The neck on my 98' CIJ strat bowed really badly and the truss rod was useless after a certain point. I tried everything but I eventually had to replace the neck. One thing you might try is forcing the neck into a back bow against a straight edge and then tightening the truss rod -- that works in some cases, if even for a short time. I wrote about it here:
http://surfguitar101.com/forums/topic/21319/?page=1#p279865
unfortunately it only worked for a while in my case and the neck slowly warped again.
The neck on my 1964 mustang is straight as an arrow however, and I've never done a thing to it. I think it has to do with guitar makers using new growth wood, which just isn't as strong as old growth

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Should be a Bi-flex truss rod system. Huge mystery to me!

Where's Jeff?

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Might be information I shouldn't know about lol! Will it help my situation getting to it?

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StratDancer,
I have to agree with Psycho.. new wood with 12/54 heavy gauge strings along with (perhaps) high action is not conducive to having a straight neck.

I had a similar problem with a Telecaster.. had it set up twice. It stayed in the case for 4-6 months- unplayed. When I went to play it, there was enough room to drive a car under the strings. Feed up, I had a new neck installed. My luthier looked at the removed warped neck and told me that the truss rod really had no metal to bite into at one end - only more wood which softened up over time - i.e it was not constructed properly.

Such is the problem with mass produced instruments. They look pretty but can they hold up?

This is the reason why I continually seek out older instruments and parts like necks and bodies. If you think about it, putting a Strat together is kind of like building a toy car with an erector set (anyone remember those?). It's not brain surgery.
And -
There are more modern (and better) components available to add to a "re-purposed" guitar. But you have the older more solid wood as a base "chassis".

They can do this with 40-80+ year old automobiles. So why can't it be done on a dated, gutted, older guitar?

This approach has worked for me - many times over. One of the most eye catching, best sounding, best playing Mosrites I have was put together this way.

My 2 cents
J Mo'

Some neck Can t Handle big gauge
Dépend on the profil thin neck Will Bow more
Dépend of the stifness of the mapple some are really hard some other very soft
Dépend of the drying ,a not full dry Wood Will move
Dépend of the construction, one piece are less rigid than with rosewood or ebony fretboard
The type of truss double action are more easyer to set up and normaly more stable
Single action like fender one Can break if you force them to much or the nut(the one you set up)can go in the Wood ,some Guy put washer to conteract This
The Anchor Can break too

What is the thickness of your neck and it is really hard or more soft ?

'

ludobag wrote:

Some neck Can t Handle big gauge
Dépend on the profil thin neck Will Bow more
Dépend of the stifness of the mapple some are really hard some other very soft
Dépend of the drying ,a not full dry Wood Will move
Dépend of the construction, one piece are less rigid than with rosewood or ebony fretboard
The type of truss double action are more easyer to set up and normaly more stable
Single action like fender one Can break if you force them to much or the nut(the one you set up)can go in the Wood ,some Guy put washer to conteract This
The Anchor Can break too

What is the thickness of your neck and it is really hard or more soft ?

'
Average thickness but I'm not the original owner so what the original owner so who knows what the last guy did. Its obvious that once the problem is solved I will have to detune especially in the summer humidify.

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Here's my experience with 12-52 gauge strings on my six US-made Strats: 4 of them have had no problems ('87 black '62RI, '87 fiesta red Strat Plus, '09 Ice Blue Metallic '62RI, '12 Dakota Red '65RI) and the necks tend to be highly stable; the other 2 Strats have necks that shift around a fair amount - '97 shoreline gold '62RI (with a '99 neck) and indeed my '12 Jade Pearl Am Std Strat, like Stradancer's above. It is quite sensitive to changes in humidity and heat, and it's the only guitar for which I've finally broken down and started doing my own truss rod adjustments, after refusing to do it for many years due to not feeling comfortable with that kind of work - but with the truss rod opening at the headstock, it's not that big of a deal. However, though it starts bowing in the Fall/Winter, it always flattens back out in the Spring, so the truss rod can returns to its original position.

The truss rod on the '99 neck on my '97 Shoreline Gold '62RI did at one point reach the end, and I took it to my repair guy at Elderly Instruments who was able to fix it - he 'baked' the neck in a special neck oven, if I remember correctly, which straightened it out (and also removed all the bumps in the back - bonus!) and allowed the truss rod to start from the normal position again. Though the neck continues to be unstable and bow, it now has a lot more adjustment potential. I would recommend finding somebody that is able to do this kind of work to fix it for you. It's a PITA for sure. It just seems that some necks are stable and others are not, and there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it. Good luck!!

Ivan
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Ivan StratDancer,
"_It just seems that some necks are stable and others are not, and there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it.___"

Au contraire (a little French lingo, there)- There is most certainly rhyme and reason to it. Essentially, as many luthiers have told me, the answer is simple - WOOD. A very knowledgeable sort here at Matt Umanov's here in NYC once informed me that wood is going to do whatever wood wants to do. We're dealing with a substance that is organic - but is still "dead" at the same time. There are things like internal molecular structure, unseen knots, permanent to semi permanent changes in its structure under certain temperatures and humidity.. - in short, it's sometimes a crap shoot.

I've had one or two Mosrite necks bend irrevocably on me over the years. One was my own damn fault putting 12's on that neck. The other was just a plain old bad neck.

From my experience, if a neck goes bad, it probably will go bad again. So my modus operandus is to either replace the neck and try again, sell the guitar(with all the "warts" described) - or keep the rest of the guitar for parts - the wiser choice when it came to my Mosrites.

Like I stated in another post: There is no justice when it comes to guitars.

For what it's worth to all
J Mo'

???
Any future event is relatively impossible to know ahead of time.

Given an sufficient amount of $$$, I'm sure an engineering lab could determine why a neck goes bad. The "reason" - it will be there after exhaustive ($$$) analysis. This doesn't get you a working guitar and the outcome will be the same - get a new goddamn neck.

Suffice to say - after one, maybe two shots at straightening out a neck, if it bows or warps back, it's time to retire it and try a new one. On a utility Strat(with so many around, most are), this should be quite easy and straightforward. From an economic point of view (Ivan), getting a new neck stops throwing good money after bad. The neck just isn't going to do what you want - as in stay put. Two shots with bad results is enough for me. Maybe I've lucked out with luthiers who advised me early to just replace the neck for the few times it's happened to me. Remember, it's wood -made by mother nature- it's not metal or plastic with very specific composition and scientific specifications.

Ex-guitars, ex girlfriends, ex-wives...... You have to know when to bail.

J Mo'