Prolapsed Strat Truss Rod Sleeve

[Jacob Wieder]

Hi Andrew, I think the important thing is to find out why the plug moved out of position. Maybe someone turned the trussrod nut too loose and pushed it out?

if there is no problem with the trussrod itself i would just put some drops of glue in and push it back. The plug should not be under stress, so a 100% perfect gluing surface is not really necassary imho.

You can spend some time to work on the finish though..

There are some videos about similar problems on YT:

https://youtu.be/aJzyuuOWQgc

https://youtu.be/jNb-HUCjOcA

[Benjamin Brockway Strings]

It could be fixed as easily as pushing it back into place then wicking some thin CA around the joint with a drop-fill pick. I can’t think of why you’d have to take that part out clean it up and put it back in. Someone correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t believe that part is adding structural integrity. I’ve been there before and I recall taking the part out and gluing it back in but I don’t know if it was necessary and I probably burned 30 mins of shop time just out of curiosity.

Contact the owner and see if they’re interested in paying you to get all neurotic dealing with that otherwise push, wick and move on?

[Benjamin Brockway Strings]

Also the truss rod nut might be pushing that part out. If that’s the case you may actually have to take it out and correct the hole. Contact the owner after you have a good idea what’s going on and figure out how you want to proceed from there. Things like this come up all the time which the owner didn’t ask you to fix but you’re the professional and you see it and it should be addressed so just make sure you talk the client and get paid appropriately for your labor and problem solving skills

[Andrew Framsted]

Thank you all for your input. This is one of those things I would have given up on in fear of making it worse before having joined the Looth Group. The quality of information shared here is amazing.

As it turned out, I couldn’t finish the job unless I fixed the walnut plug issue, as the truss rod was overly tight and the stop point for the rod to engage the other direction to add relief was the insert. It was in there snug. I ended up cranking the truss rod to push it free. I then drilled through a dowel about the same size of the plug and tapered the end to fit against the plug’s contour. Then, I epoxied in a 1/4″ metal dowel through the the center to help with indexing when pushing (or potentially tapping with a hammer) for the glue back.

I lightly sanded the plug with 220, tightened the truss rod as far back into the channel so to allow clearance for the plug. I waxed off the truss rod nut and lined the cavity with fish glue before reinserting. After some touch up with a mix of Zinsser and StewMac Vintage Amber, I used Glu Boost Fill & Finish to seal it off. If I could undo that last step, I would liked to have sanded a bit of the hard edges of the broken finish to better feather in the fill. The customer was beyond happy with the final results so I’m onto the next one and will file this one in the memory banks for the next time.

You guys rock. Thanks again.

[Andrew Framsted]

[Andrew Framsted]

[Ian Davlin The Looth Group]

Toit like toigur.

[Benjamin Brockway Strings]

Looks great. Nice work!

[Benjamin Brockway Strings]

I kinda forget the purpose of that plug I’ve had so little Fender guitars brought to me the last few years. It’s a Gibson world I’m livin’ in these days. Cool to see this. Took me on a trip down memory lane