Unusual truss rod in cheap guitar

Nyj

My daughter has an acoustic guitar made by 'Vintage' ... (I hope this doesn't get me banned from the site) 

It's been worked on by a proper expert, who added some braces, removed a couple, shave a couple more down and it's now sounding pretty decent, amazingly.     But the action has crept up a little, so I thought I'd just tighten the neck down a bit.

But the truss rod seems a bit weird.   It's definitely not hexagonal, and as hard as I look at it, it seems smooth and tubular.   But it looks as though there may be a detail maybe 2 or 3 mm inside, where the tube is reduced to a half-tube, so that the properly shaped gizmo would key into it and enable me to turn it.  

Does anyone have any idea about this?

dbphoto

Allen key?

ICBM

It should be a 4mm Allen key. A lot of newer truss rod nuts are like that, rather than having a 5mm socket at the surface.

LuttiS

Vintage are great!

Nyj

It's not an allen key - last night I tried every key I have and the ones that would fit into the tube just went round and round. Like I say, it seems like the tube becomes a half-tube a couple of mm in ... nothing like any fitting I've ever seen.   Weird

Emp_Fab

Some photos would help.

dbphoto

Are you sure it’s not just a case of not having the correct Allen key?  Maybe yours are imperial for example?

roundthebend

could it be a star/torx rather than a hex?

Nyj

I'll post a photo soon

ICBM

I'm almost certain it will be an Allen socket, but some far-east-made ones can have a rather 'liberal' interpretation of the correct dimensions...

I keep a selection of old Allen keys with the ends filed down to a taper for problems like this - you use the next size up and file the end to the size below over about half an inch.

notanon

I have the Vintage V300MH and that has an allen key truss rod.

notanon

I'm not near the guitar at the moment but I seem to remember the visible end looking like a circular tube.

ICBM

notanon said:

I'm not near the guitar at the moment but I seem to remember the visible end looking like a circular tube.

That’s what the modern recessed Allen nuts look like.

Nyj

Here's the photo ... it looks like something that's been at the bottom of the Med for twenty centuries

Nyj

Huh ... that didn't work ... let me figure out how to get the photo on here ...

Nyj

Ok, how about this ... 

Nyj

This is the link to the photo on Dropbox:     https://www.dropbox.com/s/s07t055bwq3vz95/vintage.jpg?dl=0

dbphoto

Hard to tell from the image but it looks to me as if someone has knackered it by rounding and cracking it?

Nyj

Yeah, that's how it looks to me too 

Alvin

  If you blow the image up you can just about see the flat edges for an allen key so the wrong size has probably been used  .  There  looks like two small slots that have been used (ground in ?) so it could be turned with a flat screwdriver.       

   Someone may have a better , more proffesional suggestion but i would fill it with epoxy putty (milliput) then push a flat screwdriver into it to give you a slot (it may help if you wet it a bit so it slides in and doesn't grab the putty ) .  let it set overnight and it should be plenty strong enough to turn with the screwdriver  .  

   

 

ICBM

Nyj said:

This is the link to the photo on Dropbox

That's a 5mm Allen socket which has been thoroughly f***ed...

You need to get it out so you can replace the nut - it's not usable like that. Alvin's suggestion will probably work, but a quicker method is to hammer a tapered flat-blade screwdriver into it - if you get the right size it will bite into the largest dimension of the remaining recess, and you should be able to turn it and get the nut out. If that doesn't I epoxy a scrap Allen key into it - the long end, so you can turn the whole thing without it hitting the rest of the guitar - then once set, wind it out with a pair of heavy pliers if it won't turn by hand.

You can buy replacement nuts from Allparts (among others).