Replacing a broken truss rod

This Gibson EBO bass had a broken truss rod, and the neck had too much bow in it. It is also very important to know the parts of a guitar neck for getting more idea on this. Because we could hear it rattling in the neck near the neck pickup we had a pretty good idea it was broken at the anchor. The first step was to pull the rod out. Ron tapped against the nut until he could get ahold of it with a Robogrip and PULLED! Once it was out he could use it and magnets to locate the anchor. Next step was to remove the last 2 frets and drill down into the fingerboard to hopefully expose the anchor with the broken end of the rod still in it. It worked! He cleaned out the hole and removed the anchor. Since the rod was long enough he threaded the broken end and extended the threads on the other end where the nut goes. Next he cut a new anchor from a piece of bar stock, drilled and tapped it. The repaired rod was then waxed, threads and all, and pushed back into the neck. The wax is a lubricant to help it slide in and also helps lubricate the nut. Then the new anchor was ground to fit perfectly in the neck and a mahogany block glued in place to keep the rod from moving. Next step was to make the repair disappear. Ron cut the hole in the fingerboard to a rectangular shape so the ends of the plug would be hidden under the frets. He found piece of Brazilian rosewood with similar color and grain pattern, fit and glued it in place, cleaned it up and oiled it, put the frets back in exactly as they were, and……what repair? Works just like new!

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