Trussrod issues - skunkstripe replacement

[Rodolfo Thomazelli]

Hi everyone. I am a beginner both in the guitar making/repairing and in the forum.

I recently found an electric guitar in an outside trash can - it is a strato like guitar from the brazilian company called Giannini. It was probably exposed to the rain and sun, but I can not tell for how long. I decided to repair the instrument and, as far I can tell, the major problem is in the neck. The first thing I done was testing the trussrod - I removed the bullet from it, put some oil, and then I tried to adjust the bend that was there. The problem is that, by doing this, the skunkstripe was coming out, so I removed it. In my mind, that was the reason I could not adjust the curvature on the neck. Now I have a bunch of questions on how to proceed with the repair.

The neck without the trussrod tension presents some relief, say, about one milimeter around the 10th fret. Can I start from that curvature? Must I performe some leveling on the fretboard before continuing?

The trussrod cavity is a little bit larger than the trussrod itself. Can this affect the adjustement quality? Also, I notice that is a little block of wood in the bottom of the cavity, around the center of the length, so that the trussrod presents a curvature when it is held down. Is this a common assembly?

Assuming that I simply make a new skunkstrip for the neck. Is there some way for me to ensure that everything will work well? Is there any test that I can performe before starting gluing everthing in place?

I realize that those are a lot of non specific questions. I just don know how to do better.

In below I leave a draft of what I am facing.

 Excuse my bad English.

[Ned Knepp]

If I understand what you are asking correctly, I believe that removing the "skunkstrip" pretty much ruined the effectiveness of the truss rod. You will probably need to replace that before you even thing about  the effectiveness of the truss rod. The block under the rod needs to be there unless the slot is cut in an arc. You need the "skunkstrip" in place to give the truss rod something to press against.

The conditions you mentioned when you found the guitar is probably a big factor in the skunkstrip coming out. Wet /sunny weather plus pressure from the rod probably forced the strip out of the neck. It could also indicate that all of the glue in the instrument is compromised. You should check the whole instrument for degraded glue joints since it's been left out like this. It could be that you have a guitar shaped bunch of parts that need to be (re) assembled in order to have a functional instrument.

Actually, what you're asking about is, in my opinion, a pretty advanced thing for a beginner to tackle but since it's a found instrument with no money invested there is no reason not to experiment and learn on it for yourself.  Be advised that a truss rod isn't actually there to fix bent/warped necks, and is mostly used to adjust the relief. It can be used to hold the neck in compression /position but shouldn't be counted on to actively correct more than a very small amount of warping.  The relief, by they way can't really be determined unless the instrument is strung and tuned to pitch. Without tension on the neck you really can't tell what you have.

Before you do anything, assess the whole instrument for potential glue degradation. If you can do it, you need to replace the skunkstrip in the neck before you worry about anything else about it. Check the center of the fingerboard carefully too, it's possible that the glue under the fingerboard is loose about where the block is located too since this is a high pressure point.  You don't want to try to fix something like that by reshaping the fingerboard The FB needs to be firmly and evenly attached to the neck surface before you think about reshaping it.

[Rodolfo Thomazelli]

Thank you mr. Ned Knepp.

Yes, I was aware that by removing the skunstripe all the functionality of the trussroad would be ruined. I was wondering if there was any procedure that I should perform in the neck before reinstall the skunstripe, though. But, if I understood your reply, this reinstalation must be my first step (together with the inspetion on the glued joints over the whole instrument). I think that I will now spend some big time in the skunstripe making - this is due the lack of power tools in my "shop".