Well, I wanted to change my strings on my classical, and I removed them, then my wife decided that she didn't want me fooling with my guitar at the time, so I have to wait to re-string it until I get back home from work.
How much truss rod adjusting do I need to do, or do I need to do any? I removed the strings to clean the guitar and polish it and the fret board. I know that it's okay to do this, I've done it many times before and had zero problems, but have never left them off for any length of time.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!
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You may not need to adjust the truss rod now, unless you are planning to do some fret work and need the unstrung neck to be very flat. Just restring it and let the neck adjust to the tension - might take hours, even a day or two depending on your environmental conditions (e.g. hot & humid, vs. dry air-conditioned, etc.) Once it has settled, then decide if you need more or less neck relief and adjust the truss rod accordingly. If you are putting on similar tension strings to what you were using before, you may not need any adjustment at all.
You said classical - do you mean a nylon-string guitar? If so, the tension on the strings is low and you probably won't have any trouble at all.
Also, many classicals don't even have a truss rod for the same reason.
Thanks guys!
It's an Ibanez Exotic Wood Classical and is a Classical/Electric. It has a two way truss rod. I didn't think that I would have trouble, I'm going to be putting the new strings on them in about 4 horus or so. And once they finally stretch out I'll be able to tell.
I was just curious, thanks alot for the info!
In Space, no one can hear me sing!
you need to relax a little, Joe!
as mmoncur said, a classical is a low tension setup. but even for a steel-strung, you shouldn't be immediately thinking about adjusting the relief/truss rod. and no matter how long the strings have been off, if you are re-stringing with the same gauge. wait a while before checking and deciding to tweak relief. if the guitar really had to settle in, you would end up adjusting it at least twice by jumping the gun.
-=tension & release=-
FWIW, I've loosened the strings on electric guitars before flying with them. If possible, I send them by UPS a couple of days in advance with "hold for pickup" orders at the nearest UPS to the gig (UPS packs them in the airplane better than the commercial airlines). So they have been loose for a few days. After re-tuning I've never had to adjust the neck, although it does take a bit of time for the guitar to settle in, but in a day or two it's back to normal.
Adjusting the truss rod should always be a last resort and it should be done by somebody who is experienced at it. It is possible to mess up the guitar if done incorrectly.
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you need to relax a little, Joe!
:lol: :lol:
I was just curious, I hear mixed things about re-stringing.
In Space, no one can hear me sing!
And a lot of it is totally erroneous.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Yeah. Strings have been changed and it sounds great now. The reason I changed them in the first place is that the A string was making a hard core buzzing sound when open so I thought to just replace them first and see what happened. The strings were wound kind of crazy from the factory.
No buzzing so far, and they seemed to stretch pretty well already. Apparanly D'Adarrio puts an extra G string in there, and it's a different makeup than their original G string, so I decided to use it and see what happened.
It's kind of a coffee color, so I'm not sure what the difference would be, but I'm going to do some research on it.
In Space, no one can hear me sing!
For what it's worth, I have a cheap travel electric guitar (one of these) and when I travel I not only remove the strings, I remove the neck from the body. Actually I leave the strings on and detach the neck, but the effect is the same. So it goes stringless (and neckless) for 12-24 hours, then I reassemble it.
I bring a truss rod wrench just in case, but 90% of the time I reassemble, wait an hour, and it's good to go.
Guitars can handle more than people think.
BTW, Joe - nice guitar! I think I'm putting one of those on the top of my list for when I finally get a classical guitar.
A truss rod is a reactive piece of gear. That is, it reacts to the strings trying to bend the neck. Taking the strings off will only cause the neck to return to its natural shape, which usually means dead straight. Leaving them off will not do anything to the neck as it is in its natural state.
Putting strings on creates tension, which causes the neck to bow upwards - the heavier the strings, the more bow is induced. A truss rod resists the tendency of the neck to bend.
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BTW, Joe - nice guitar! I think I'm putting one of those on the top of my list for when I finally get a classical guitar.
It's a great guitar, but just a bit of warning, it's got a very thin body on it, so it sounds great, but kind of quite when unplugged (perfect for me), but sounds superb when plugged in.
In Space, no one can hear me sing!
