Rattling truss rods?

[dougal]

Curious if anyone else has experienced this.

Last night I was playing a recently acquired (used) Rickenbacker 4004, having re-strung it (one string at a time) over the weekend (from an unknown make / tension to elixir 45-105s).

When I played a particular note (E @ 2nd fret 7 D string or 7th fret A string but suspect it's irrelevant) or close there was a nasty sympathetic resonant sound from [i]somewhere [/i]in the bass. A proper low rumbling rattle, not a slight buzz.

I tried feeling / prodding everything from pickups to tuners, eventually resorting to adjusting the truss rods a miniscule amount and then back again - which seems to have fixed the problem.

Has anyone else experienced rattling rods? Was it something different which has been affected by neck movement? The neck's in the right place so I don't want to have to tighten or loosen the rods if at all possible.

[tonyquipment]

Usually the rattles come from the machine heads...

I had an acoustic which did exactly as you mentioned. Blue tack sorted that out pdq.

[Noisyjon]

I have had exactly this problem and yes they can rattle.
Sounds like the tweak has done the job for you, which is good because when my bass's t-rod was rattling it was because it had snapped inside the neck
You could tell because the adjusting nut was solid and would not move at all.

[Dave Vader]

Rickys have utterly mad truss rod adjustment as I recall, it was probably not done properly last time and you have corrected it.

[spacey]

The rods are a bit mad, but you can have the neck exactly how you want it, flat, curved, twisted, peaked.
Often wondered why more dont rely on twin rods.

[Dr M]

I once tried out a Cort in a shop - the E string seemed totally dead, no sustain at all. Pointed this out to the shop's owner, who looked over the bass, then tapped the neck. You could hear the truss rod rattling as he did so. Whether the truss rod had no tension in it at all, or if it was broken, I don't know.

Also not sure whether that was actually the cause of the dodgy E. Needless to say, I wasn't too impressed with the bass.