Andyjr1515

Splendid job then and now

Great stuff. Looking forward to the next one!

OK - thanks One more question. If you hold down the G string at the 1st fret and 16th fret at the same time, approximately how much a gap is the bottom of the string above the 8th fret. Business card thickness-ish? Credit card thickness-ish? More than a mm-ish? In the meantime, I'll PM you.

Hi @PaulThePlug's cough has just disturbed my winter slumber - so I may as well wake up enough to make a cup of tea before entering the spring slumber. A couple of questions: - you have a good tech, if it's the one you mention in your 'For Sale' ad. The ad mentions the action and the seized truss rod but not how much bow (relief) there is in the neck. Has your man confirmed that it is the neck relief/trussrod adjustment that is causing the problem and high action rather than the neck angle? - is the fretboard gloss finished? - are you happy to (or would your man) take the neck off and send it by post and refit? There are some risks involved with taking off fretboards and replacing them - worst case it that it could end up as a scrapper, best case (without a full refinish which then starts becoming prohibitive) is that it would probably be visible that the fretboard has been removed (especially as the side dots appear to be drilled along the join) - but it is a possibility.

That's lovely! I will be watching with great interest. Love old basses and this is the tops!

As a hand arthritis sufferer myself (it's a b****r, isn't it!) and adding that I have modded most of my own basses and guitar necks as it's progressed, a few suggestions if they help. Yes - you are both spot on. The neck shape and width makes a BIG difference. And yes, a shorter scale tends to be much easier on arthritic hands - I personally struggle nowadays with full length basses. If your builder hasn't already taken the frets out, I suggest he considers a small change to the sequence. With reference to the width, I would suggest that the neck has a 'rough' narrowing BEFORE the frets are taken out. I just use the fine side of a shinto rasp, downwards from the fret side so that the frets are being pushed into their slots rather than pulled out of them. Maybe a bit more extreme than your builder would be comfortable with, but, personally, I do this with the bass still fully strung up so that I, or the owner if it's not my own instrument, can try it 'on the fly'. The advantage is that - whether the strings are left on or taken off - you can take a bit of width off and try it until the width feels 'right'. Once it does, your builder can then take the neck off and finish it properly but with the basic width now already determined. I did this on my own dreadnought acoustic quite recently. It went from unplayable to public performable in one afternoon. I'm sure that your builder will also suggest this, but I would take material off the neck shoulders either side of the neck centre spine before deciding to reduce the actual neck depth. So I'm talking about a 'soft' V to try first (shape 2 below). This sort is done by simply taking material off the shoulders, shown in shape 1, up to the dotted yellow line either side of the central depth of the neck : The reason is that, especially with arthritis, too thin a neck can be problematic and lead to cramp. You can always take a bit of thickness off later, but I would start with the the shoulders - I find that it totally transforms the feel of a neck

Top drawer

Here's the run through I recently did for a Basschat colleague. The diagrams aren't mine but I couldn't track down from the google stuff who it was I needed to acknowledge - so all credit to the folks who drew them! What is Neck Relief ? One of the first things that is done when setting up a bass is checking the neck relief. It is easy to check, relatively easy to adjust and can be the difference between a beautifully playing instrument and an unplayable one! This is what it's all about: 1. Bass necks are flexible and the string tension tries to bend the neck like a bow-and-arrow string does : 2. To play well, the neck needs to be 'almost' straight and so, internally, there is a trussrod fitted that pulls the neck in the opposite direction to counteract the string tension (I will explain 'almost' straight shortly). So, depending on the string tension and the opposite pull from the trussrod, it is possible for the neck to end up straight, or bowed upwards, or bowed backwards. Greatly exaggerated in this picture but like this: 3. The effect on the playability of the guitar or bass of these three conditions is shown below: Note the effect of back bow, in condition 'C' above. Buzzing from the middle of the fretboard. And back-bow is the most problematic because the strings will buzz at certain places or certain situations. And so the general rule for set up of the neck is: "Get it as straight as possible but without the possibility of back bow occurring." But, because weather conditions change, because we might use alternative tunings, because we might fit a set of different tension strings, and we never want back bow, then we change the above general rule a little, to become: "Get it as straight as possible, and then add a teeny bit of forward bow" And that teeny bit of forward bow, showing as a gap between the bottom of the string to the top of the fret is referred to as the 'Neck Relief' How do you measure the amount of relief of your bass neck? OK - now to measure the amount of bow on your own neck. And it's VERY easy to do. And ref below, near enough is good enough. We are going to use the string itself as our straight-edge. All you need to do: - tune the bass up normally - hold the G string down to the fretboard in two places - just in front of the nut, and just before the neck joins the body (see pic below) - while doing that, look at how big a gap there is under the string in the middle of those two points (usually around where the 8th fret position is) (marked with yellow arrow in pic below) From the side view, this is what you are doing (ignore the gubbins under the fretboard in this picture): Because of the length of a bass, this is easier if you have someone else holding down one of the two positions - or if you have a capo, use that at the 1st fret position to hold that end down. At the mid point (yellow arrow), there are three possibilities: 1. The string has a gap, and it is around or less than 0.5mm (approximately the thickness of a business card). Teeny gaps can be confirmed by tapping the string down to the fretboard. If it moves and taps, there is a gap. If it is rock solid, then refer to 3 below. This is the ideal situation. See A in diagram above or 2. The string has a gap underneath, but that gap is larger than 0.5mm / business card thickness. This is less than ideal. See B in diagram above or 3. There is no gap at the mid point - the string is hard against the fretboard. This is not good. See C in diagram above.

I'll post it later today

Yes -like that.

Oh my goodness!

Hi @budget bassist Yes - I remember the thread. You did a good job - nice 'tidy up'. As @Norris says, we could do with a shot from this angle (with strings on is fine) to be able to judge: But, as Norris also says, fret wear is generally seen as grooves that are created directly under the string and, unless you have had the whole fretboard re-levelled a number of times, it is unlikely that your frets are going to be too shallow across their full width. What is the difficulty you are having with your chords? - the pressure you are having to apply to hold the chords down? - buzzes when you are fully holding the chords down? - specific types of chord, such as bar chords? - something else? Oh, and what gauge of strings do you usually use?

Coming along nicely

Another splendid build. Can't wait to see the carve - a proper carve top is one of the few things I've chickened out of even having a bash at. Scary biscuits!

Yes, I agree with that. And I would venture to go further. My personal measure when I'm setting up a bass or a guitar is 'when you tap down on the fret, my ideal is "just perceptible" movement'. But there's a 'but' when it comes to trussrods. And that's mainly about who is doing the adjusting. Because many great bass players are not practical, confident, don't have the right tools or, frankly, don't have any interest in the mechanics of their instrument - and there's nothing wrong with that! So my general advice, for what it's worth, to anyone reading who regards themselves in that category is: - Don't use the truss rod to adjust action height. Its only job is to keep the neck straight under string tension - If your bass plays nicely without buzzes at an action you are happy with, then 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. - If your bass plays nicely without buzzes at an action you are happy with but you are curious, then by all means, have a look at how much relief (bow-and-arrow curve) you have using the methods described above and: if the relief (measuring the amount of curve) is no more than the thickness of a credit card, then either leave it alone, or learn how to/find someone who already knows how to reduce the relief somewhere between @Baloney Balderdash's business card and my 'perceptible gap'...the bass may well play better at a lower action height. if it is more than the thickness of a credit card, then learn how to/find someone who already knows to reduce the relief. As @Baloney Balderdash rightly says, less than this amount of relief would be better, but above this level then the bass's playability will certainly be being compromised. if there is no relief at all at the centre point and the string is hard against the 8th fret, then it indicates that the neck may have a back bow (a hump in the middle) and, if so, the truss rod will need adjusting. It needs loosening or the strings will tend to buzz, particularly around the lower and middle fret positions. Learning how to/finding someone who already knows how to adjust it will make the bass play better and, usually, allow you to lower the saddles and action. - But if your bass is buzzing in places, or action is too high, then learn how to/find someone who already knows how to check the relief. On a bass, in terms of set up everything affects everything and the set up should always starts with setting the neck relief. Once that is done, you can assess everything else. Hope the above makes sense. By the way, I answered a basschatter's PM query recently about setting the trussrod and how it works/what it does. In it I used some googled diagrams/pictures to illustrate and clarify what some of the terms we use mean. If anyone is interested, more than happy to copy and paste that here.

Yes - I remember seeing that one. Lovely job. Welcome back

On my own bass, I would go 'B' because when I add a bridge pickup I am usually looking for a tangibly different tone that can be mixed or used by itself for different genres and venues. Even here, I would still use a higher output pickup as suggested above because the signal strength really does drop off the closer you get to the bridge. If I didn't want so much the tone differentiation but wanted to primarily add depth of tone, then I would go 'C' with matched pickups.

That is, indeed, a thing of beauty. Lovely lines, great timber choices and impressive building

Well, if the gap isn't massive and the bass plays fine then I wouldn't worry about it. Don't worry about feeler gauges - they tend to push the strings up and give oversize readings in any case. Basically, with the 1st and 16th fret positions held down: - if the string at the mid point is hard against the frets, it needs loosening, - if the relief is up to the thickness of a credit card and it plays OK, then it's fine - if it's over, say 1.5mm, then you have a choice - if it plays fine you can leave it alone; if the action feels high to play in places even with the saddles at the right heights, then tighten the rod a touch.

If you are starting from a situation that the neck is strung up and the trussrod is already there or thereabouts, then it is unlikely that any 'seasonal' adjustment would ever be any more than 45 degrees to change a slightly high relief to a lower relief. When you say that it doesn't turn as far - do you mean that the resistance gets so great you can't turn it any further? With the G held down at fret 1 and fret 16, how much of a gap do you have at, say, the 7th?

You mean like this one? : Sorry for the bling, folks, but - in my defense - it was a pretty dull dinted black Squier when it started...

Lovely job. Top drawer...

OK - here's the main 'Quick and Dirty Method' that I posted a while ago. But first let's start with the warnings/disclaimers/just general common sense stuff: Warning: This is NOT the way a pro-luthier would do it because it doesn't involve re-crowning and re-polishing the frets and other important stuff. The method is merely intended as a quick fix on your own bass and at your own risk. Also, the absence of a full finish-polish means it's not great if you string bend on your bass (most of us don't). And don't do this on someone else's bass or any particularly valuable one!!! 1. Quick and Dirty way of finding and tackling high spots on frets Use the straight part of an old credit card to use as a 'rocker'. Put the straight edge over 3 frets (use both hands...my other hand here is holding the camera) and does it rock? If it does, then it indicates a high spot at that string position for the middle fret of the three. Do this next to each string for that middle-of-the-three fret and repeat all the way up the board. Normally, when I'm not holding a camera, I would be holding the other side of the card with the other hand and just gently applying pressure on either side. Make a note of any high spot on a simple chart: You must be using the straight part of the card edge and not where it starts curving at the corners and also the edge must be covering only three frets at a time. As the frets start closing up, just use the shorter edge to make sure you're still only covering 3 frets: On a bass, for the first few frets, a credit card isn't long enough. Anything straight and thin will do! : Note, by the way, that you can't check the 1st fret (rare that this is an issue if the nut is cut properly) Next - on the frets where there is a high spot, mark the top of the fret with a non-permanent sharpie: Then take an emery board nail file (most supermarkets, Boots, etc): Use your finger to apply pressure and file gently back and forth in the direction of the fret and where the high spot was under that particular string. The sharpie line disappearing will show you if you're filing in the right place which only needs to be under the actual string that you marked an 'X' against on your plan. A bit either side is OK but don't stray to another string's position unless that was also marked as high. Make sure while you do this bit that the emery board is level so you don't scratch the fretboard itself (and if you have the opportunity, protect the wood with a couple of thin strips of masking tape). Check frequently with the credit card until it doesn't rock anymore THEN STOP! If you have a whole fret that appears to be high, first check that it is seated properly on the fretboard. If it isn't, tap it lightly along the fret with a hammer and recheck. If it's still high, then use the emery board, potentially along the whole fret - but check with the credit card at each string position frequently so you don't overdo it. The fret top will be slightly flat where you've levelled it. On a bass, Quick and Dirty says don't worry about that - I would defy anybody who says they can hear an intonation difference (although you can on a 6 string electric). Also the fret top will be slightly scratched. But the scratches will be along the fret direction and shouldn't give a problem. If it worries you, a fingernail buffer will polish those out to a decent extent (what's a fingernail buffer? Ask wife/partner/sister/mother...they will be in the same area as the emery nail boards)

Hi Martin Yes - sounds like a quick and dirty will fix it. I'll post the 'how to' in the morning

When you say, 'just getting a buzz on the D string', is that at multiple fret positions? If it is a few high spots, I did a 'Quick and Dirty' guide not so long ago - I'll try to dig that out...but if it is buzzing at more than two or three specific positions, then there is probably something else afoot and the quick and dirty method may cause more problems than solve them! I'll dig out the 'quick and dirty' in the meantime