Bad action conundrum

[Marvin]

The local secondary school, at which my kids go to, have several basses, mostly Encore p basses, which are in a pretty dire state quite frankly.

I said to Mrs Marvin, who happens to work there, that if the head of music wanted I'd pop in and give them a basic set up (if possible).

It's the usual story of actions you could drive a bus under, dead strings, missing controls, cracked pickguards etc.

However, all bar one is straightforward to sort out. This one bass has me a little foxed. The action is appalling, probably x3 times higher than what would be considered average. I checked the neck relief and although it was a bit more than you'd want it wasn't way off, it'd only need a tweak. The problem is the saddles are wound right down on the bridge, they won't go any lower yet the strings are a mile off the fretboard.

The only thing I could think was that the neck looked very sunken into the neck pocket, only really the slim rosewood fretboard and a slim slither of of maple. None of my necks are like that.

Advice greatly appreciated

[dyerseve]

Sounds like you need a shim or spacer under the neck i.e.. between it and the body.

Well done for giving your time to help sort these basses for the kids.

[dyerseve]

http://basschat.co.uk/topic/49897-how-to-shim-a-neck/page__pid__496281#entry496281

See this thread for "how to" And confirms why you would do it

[Marvin]

Cheers. A shim, I'd overlooked that. Thanks for the link, it's great 'how to'.

All I hope is that the shim doesn't have to be something like 2 credit cards worth in thickness

The bodies on these basses have got some real nice relicing going on, people would pay good money for this sort of ageing. They have lovely looking couple of Squier strats where the white body on one and the scratchplate on another have gone a lovely yellowy creamy colour. I'm hunting around trying to find bits and bobs to replace broken parts. As I said my wife works there, my kids go there and I know the tech (I was in a band with him briefly).

[HowieBass]

It may be that the troublesome bass had the neck replaced which is why the action is so bad? Hopefuly a shim will resolve everything!

[gary mac]

I get to work on a fair few school instruments and have been impressed with the level of relicing

Not so keen on the assorted crud and gunge that I have to remove from the fret boards though

[BigRedX]

You don't need much of a shim to create a significant change in the neck angle.

[Count Bassy]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1499849283' post='3333992']
You don't need much of a shim to create a significant change in the neck angle.
[/quote]
Yes, Shim it to change the angle rather than to raise the whole thing.