This 1954 strat neck was abused by a screwdriver in the hands of a "so-called" Luthier.  The adjuster had rusted itself to the end of the truss rod through the years, and a bow had developed in the neck.  So, when this Luthier placed too much torque on the adjuster, he broke the anchor loose at the headstock end of the truss rod. 

So what he ended up with  was a spinning,  rusted adjuster, on a truss rod with a free wheeling anchor.  In other words a $3,000.00 neck with a truss rod that was useless.  Not to mention a very ticked off customer.

When I received the neck, I took two x-rays to locate the exact position of the anchor, and the center of the truss rod.  With that information transferred to the neck, the neck was placed in a fixture and the Bridgeport was set up to pin the anchor to the rod and neck in one move without piercing the back of the neck.

Thanks to the use of some modern high tech chemistry, and some applied vibration to the adjuster, it broke loose in a few days.   The adjuster was replaced with a NOS one from my limited stock of old Fender parts.

Now the customer  had a neck on a guitar that was worth way more than the $3,000.00 potential loss of the neck.  The total value of the guitar was saved because there was nothing to see that would indicate that anything had ever been wrong with this neck.