"Lets Twist again", neck repair

[Grangur]

This is something that has come out of a bit of a challenge that came up in another thread. 

@Bassmingo has a nice Squier and described the neck as "classic ski jump".

Well, I've fixed a few of those so I said, "That's fixable" etc, etc... So as a result the neck arrived here today.

After unpacking it seems the truss rod works fine. I can get it straight and to back-bow with the truss rod. What's not so clever is the twist in the neck. The twist must be something like 4-5 degrees. Well, have to say, I know How these can be fixed, but I've never done one yet. 

So here we go. As it is @Bassmingo was expecting this neck is a write-off, so nothing to loose here. 

Conveniently I've got a nice chunk of kitchen worktop as a bench for this. So I've clamped the neck to the worktop. Put a block under the neck, near the nut, and after fitting a tuner head I've  connected a string to apply the twisting tension.

 

Edited September 15, 2018 by Grangur

[tom1946]

Pics please Rich...

[Grangur]

 The neck is now twisted back to about the right position. If I can, I'll get a picture looking down the length, so you can see.

Really, I'd like to get a bit more of an over-twist going, so when the clamp is relaxed, I have capacity for the twist to turn back just a little. What I've got now is the back of the tuning head is about 1mm from touching the worktop. So I can get a tiny bit more twist going, but not quite as much as I'd like to get.

So, what I've learned here is I should have put the neck resting points up on blocks or spacers. This would have given the added clearance.

What I've also been doing here, that I didn't mention, is I've been applying heat to the neck. Heat helps the glue in the neck relax and helps the neck twist. I've done this by putting a cloth over the frets and heating using a clothes iron.

By using the iron the neck gets quite warm. Another thing I didn't mention is, when clamped I also checked the motion of the truss rod. All is working perfectly. Well, that is to say I can loosen it. I've not yet tightened it. 

When fixing other necks with a ski-jump, I've always tightened the TR before releasing the clamp. My plan is to do this on this one too. For now though,  it's early days. This will be taken slowly with more heating later.

[BreadBin]

Interesting, I may give this a go with my BC Rich. 

[Grangur]

18 minutes ago, BreadBin said:

Interesting, I may give this a go with my BC Rich. 

There are a few threads about this on TB and folk on YouTube saying the only way to fix this is to take the fret-board off and reshape the neck. Yet, this has to worth a good try. Especially so, when the Luther costs for this could easily be more than half of the value of the bass.

On another bass that had a broken truss rod, I took it to a luthier. It turned out that bass had a twisted neck. It too was repaired in exactly this method.

Edited September 15, 2018 by Grangur

[BreadBin]

Thanks for sharing @Grangur - much the same as you have said above there's no harm in trying, mine is basically wall art at the moment! 

[Grangur]

This morning I gave the tuning head another small turn or 3. The first small turns were quite easy to turn. The tuning head still isn't quite grounded on the worktop.  I then got the clothes iron out again and gave it another heat up through a cloth.

Looking at the progress, it's looking like it's getting pretty flat. I'm expecting the frets will need levelling, but It's looking a lot better than it was yesterday, not that I'd want to take the clamps off yet.

[Andyjr1515]

Very interesting stuff, @Grangur   I particularly like that method you are using to add the twist. Looks very controllable.

[Grangur]

It is @Andyjr1515. As you'll appreciate, a good turn on the tuner makes only a small increase in the tension. So it would take some going to really whack up the tension and do shock damage.  After all, slowly does it: No need to rush. It's going to take the wood a while to adjust to the new position.

[Twincam]

Good work. I remember reading the original thread and thinking it could probably be sorted. 

Using a little heat is a good idea. If it was a really bad twist I might of been tempted to use a little steam too, from the rear of the neck (sparingly).

Boiled linseed or lemon oil on the fret board before unclamping too. Might help, but can't hurt even if it doesn't. 

[Grangur]

Thanks @Twincam. I have been using steam out of the iron. Apart from anything it will help increase the penetration of the heat... or that's my theory anyway.

[timhiggins]

Nice work Rich i probably have one or two basses that could do with a little of this 

i may have to have a go myself...

i wonder how much overcompensating needs to be done to have the twist settle back to straight.. 

[Grangur]

Last night I have the neck a final tweak. The tuner bottomed out. So I removed the clamp to raise the blocks. It stayed straight. So I left it out of the clamp.

This morning it is still straight. Job done. All that's left now is to level the frets.

[Grangur]

All done and packed and message sent to @Bassmingo for him to send labels for shipping. Completed.

[Bassmingo]

@Grangur I really want to thank you for your efforts in this. I was convinced the neck was a write-off, but you were adamant that it could be rescued. I'm looking forward to getting it back and strung up (and mentioning to a few guys on TB that they were wrong)

Thanks again!

[Norris]

Excellent job @Grangur

[hooky_lowdown]

Well done @Grangur brilliant work.

[gary mac]

Well done @Grangur , excellent work mate.