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A mild steel truss rod will expand and contract at a rate of 0.0000073 inches (7.3 millionths of an inch) per inch per degree Fahrenheit. If the guitar was at 72 degrees Fahrenheit and cooled to -10 degrees Fahrenheit that would be an 82 degree change in temperature. This would make the truss rod contract 0.0005986 inches per inch of length. A 21-fret 24.75 inch scale guitar neck is will typically measure 17.39173228 inches from the nut to the 21st fret. That would make the total shrinkage of the truss rod 0.0104107 inches over its entire length. I’m not certain what threads are used on MIJ Squier truss rod nuts, but they are likely M4 diameter x 0.7mm pitch or M5 diameter x 0.8mm pitch metric threads. An M4 x 0.7mm truss rod nut will move 0.027559055 inches per revolution and an M5 x 0.8 mm pitch nut will move 0.031496063 inches per revolution. That makes the 0.0104107 inches of truss rod shrinkage equal to 119 to 136 degrees of truss rod nut rotation or between 1/3 and 3/8 of a turn, depending upon the pitch of the truss rod nut. The neck wood will shrink as well, but only about 0.0000017 to 0.0000027 inches per inch per degree Fahrenheit or a total of 0.0024244 to 0.0038505 inches over the length of the truss rod. Easy answer…yep, could have snapped from the cold...and...

Life IS Good!!

The contraction is small, according to those figure, less than a turn of the nut. Mild steel is less brittle and can bend more easily. But repeated temperature change will expose any fault in the metal, a weakness where the the steel is less flexible. Any brittleness could well be exacerbated by extreme cold. I don't think these temperatures will alter the crystal structure enough to induce the weakness.

Bello the Clown Ringmaster with Ringling Brothers Circus.

Gave Stephen Stills s/t side 2 a whirl this afternoon. Nice feature on this one in a recent Classic Rock mag. Apparently Hendrix's final session makes up a tune. I love the use/makeup of the backing vox on this record.

Damn...busted! Not out of my humble brain...I have software that calculates thermal expansion of various materials, motion based on thread pitch, and fret spacing for different scale lengths...took about 3-4 minutes to plug in the numbers and...voila! It's the seeds and stems...really

I know that Ray is a learned individual - he knows his shit for sure, but not even Mr. Spock could rattle that off in such a confident, precise fashion. Right?

Either that or he just gave the most dead-on-balls-accurate answer the internet has ever seen

Let's face it. Tom can play any make/model he wants to and he is choosing Hamer. However you slice it that is just cool.