The Hub

Hallo, I have an old archtop (plywood) that needed a refret. There is no trussrod.

I talked to the owner, he knows that my work will maybe/eventually more expensive than the value of the guitar.

But it was only after leveling the fretboard that I realized that the fret slots are completely off.

I talked to the customer again, and we agreed, that I should put a new fretboard on the guitar. I have one, that I took of an old guitar, and reuse this. I also convinced the custumer to add some reenforcement, either a truss rod or carbon fiber

Now my question: what is your experience with short trussrods? The longest one, that would fit the construction is 36cm (13" ). I have used one like this on a parlour guitar, but i am a little unsure about how much of an effect it does. The center of the truss rod would be around the 6th fret, i fear that this is to close to the nut.

I could imagine that the trussrod is bending the neck in a strange hockey stick shape that would only make setups in the future miore challenging instead of giving more flexibility with string gauges. What is your experience with that

Should I better use carbon fibre and tell the custumer not to change stringe gauges too much?

Thanks a lot in advance

Jacob