Owned mine for about a year and half now. Been noticing more buzz on the frets recently while using the same 9 gauge strings I always have and standard E tuning. After doing an analysis of relief with a capo on the first fret and holding down the last, there isn't even enough clearance for even the .010 on the feeler gauge to pass between the 8th fret smoothly on the low E string. Neck appears to have an almost perfectly straight / close to backbow condition. Like a moderate to low action, but this doesn’t seem right anymore.

Questions:

Access to the truss rod on these is at the neck/body joint, not the headstock. I have other guitars which I've done these adjustments before so I know the drill. But...

1) When I unscrewed the neck from the body, I see the access to the truss rod, but there is a large Phillips style metal screw. Is that what you use to do the adjustment using a Phillips head screwdriver, or is that simply a cover that you unscrew and temporarily remove to gain access to the actual truss rod screw joint?

2) I've found a ton of conflicting data online for adjusting truss rods with the access screw located here, instead at the head stock. With the truss road adjustment done here, is it still Lefty Loosey, Righty Tighty or reversed? So to fix this, I figure I'm going to want to loosen it in 1/4 turns till I get a bit more relief and buzzing decline.

Thanks.