Can you take mother of pearl out of a neck and put it into another ?

[Bef]

I have recently bought a 70s jazz bass off of Facebook marketplace for £150 and the neck is warped so I’m looking at getting another neck to body on the body. The only problem is that despite it not being a high end bass it has big square mother of pearl inlays ? Instead of the normal dots. Im completely in love with it and wondering if it would be possible to somehow transfer it from my the current bass neck into another ? Might be a dumb question but any answers would be appreciated.

 

For reference it’s an Avon rose morris 3407 jazz bass ( I tried adding a link to a picture but couldn’t figure it out )

[Jonesy]

Hmmm, I've never done anything like this but I'd have thought there's a few things to consider.....

 

If you're thinking of buying a neck with block inlays and dropping the old inlays in, will the inlays be the same shape and depth as the holes? It might take some sanding/filling to work, but I think sanding the inlays, while not damaging the fretboard, if they were too tall would be a tough job.

 

How bad is the neck? It might be easier to remove the whole fretboard and put that on a new neck? 

 

Tbh, I have no idea though. The folks in the repair forum would be the most helpful 😃 

 

[Bef]

1 hour ago, Jonesy said:

Hmmm, I've never done anything like this but I'd have thought there's a few things to consider.....

 

If you're thinking of buying a neck with block inlays and dropping the old inlays in, will the inlays be the same shape and depth as the holes? It might take some sanding/filling to work, but I think sanding the inlays, while not damaging the fretboard, if they were too tall would be a tough job.

 

How bad is the neck? It might be easier to remove the whole fretboard and put that on a new neck? 

 

Tbh, I have no idea though. The folks in the repair forum would be the most helpful 😃 

 

Thank you for the reply, 

 

I don’t actually know how bad it is as it’s my first bass but there’s basically no space between the fretboards and strings at the top and very far off at the last frets so I can only assume it’s quite bad. 
 

I think I’ll probably just buy a new neck and put it on and hang the old neck on my wall as I don’t want to risk breaking or damaging anything. It was a passing though so but there was nothing online about it ( which prob isn’t the best sign) so I just thought to ask on here. 
 

Thanks 😁

[tauzero]

1 hour ago, Bef said:

I don’t actually know how bad it is as it’s my first bass but there’s basically no space between the fretboards and strings at the top and very far off at the last frets so I can only assume it’s quite bad. 

 

That sounds like it needs the relief either reducing or increasing (I'm not sure which way round you're using "top" and "last frets"), and possibly shimming.

 

If the strings are close to the frets at the headstock end but far off at the body end, there's either too much relief in the neck or the neck is tilted forwards.

 

If the strings are close to the frets at the body end but far off at the headstock end, there's either too little relief in the neck (possibly a backbow) or the neck is tilted back.

 

Either take it to someone who knows what they're doing to see if it can be set up, or learn to do setups yourself (it's not hard).

 

And you can just paste the URL of the image into your post, as long as it starts "https://" and ends ".jpg", ".png", or ".gif"

[jd56hawk]

Removing fretboard inlays and having them put in the fretboard of another neck wouldn't be easy, and I'd hate to think what someone would charge for such a job.

For the price of the cheapest set of strings available, you can simply buy a set of fretboard stickers and put them on the new neck.

I've had them on this bass for seven years and they still look good.

 

Edited September 21 by jd56hawk

[Bolo]

This sounds like a job I'd have a local luthier take a look at before getting wild with tools myself.

[Norris]

14 hours ago, jd56hawk said:

For the price of the cheapest set of strings available, you can simply buy a set of fretboard stickers and put them on the new neck.

This is the cheapest and easiest option - that you could do yourself. If you really want MOP inlays find a friendly luthier - who will fit new ones, as it's really not worth the effort trying to dig them out of a neck, and they are not that expensive to buy new

[Bef]

Thank you everyone very much for taking your time out to help. 
 

Yesterday I took my bass to a music shop in Dursley to get it looked at and within 10 minutes he straightened it out and it feels like new ( only for £10 as well) So I can now keep my neck and mother of pearl without risking anything or spending far more than is necessary. 
 

But still thank you all very much for the help

[Grahambythesea]

Result, @Bef, did you get shown how to do this yourself? If not check YouTube for instructions as it may change when you put on new strings or sometimes with the weather. Adjusting the truss rod isn’t hard, take a look.