carbon fiber instead of truss rod

[Rolfe]

I used to use 1/4" X 1/2" but found that to be overkill and have been using 1/4" X 3/8" for quite some time. The bar extends from the headstock out into the fingerboard support block, but the bar is cut down to about 1/3 of its depth in the support block section.

[Hans]

I use a truss rod. It's worth it to have a tiny amount of adjustability to me.

[Steevarino]

Well, there you go Hans. I was all ready to go over to the Dark Side, and you hauled me back.

Nah, I'll probably still give CF a shot. What the heck, I already have it, and this batch of Flatties I am nearly drowning in is one big Cluster-Flotchie of experimentation anyway...

[Rick Turner]

Rolfe, good on that. It's how I build my acoustic guitars and I dado the CF up into the fingerboard as well as down into the neck. No, you wouldn't want to try to remove the fingerboard, but I'll be dead in 40 years and I won't care.

[John Bertotti]

No point to make just adding my 1911 vega bowlback neck has a slight bow at normal mando tention, nothing major. Down tuned a full step it is a almost perfect neck. Age and years of constant tention, I'm sure where the cause. No truss rod no gf and still a good neck almost 100 years later. My new mando, still in the womb, will have gf and I am every bit as confident of will be a good player 100 years down the road.

[D.E.Williams]

rolfe, good on that. It's how i build my acoustic guitars and i dado the cf up into the fingerboard as well as down into the neck. No, you wouldn't want to try to remove the fingerboard, but i'll be dead in 40 years and i won't care.

roflol....

[Steevarino]

Or, maybe:

nrofd

(not rolling on floor dead)

[oldwave maker]

I use 1/4x3/8 cf in 12-fret-to-the-crosspiece oval holer necks, adjustable steel in everything else. Sometimes chunky necks (made from really hard red maple seasoned as a blank for a year or more) resist the persuasions of 3/16 mild steel in spite of our best intentions.....

[mandozilla]

My mando has CF. It's over 26 years old and the neck is perfect.

[Nolan]

I hear truss rods work better in flat sawn necks....

[Nick Triesch]

Truss rods? Gibson, Poe, Gilchrist ,Red Diamond, Brentrup, Nugget, Apitius, Collings, Weber, Kimble, Daley just for starters! I'm not saying that CF is not a good thing. It's just that the very best in the world use truss rods. It's just not tradition....these mandolins sound wonderful. Nick

[Dave Cohen]

NTriesch, for one thing, you already posted to that effect earlier in this thread. For another, the reasoning ain't so good. There are certainly wonderful mandolins by great makers made with truss rods. There are also lots of good, fair, mediocre, poor, and lousy mandolins made with truss rods. Same can be said for CF reinforcement. The method of neck adjustment/reinforcement doesn't have to do with the sound quality of a mandolin as much as it has to do with playability, feel, balance, and long-term stability. Among builders, there are adherents of truss rods, adherents of CF and other non-adjustable reinforcement, some who use both truss rods and non-adjustable methods in different mandolins, and some who use both truss rods and CF in the same instrument.

Mandolins tend to be head-heavy instruments. For me, that tips the scales against truss rods. For others, ymmv. Differences in sound quality between the different neck reinforcement methods are currently small if they exist at all. A neck/headstock/tuning machines assembly would have to be made a whole lot stiffer and lighter than is possible with existing methods to unambiguously test any hypotheses about differences in sound quality due to neck mass and stiffness.

http://www.Cohenmando.com

[Rick Turner]

Where you really hear the effect of CF reinforcement is in electric bass necks. I use both CF and an adjustable rod in most of my basses, and the CF really smooths out response and helps tame dead notes and wolf tones. I also hear the difference and feel it in acoustic guitar necks, and I wouldn't make a 12 string guitar without CF these days.

[Nick Triesch]

Dave, my 86 year old Gibson is light as a feather, the neck is super straight and it sounds like a Snakehead should....fantastic. I grew up with cool guitars and mandolins. I just would like to be able to tweek it if the instrument ever needed it. I have owned instruments where the maker said that the neck would "never warp or bow". We all know that is not true. How bout this...sometimes a maker may set up his or her mandolin with just the amount of relief that they think is right. Many players like myself will get the mandolin or guitar home and set it up to play and feel like we like it to play and feel. Usually after the adjustment you will not need to touch it for several years. And if you need to it will only be a very tiny tweek. I want to make the tweek for $ 3000 to $10,000 bucks! That's all I'm saying. Holy Smokes! Nick

[mandozilla]

Maybe if Orville or Lloyd had CF available they would have used it!?...I'm just sayin'...

[labraid]

One thing that has not been mentioned is the compression that a neck is under. An adjustable truss rod can either compress itself, or belly up or down a neck (two-way). What it cannot do is resist compression. With those 150lbs of compression slapped on the neck, the wood removed for a truss slot is not fighting the compression... neither is the truss rod; you get more compression on the wood that is there. An unreinforced neck, or a neck with CF, is fighting that compression, and keeping your instrument in better tune the while...

Man, self perpetuating fallacies are my bane in life. Why is it so often we dance around the truth but dive into the fire..... I guess fire's cool and all.

[Nick Triesch]

Maybe someday Dudenbostel and Nugget mandolins will use CF instead of an adjustable truss rod.

[french guy]

just a question for CF afficionados
what type of glue do you use between carbon fiber and neck wood?
personnaly I've used sometimes titebond glue , sometimes superglue , but I want to know what is your choice .

[Rolfe]

Epoxy. Since I am installing the neck along with the truss bar, epoxy is used for it all. I used to AMR epoxy, but it has gotten outrageously expensive. Smith's All Wood epoxy (from LMI) now since it is slow-curing and gives lots of working time.

[kestrel]

Smith's All Wood epoxy, also.

[Rick Turner]

Thick superglue or WEST epoxy.

But that ain't how Bill done it...

[Michael Lewis]

I use West Systems epoxy too because it gets harder and will less creep less than the Smith stuff. I haven't tried the CA gel but it would work well. CA is recommended for use with CF material by the CF manufacturer.

[Rolfe]

I use West Systems epoxy too because it gets harder and will less creep less than the Smith stuff. I haven't tried the CA gel but it would work well. CA is recommended for use with CF material by the CF manufacturer.

What mix do you use with the West System? AMR gets rock hard, which is why I liked it, but, as I said, it got way too expensive.

[Rick Turner]

We use enough WEST epoxy to buy the gallon cans of the resin and the quart cans of the hardeners; we keep both the fast and slow hardeners on hand. They have metering dispensing pumps, so the proportions are automatic...you just carefully pump equal squirts of each part, A and B. You can also adjust the speed of the cure by mixing the fast and slow hardeners.

I like WEST because it's available locally at the chandler's, they have a range of products, and it's just so convenient being able to pump the proportions. Add to that that it's great adhesive, and that's all I need to know. The yacht racing crowd loves the stuff, and those boats are quite the test.

I use the same stuff for pore filling and sealing open pored woods like rosewood, walnut, and California sycamore prior to finish, and I may try it on closed pored woods as well. It wets nicely and used as a sealer or pre-sealer, it helps to literally glue the finish to the wood.

Take care not to get it on your skin, wear breathing protection, etc. Allergic reactions to epoxies are not uncommon, and they are really a drag.

[David Newton]

Don't make fun, but I use JB Weld. It sets up real hard.