Kitchen Table Construction

[John Parchem]

Before doing anything I would wait to hear from others who have stewmac kit experience or from Ken.

A normal allen wrench only work when you go in straight. Stewmac does sell the Allen wrenches with a ball end allow one to enter the allen head at an angle ... so may be. Before you close up the box put the neck in it place and see if you can adjust the truss rod through the sound hole.

You can also drill the hole going through the heel block, but be very careful with its path, You will hit the popsicle brace. I tend to need to grove a path through the popsicle anyway. You do not want to be too high on the brace or go through the sound board. You may have enough room to drill from the sound hole side.

I notch the braces into the kerfing.

[George]

I appreciate the heads-up John. I have a small amount of buyer’s remorse with the StewMac kit. Don’t get me wrong, the kit has pretty darn good wood and I think it’s a good kit but I didn’t know there were other, better options out there when I bought it. Having said that, I still want it to turn out good and I plan on using it as a player.

I’ll be grateful for any and all the advice that comes my way.

George

[Tim Benware]

It's looking good. How do you access you truss rod on this one?

Tim, if you look at the last picture of the sides in the mold you can see the hole in the neck block that will acess the truss rod through the soundhole.


George

As stated in the other posts the wrench will be the issues. I have seen some specialty wrenches that are bent, some with ball end and on one repair I had to grind down a straight allen to a little stubby wrench to get it in. If it was me, I would carefully drill an access hole through the transverse brace, clamp a block on the back side of the brace to reduce tear out and use a brad point of forstner bit.

[George]

I have a set of brad point bits and don’t have a problem with drilling the brace. Has anyone ever just taken a small round file and cut a channel in the brace? Seems like that would give ample room for a ball end allen.

On this guitar the truss rod adjustment nut will not extend beyond the neck joint tenon. Is that how most rods that adjust through the soundhole are positioned? All but one of my acoustic guitars are Guilds so I'm used to adjusting up by the nut. My Martin HD-28 has a hole through the transverse brace so I guess I should have at least questioned why this one didn't before gluing it on.

Obviously StewMac doesn't think it's an issue.

George

[John Parchem]

The you describe your truss rod position sounds right to me.

The transverse brace takes a lot of load with the fret board extension pushing in with the string tension. I would not notch out the top of the brace as you will quickly weaken it. I may be wrong but I believe a hole near the sound board has little effect on strength of the brace but a notch or channel on the top of the brace has a big effect.

I use a round file through the heel block hole to create a channel in the popsicle brace to make a clean path to the truss rod.

[George]

OK, I'll drill a hole. Thanks for sharing the good info guys. I would hate to have to curse myself and our good friends in Ohio when an adjustment is needed.

George

[ken cierp]

The expectation is that you purchase a ball end 4mm Allen wrench SM # 6113 that way you can get at the truss nut at an angle and don't need a hole in the shoulder brace. It is mentioned in their supply list in the assembly manual.