Doing Things Wrong

Fasteners

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Went shopping for luthiery supplies yesterday, here is some of the loot. At the marina store, I got 100 Fender pickguard screws, otherwise known as SS #4 1/2" oval head, six cents each. ( 50 cents each at StewMac. Seriously !!! )

Pretty much everybody uses #4 screws for pickguards, except Gibson, they use #3.

M3 Threads

M3 stands for metric 3mm, a standard machine thread that is extremely common on everything but American-made guitars. For example, on an import Fender-style bridge, all of the saddle adjusting screws are M3.

I was strolling through the Luthiery section at Home Depot and noticed that they had a wide assortment of M3 hardware in both bright stainless Philips head and black oxide hex head. A good thing to remember. Too bad they don’t have headless ones, but you can find them online. BoltDepot.com


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This is a Martin-style single-acting truss rod. I built it years ago and never used it, and at this point, I never will. I am breaking it up for parts, so I thought I'd post a picture first. It consists of a 10-32 threaded rod in an aluminum channel. At the fixed end, at the lower left, the rod is set in a T-nut and the end is peened (hammered) over to keep it from rotating. The adjusting end is nothing more than a washer between the nut and the channel. Both ends are secured by bending the channel over them, then the center of the channel is cut down and everything is ground to minimal dimensions. You can find detailed directions online.