Truss rod woes

[tauzero]

I recently bought a Shuker Uberhorn at the Gardiner Houlgate auction. Lovely instrument, 5 string fretless, although it's 35" scale but I can live with that. However the action is stupidly high, because the neck is bowed. A 4mm allen key is too small, so I contacted Jon to ask his advice. He said he used to use ABM truss rods with 5mm adjuster - I couldn't get a 5mm allen key in without cutting it down, so I got one off Ebay and cut it down. I could get it to the end of the truss rod but it wouldn't fit in properly. So today I took it up to Jon and he had a look at it. The adjuster nut has been somewhat mullered, but a different sized allen key did move it, but it also wasn't in the right position and Jon thought that tightening the truss rod any further was likely to break it. So he's going to dismantle it and replace the truss rod with a 4mm one (as God intended), and while he's there make it 34" scale. I'm also going to have a choice of material for the replacement fingerboard, and ebony is very tempting rather than the composite fingerboard currently on it.

 

[snorkie635]

Good luck. It seems a story with a happy ending, albeit a lot of hassle for you.

[Hellzero]

Macassar ebony, then. 😉

[Joe Nation]

How will he shorten the scale length? Move the bridge? Move the nut? Cut a chunk out of the neck and stick it back on? Create a small geodesic fold in the space-time continuum and remove 25.4mm of the universe?

[tauzero]

Move the bridge, which is embedded in the full-length fingerboard, and lose a little off the headstock end.

[Joe Nation]

Oh I see, I thought it was a normal-ish bridge at the end of the fingerboard. Very cool.