What to do about a broken or stripped truss rod? You could remove the fingerboard, dig out the truss rod, replace it, reglue the board and refinish the neck. Or you could simply throw the neck away as a lost cause.
Now at last you can fix it — with our unique Truss Rod Rescue Kit. See details below
Use the Truss Rod Rescue Kit to repair standard truss rods. The Rescue Kit fits the standard truss rods commonly used by Gibson®, Fender®, and the majority of guitars: a single steel rod 3/16" in diameter with a 10-32 thread (also common on mandolins and other instruments). One end of the rod is anchored inside the neck, and the other end is threaded to accept an adjusting nut. Tightening the adjusting nut pulls the rod tight, which pulls the neck. The threaded end is where a truss rod is most likely to fail: threads become damaged, and sometimes rods break at this point. This is where the Truss Rod Rescue Kit helps by cutting wood to expose more of the rod, and cutting new threads into the exposed rod. Sometimes the adjusting nut is located in the peghead, and sometimes in the heel of the neck. The Truss Rod Kit works in either situation.
The Truss Rod Rescue kit is not for double-action truss rods. These designs, including our own Hot Rod® truss rods, combine two shafts to achieve their "push-pull" effect. They are less likely to become damaged in the way that standard truss rods do.
An "impossible" repair becomes a 15-minute money-maker! A broken truss rod often means a thrown-out neck. Except for extremely valuable vintage instruments, who can afford the major surgery of disassembling the neck to replace the truss rod? The Rescue Kit quickly solves the problem from the outside—at the adjusting end of the truss rod.
The cross-section drawing at left shows a working truss rod. The adjusting nut is flush against a metal washer, and it turns without a lot of force.
The problem: A truss rod nut that's become cross-threaded, frozen, or broken off competely. You can't adjust the neck, and the trouble is hidden below the surface.
The solution: Our specially-sized tools tuck into the small space around the damaged rod, removing wood and cutting threads so the truss rod is fully functional again.
How it works
Step 1 The cutter removes wood around the damaged rod, making room for new threads.
Step 2 The threading die cuts clean threads on the newly exposed truss rod. Now the rod is ready for the adjusting nut again.
Step 3 Add one of the metal spacers provided, and reinstall the adjusting nut. This truss rod is rescued and ready to work like new.
The Truss Rod Rescue Kit fits the 10/32 threaded rods used on Gibson and Fender guitars. A brass pilot is provided for guiding the cutter into a small Fender access hole.
The kit includes cutter, threading die, pilot, wrench and 4 spacers.