two of them.

I am starting to step up my builds quality and am very excited about these little Carbon Fibers.My current not yet complete Four string Blues build has one and my next Cigar Box Mando is gonna have one of those little boogers placed right in its little Ole Neck.