If you’ve ever played a guitar and noticed that the strings were further from the fretboard at some points than others, it’s because of neck relief. The intention behind neck relief setup is to create a small gap between the strings and frets in order to maintain an evenness in tension (how much tension is on a guitar neck) on each string across the entire fretboard. But what does it mean for a guitar neck to have either too much or not enough of this relief? What if the neck is warped? Should you be worried if your guitar’s neck doesn’t have any?
Tools You Will Need
- Neck relief gauge – I recommend this one by MusicNomad
- Truss rod adjustment wrenches – I love this set if you have multiple guitars with different requirements. You can also check out stores like StewMac for these types of things.
Also look – checking for guitar neck bow