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I see some builders are installing carbon fibre strips parallel to the truss rod, either immediately adjacent to it, or spaced out along the width of the neck. I'm wondering what people think about the value of this, under what circumstances it improves the stability of the neck, and which configuration works best? I have used a CF strip to strengthen a uke neck, and I know some builders won't use 2-way truss rods because they feel they create too much twist in the neck. Thoughts? Tnx.

not really needed much depends on the truss rod design. I use the martin one . did the carbon fiber and ran it at an angle that followed the fret board. In most cases it is over kill.

If you look at it from an engineering standpoint, Martin built hundreds of thousands of guitars without an adjustable truss rod - til '85 if I recall - and hundreds of thousands since then with an adjustable truss rod but no additional carbon fiber, and they work just fine. I'm the original owner of a '74 000-28 that has not yet needed a neck set - that's 46 years.

Is carbon fiber belt and suspenders? Sounds like.

Ed

I'm sure we all understand that a neck reset has nothing to do with changes in the neck, the neck gets removed so the body's changing geometry can be adjusted out by tuning the angle on the heel of the neck. The neck didn't change, the body changed.

You're right of course. Wouldn't the carbon fiber be there to keep the neck from distorting beyond what a truss rod, adjustable or not, would accomplish?, The necks aren't moving around enough to be a problem from what I have seen. Perhaps it is just, as I said, belt and suspenders. They weigh hardly anything, so they don't make the instrument any heavier and they don't contribute to an unbalanced neck, so it looks like your choice.

Ed

This thread caused me to think a bit (rare event). I just got this cheap neck from China as an experiment in what-do-you-get-for-twenty- bucks. Well, what I got was the lightest mahogany (that's what the seller claims) neck I've ever seen. Perfect candidate for the carbon fiber strips I have in inventory.

Wonderful!

Thanks for your thoughts on this!