Andyjr1515

Absolutely flippin' gorgeous!

Goodness... Well - I 'spose no harm in asking

I'm delighted to see that doing what it was built for, @Kateplaysbass - playing Truly made my day

Yes - as @itu points out above, a CITES exemption came through at the end of 2019 in terms of most commonly used species of rosewood used in guitars, including parts and accessories. Also, there are plenty of dark wood alternatives that most luthiers can use. $400 for a neck made by the guy who designed it - grab it. It generally costs me well over $200 just for the wood! Oh - and two truss rods won't sort a 'naturally twisted' neck. The only thing worth trying would be planing the joining face flat and straight - but, as you can imagine, that has it's own challenges and consequences And the third option - £1000 to make a neck??? Really??? Did he/she have a royal 'By Appointment to...' crest?

Good news - good customer service all round. Nice to see

You should be covered if it was new. This is GAK's Warranty Statement off their website: "Warranty We want our customers to buy from us in confidence that their purchase is covered under warranty should anything go wrong. Some manufacturers may offer extended warranty periods if you choose to register the goods, so we always recommend checking the manufacturer’s website. All new items are covered by the manufacturer’s minimum 1-year warranty Second-Hand, B-stock and Ex-Display items have a 3-month warranty"

Nearly a year is less than a year and so it may well be still under warranty. And if it is still under warranty then it's definitely a warranty job - there is no 'misuse/abuse/lack of maintenance' that can cause that that wouldn't show signs of misuse elsewhere. If it is out of warranty and they start talking silly repair costs, shout - in terms of stabilising it rather than going for the 'invisible repair', there is a relatively simple and easy fix I can talk through with you that you would be able to do yourself. But only resort to that if a warranty claim is a complete no-no and they offer no other acceptable fix.

No harm at all in just creeping up on the target weight. Looking good from here!

7mm will certainly help - probably lose 0.8lbs if I have my calcs correct. One thing you could maybe consider is taking more thickness out of the middle area at the back - a bit like Warwick do with their Thumbs. I've done that on many (most) of my own builds over the past 4-5 years - it has the advantage of taking weight out without vastly reducing the depth of the chambers - this kind of thing: It doesn't have to be as deep as this to still make a big, big difference. This one was the 34" Jazz bass I built for @Len_derby where we were aiming for 'as light as we could get'. From memory it ended at around 6.5lbs

With all the AI shenanigan's going on, there is no guarantee that this is correct, but according to that great cloud in the sky "The difference between lacquer and varnish is the type of finish used. Lacquers are thin, fast-drying finishes, while varnishes are thick, slower drying finishes." But maybe the actual facts have been lost in English/Russian/Chinese/Many other World Languages translation...

Fear not - other than a couple of scenarios, then the truss rod adjustment is rarely the difference between not being able to play a bass and being able to playing it OK. But a properly set-up truss rod - all other things being equal - will generally make a bass play better and easier. And checking it is easy: - Remember that what we are after, ideally, is that the neck is very-nearly-almost straight. - The big no-no is a back-bow, where the fretboard basically has a hump in the middle...this can lead to buzzing frets. - And the easiest way to check that you don't have a back bow is to make sure you have a teeny bit of forward bow-and-arrow bow. So to check: - (you may need a capo or a friend here) Hold down the top string at the 1st fret and the 14th fret both at the same time. - While still holding those down, tap the string onto the fret nearest the middle (usually, around 5th or 6th fret) - Is there a perceptible gap between the string and fret (ie it 'taps') or is the string hard against that middle fret? If the string is hard against that middle fret, then the trussrod needs loosening. For most basses, that means turning the adjuster anti-clockwise. The general rule is turn it 1/8 turn, recheck and if still hard against the fret, then loosen it another 1/8th. If there still no tangible gap when you tap the string after a 1/4 turn it is usually wise to ask (and asking here is fine). But if, on the first check, there is a tangible gap, then it is about how big that gap is from the bottom of the string to the top of the fret. Don't worry about feeler gauges, etc., near enough is good enough. - if it is about the thickness of a business card or less, it is fine. - if the gap is much greater than the thickness of a business card, then the string tension is bowing the neck a touch too much and, for an ideal set-up, the truss rod needs tightening a touch to reduce that gap. On most basses that means turning the adjuster clockwise. It can be quite stiff to turn and so, if the gap on your bass is excessive, I would suggest you report back here and we can give you some more detailed guidance.

I'm sure once upon a time there was a difference (I think I remember that all lacquers were types of varnish but not all varnishes were lacquer), but in common parlance the terms are pretty interchangeable

Yes - but you probably won't have done the fingernail test. It is a very severe test, especially with some of the softer woods that are used in guitar/bass building as the finish has to be stronger than the underlying wood, otherwise it flexes, the wood underneath starts to deform and then the whisper-thin finish gives way.

Yes - other than some two-pack products (need equipment and pro-level skill) or industrial processes (need an industrial estate and a small fortune) then most gloss finishing products - whether they are water-based, oil-based, wax-based or spirit-based - that are readily available need a good few weeks to fully harden. Some take months. Most of the products I use (haven't yet found a water-based that has been successful - but that's probably me and not the products), generally old-fashioned high-volatiles polyurethane varnish or the much more environmentally-friendly wax-based Osmo ranges, are handle-able within 24 hours and some can be polished up within a week, but the fingernail test is a tough one. Nitro-spray needs special health and safety precautions but is polishable quicker - not sure, though, how they fare with the fingernail test (and some - look up Gibson Sticky Necks on Google - never fully cure). Some of the finishes I use will never pass the fingernail test.

Perfect. G&W are a good supplier. One of my 'not very interesting claims to fame' is that I wrote their 'How to Set Up the G&W Mitre/Fret Slotting Jig' guide for them .

Just checked and David Dyke don't do Zebrano for fingerboards, but there are some decent timbers in their bass range. And yes - as stated here below - they still do a fret slotting service. It's well worth thinking about and I'm pretty sure it is not a large on-cost : https://luthierssupplies.co.uk/product-category/electric/electric-fingerboards Other suppliers are, of course, available

That's a splendid looking bass! On the one hand, non-playable but nice looking builds make for a perfect wall hanging subjects (Ask me how I know ) On the other hand - yes, I'm sure that would be fixable both in terms of weight and fretboard. But yes, there's quite a bit of work involved. Just some thoughts from someone who's hacked, bashed, b******d and built most varieties of bass and guitar over the past few years: - don't worry too much about the Workmate. All of my early builds and mods were done with one, including at least two NoTreble 'Bass of the Week''s! But: yes, it slows everything down waiting for dry weather; cleaning up is a pain; it makes for a challenge if you are planing...the force of the plane tends to push the workmate round the garden rather than cutting neat curls of wood shaving. - You would be able to take a significant amount of weight out without affecting the on-the-strap balance as your front strap pin is very well placed. Over the knee, yes it might be a bit neck heavy - Reducing thickness of the body is by far the most effective way of reducing weight as long as your pickup chambers are shallow enough to allow. Your sticky out length of the through neck with the tuners will be 3lbs-ish. Your pickups, etc, prob 1.5lbs-ish - so your body wood is going to be around 5.5lbs. If it's, say 35mm thick and you are able to take 10mm off without bursting into the pickup chambers, you will lose 1.6lbs weight. Routing a chamber in the back of upper horn (which won't adversely impact on the balance) might take out another 0.4lbs - retro-chambering doesn't take out anywhere as much weight as you expect. But you then have an 8lb bass that still balances on the strap. - Fretboard-wise, yes you have a choice - and I think it's as broad as it's long. Personally, I would take the board off and start again with a new blank (if you bought the blank from David Dyke, pretty sure they still do a slotting service for not much at all). But that's maybe because I've removed fretboards a few times.

The neck itself should be structurally fine with most reasonable changes of string tension and tuning. The thing that will be affected, however, is the neck relief and most major changes of either string gauge or tuning are improved by a check of the relief and, if necessary, a tweak of the trussrod. The string tension pulls the neck into a small 'bow-and-arrow' bow and the trussrod counteracts that by creating a back bow resulting in an 'almost straight'** neck - and so if you down-tune a bass previously properly set up in standard tuning, the string tension will be less and the neck will be pulled back by the truss rod, potentially into a back-bow. **'almost straight' because it is necessary to leave a teeny bit of bow-and-arrow bow (the relief) Shout if you need a simple ABC of checking and adjusting the neck relief.

Yes - they were very nice indeed

And a stunningly beautiful bass that was, too! Potentially, yes - if the adjuster was welded to the other end (or the two threaded blocks were fitted the other way round) then I reckon yes - if would operate in 'reverse'. All other things being equal, I can't think of any advantage in doing that, but there might be one. Anyone know?

Well, guitar and bass builder, for what that's worth And here, I am talking 'conventional' single action or two-way truss rods. While there are some unconventional and custom trussrod approaches, nevertheless, sticking with the conventional types it is usual - and I've never personally come across any that are not - that 'standard' single-action truss rods are 'righty-tighty' (ie clockwise to increase the back-bow to counteract the string tension's bow and arrow bow. Here's what one looks like: The slot is curved, and the rod is also covered by a curved packer under the fretboard which bends the rod. When you tighten the rod, it tries to straighten which bends the neck in the direction required. To make it lefty-tighty, functionally it would work exactly the same but you would actually have to cut a left-handed thread...which is an unnecessary complication and potential confusion to the customer. That said, you can do no real harm with a conventional single action as, if you are turning it the wrong way, the nut will generally just come loose and unscrew off the rod. Two-way rods are different, though. From flat, turn the adjuster one way and it bends one way, turn it the other way and it bends the opposite way. So which way you have to turn the adjuster to create a back bow in the neck depends - not on which way round it is, but which way UP it is. To explain - here's a typical two-way trussrod...and an oft-repeated misleading feature in this photo from a well-respected supplier's web site illustrates the reason that some folks get it wrong. I'll come back to that How it works is that there are opposite screw threads each side of the rod. So if you turn the adjuster, the two screw blocks at each end and welded to the steel strip get closer together or further apart. And so the steel strip and rod have no option to bend either one way or the other, depending which way you turned the adjuster. Turning the adjuster clockwise looking at it from here will bend it one way (in reality, with the above one the two ends will lift off the table). But note that if this was a headstock access and we wanted to adjust it from the heel, then turning the whole thing round so the adjuster is at the other end, then turning the adjuster clockwise looking at it from the heel still bends the same way (above, the two ends still rise off the table). But if we turned the rod the other way UP - so that the steel strip is at the top then, as far as the neck is concerned it is bending the opposite way. And yes, folks - the above photo has it upside down. And most ads for truss rods DO show them the wrong way round - probably because it's easier to photo...and the marketing guys aren't usually the guitar builders. So, to summarise - which way up a conventional two-way rod is fitted will determine if righty-tighty reduces the relief or increases the relief. And, to come finally back to @basexperience 's question. And this is, of course, only my own personal view and experience: Why might you install a rod to 'lefty-tighty' rather than the more conventional 'righty-tighty' ? 1. Hobby Builders - by mistake. Either by assuming the marketing photos show the way up it should be fitted, or not understanding fully how the rod works, or just good old human error - for one of the intentional reasons below 2. Commercial Builders - Note that the adjuster in the photo is vertically offset. So when it is fitted correctly - with the steel strip at the top, the adjuster is low down in the access slot. In some designs, that gives a problem for Allen Key access. I am aware of some designs where they need to get that adjuster as high as possible and turning the bar the other way up will achieve that - Design error. Yes - no names, but I am aware of one company that unknowingly got it wrong...and suffered some understandable owner adjustment neck failures as a result - Manufacture error. Unlikely - as it would immediately show up on initial set-up - but, for the sake of even-handedness, yes, possible. There is, of course, no rule or law, or industry standard on this and so makers are free to do what they want. But I personally think going against the 'convention' without a decent reason is asking for trouble. At the very least it needs to be made very clear to customers and users of the difference and the potential damage likely from not following the recommended set up advice. Oh, and, it goes without saying that the warranty approach needs to be fair given the likely confusion, error and damage. Personal view...

Yes - I would have suggested the Gear4music ones too.

If you do decide to change them, pay particular attention to the dimensions - there is a HUGE variation with makers of sometimes the overall pickup dimensions and, more often, the lug positions and radii. There are even differences across Fender's own pickups... In my experience, it is more often that they don't fit than they do...which is a bit bizarre.

That neck is going to look and feel gorgeous!

If @Waddo Soqable's assumption is correct, then very much exactly what he says ^^^^^ Once you've got the neck off, if you have any doubts then post a photo on here and we can advise as necessary