Inserting the Truss Rod

I was dreading the next step - insertion of the truss rod - and my dread was justified. My plan was to rout a straight 1/4" channel down the center of the neck on the fingerboard side.  It worked great on a test piece of pine!  Then when I routed the mahogany, the router wandered a bit; very depressing.   Here is the channel with the truss rod showing.  The truss rod is a piece of zinc-plated steel rod with 10-32 threads, about a buck at the generic home improvement warehouse.

Looks good here.  Pride prevents me from showing the mistakes.  Also shown above is a 1/4" oak insert which will be contoured to make a curved truss rod channel.  Here is the nut end.  I drilled through to the channel using a hand-held power drill with a long 1/4" drill bit.  Success on both ends where the drill bit landed right in the channel!

Here is the oak fitting snuggly in the channel.  I think will be OK since it fits well along most of the channel.

Here is the other end of the neck.  I drilled a 1/2" hole, then a 3/8" hole.  To keep the truss rod from turning, I tightened two 10-32 nuts against each other, then tapped the assembly into the 3/8" hole.  Should do.  Hey, how often do you adjust the truss rod anyway?