This is the new truss rod! It is really cool. (Okay, so I have no life and get excited about something like this). My new one is the one on top. The one below it is the stuff that you buy and what comes in most guitars. Cheap, weak, and break prone. Look at the pictures above and the one below. Which one looks like it is about to break and which one looks very strong and well made?

 The entire thing is made of tool steel. That is because it is the toughest, strongest stuff that I could use. Since that is very important for this application, it is what they are made of. Think of the steel that a drill bit, chisel, or hammer is made of. Tough stuff and strong stuff, huh? Not only that, but I then had to go and do more. I had the end, where the wrench goes, heat treated so that it is incredibly hard. Why would I want to do something like that? Well, if the allen head on the end is what the allen wrench goes into, and someone turns it too much or at an angle, what happens? On the hideous, cheap stuff that you can buy from suppliers, it strips out the allen head! That or it breaks it off. Oh, the horror! Look at how easy it would be to break the head off of the lower one in the picture. It actually looks like you could break it with your fingers. That is because they are poorly made. They welded the allen head on and then used a grinder to grind the welds down. In doing this, they also severely weakened that area. That is why they break. That and the fact that they are made of cheap, soft,  mild steel. The allen wrench is tool steel which is much  harder so it strips out the mild steel. Since the allen head on the rods I make is also tool steel, it is an even match.  By heat treating the tool steel end, it becomes much harder than the wrench. This is why it would strip the wrench before messing up the allen head. By the way, it would probably take a mentally challenged individual to turn this truss rod that much anyway. But, just in case, I made it foolproof.

I felt that this was something that was necessary because my necks are so strong and stiff that they needed a strong rod to make them move. This is another example of overkill though. The carbon fiber in the neck makes it so that you don't even need a truss rod. That neck should never move. Just in case someone wanted to mess around with it though, I had to make something that wouldn't break or strip.

Another thing is that I increased the diameter of the rods to make them much more powerful. I did this while only increasing the truss rod size by 30 thousandths of an inch per side. So, this would be easily at least 5 times more powerful and infinitely less likely to break or strip out. I felt that it was necessary given how strong and stiff the necks are. I'm running out of things to improve. Guess I need to think some more.....

Below, is a BRW neck getting the slots for carbon fiber.