Bridgehouse

If you tighten the truss rod you are removing relief and counteracting the increased tension of the strings. Chromes aren’t a huge tension change from TIs in reality - after installing the action had increased by no more than a mm (after having time to settle) Adding a bit of tension to the rod to remove the added relief from the new strings should have been fine: Righty tighty, lefty loosey. The string action did indeed come done by about a mm - but 15/20 mins later, massive cracking noise and there you go.. Funnily enough the action hasn’t changed a jot..

I wouldn’t want you to be subject to the almighty cracking noise I heard last night. It was the most terrifying noise I’ve heard..

Unless your truss rod has an attack of the suicidals which mine seems to have done! Then again, maybe my bass committed self destruction to stop my cack-handed playing - sort of like the ultimate act of an instrument trying to avoid being tortured

It’s an incredible bass. And it’s beautiful to play (apart from the splinters now ) Jons view is this is a catastrophic truss rod failure - I tend to agree

Oh, and thanks for the sneering and patronising comment. Naturally, you know me so well that you’ll know exactly when I’ll be none the wiser. As it happens they were given to be by a well respected repairer for free. So yeah - duped. I miss the good old days when people could be civil and polite and pay a little respect to each other.

Like I said, they look neat. End of.

Sadly they don’t look like they used to... https://www.musicstore.de/en_GB/GBP/Wersi-PERGAMON-OAX1000-pearly-white/art-KEY0004476-000?campaign=GShopping/UK&ProgramUUID=HADAqJarPzAAAAFlea9yjI.G&gclid=Cj0KCQjwguDeBRDCARIsAGxuU8b38Nh19nbYNrA0tNHZgoV5VvHQ5RTiCaBB2q9yg7tNrGBeP13lpjQaAmzyEALw_wcB

You can buy a brand new Wersi if you’d like one - they are only £40k

Yeah. I’m distracting myself looking at 5 stringers

Cheered me up tho

The album?

Of course - I have organists in my blood - two aunts, two uncles and my dad. One uncle was a proper enthusiast!

I only got them cos they look neat.

Me and Mrs B collect vinyl. A friend of ours bought that album for me as a p1ss take - I decided to wall mount it for a laugh - we get no end of questions when people come round

I’ve got a set - it would be hard to do this with a card as the shims are wedge shaped - the pack comes with different angles.

Dat tractor tho..

Pride of place on our wall...

To be fair it would have been a much more serious financial disaster if that had broken!

Thanks for the thoughts. I’m sure Jon will do a great job. I think the problem is right now I’m struggling with it. Probably natural I expect. I’m sure a week away will help me to get my thinking straight. I’ve been contemplating a 5 for a while - I now need to decide whether to go fretted or fretless with it. Not sure if I will get to a point where I’ll feel happy gigging the Shuker but we shall see. Part of me wants to keep it for recording as it sounds so glorious - but I know my reaction at the moment is heat of the moment. Thinking about a five is helping me to not think about it sitting there I must admit. I’m just not sure whether to go fretted and replace the Finn 4 with something more flexible or go fretless and have that as my gigging fretless bass. Sigh

Thanks for all the comments folks - really appreciated. I may possibly have had a speck of sentiment in my eye last night. Mrs B is gutted for me too and has said “we need to get you a new one, don’t we” Naturally I said, “yeah we do - a fretted 5 string so I can forget all about it”

Yeah - I have total confidence in Jon - he’s seen all my pictures of it and thinks it’s fine to repair. It’s more the emotional thing now. I fettle basses a lot, I’ve built lots of partscaster’s so I’m hardly a bumbling fool about it all - for me, tho, I’m comparing it to my ACG Finn which is my regular gig bass and that one is utterly reliable and faultless

It is, sadly

Jon has responded. I’m away for a week but when I’m back it’s going over to him. Looks like a truss rod failure. Should be fixable pretty easily he thinks. It was actually much less than a 1/4 turn - I’d say perhaps 20 degrees max as there isn’t room in the truss rod channel to do a full quarter turn. I shall report back in a few weeks when Jon has had a chance to look at it. I’m obviously gutted, but I’m just not sure how I feel about it at the moment.

Changed the strings on the Uberhorn Fretless. Put Chromes on. It had TI Flats so the truss rod needed a tweak. Less than a 1/4 turn to add a bit more tension. Tuned up. 15 mins later there is an almighty crack. And this: I've emailed Jon. I'm sure there's a repair that can be done. Maybe. I don't know if the truss rod has failed, or if it's something else, but either way, I've lost confidence in this bass. The electronics have been completely replaced after multiple failures, and now this has happened. It took every sinew of self control I have not to just bin it. Even if I get it repaired, I'm just going to be wondering what is going to go wrong with it next. It plays sublimely, it sounds incredible, but I could never play it live as I just don't trust it anymore. I will never get the money back I've sunk into it now either - regardless of what is done to it, it will have had a neck repair. My bank balance is going to take a real hammering now, as I'm going to have to replace it. Gutted.