I recently built a mandola with H5 scale length and used a Martin guitar truss tube (square) for the truss rod. This did not work due, I think, to creep in the epoxy I used to secure the tube. Subsequently, the neck bowed significantly and being non-adjustable I had to decide how to fix the problem.
I decided to retrofit the neck with an adjustable truss rod which I have finished. I used the L shape Siminoff design as shown in his H5 plans.
My question.....The fingerboard is still off of the neck, should I set the initial backbow before replacing the fingerboard or wait until it is reglued? Pros? Cons?
FWIW Just an observation for future builds... I will absolutely use only adjustable truss rods in the future due to my experience on this and other builds I have made. The non-adjustable truss rod is fine as long as you do not experience the slippage problem I ran into. And I do not understand the best methods or products to use for the non-adjustable rod.
Thanks in advance for any help.
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