Ancient Mariner Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 I just wondered after the comments about poor fretting in the PLEK thread, plus comments about early JD necks being unstable and issues I'm having setting up relief & action on a couple of cheap basses I have. All the comments I've read on here about adjusting relief have been very cautious, suggesting necks need small incremental adjustments and then being allowed to settle 24 hours, slacking strings off before adjusting etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloodaxe Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 [quote name='Ancient Mariner' post='724082' date='Jan 25 2010, 01:59 PM']I just wondered after the comments about poor fretting in the PLEK thread, plus comments about early JD necks being unstable and issues I'm having setting up relief & action on a couple of cheap basses I have. All the comments I've read on here about adjusting relief have been very cautious, suggesting necks need small incremental adjustments and then being allowed to settle 24 hours, slacking strings off before adjusting etc.[/quote] In my experience, not really. Can't vouch for the JayDees, never met one in the flesh. A big factor, I suspect, is how the neck blank is sawn. Plainsawn necks are likely to have more inherent flex & Quartersawn necks less (for a rough 'n' ready idea, try bending a ruler edgwise - hard innit? - that's akin to Quartersawn. Bend it flatwise - segmented urea - Plainsawn stylee). Laminated Quartersawn should be even more stablerer. It's common sense to slacken the strings before adjusting the truss - especially if tightening it. Ditto, wise not to make huuuuge adjustments in one go. 1/4 turn ought to be OK, then tune it up & play. Tweak as necessary. There's a good few around who are over-cautious IMO, even to the point of changing strings individually. Personally I can't be doing with it - do you honestly believe that [i]any[/i] of the major manufacturers have a vast rack of new necks gently settling in with a "truss wallah" giving each one a bijou tweakette & then letting it settle for a day or so? I don't. If I drop a bass into The Gallery for a setup & am told it'll be "about a week" I also don't believe that the guys there diligently tweak mine a bit each day (as well as everybody elses) - they'd be out of business in a month! All IMO & note the qualified statements. That ranted... if you're in [i]any way uncertain[/i] then Overcautious is the way to go. It [i]might[/i] be that your "cheap basses" have fundamental issues like S bends, or poor quality timber, that can't readily be adjusted out. Pete. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RhysP Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 It's just one of those things really. I've owned inexpensive basses that never needed any neck adjustment & expensive basses that required almost constant adjustment (my Jaydee for instance). Same goes for guitars in my experience too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Heeley Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 I'd have thought with the extra mass of the strings the tension in a bass neck is far greater than a guitar. If I remove a string from a bass (EBMM or Squier Jazz or Warmoth gecko 5-string) the action goes to pot as the tension reduction relaxes the neck relief. This does not happen on any of my electric guitars. So I would say a normal bass neck has a lot more force to balance, so any small changes in humidity, temperature, might cause more of an upset to the balance of tension in a bass, and you may not necessarily see it in a guitar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henry norton Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 [quote name='Bloodaxe' post='724174' date='Jan 25 2010, 04:42 PM']In my experience, not really. Can't vouch for the JayDees, never met one in the flesh. A big factor, I suspect, is how the neck blank is sawn. Plainsawn necks are likely to have more inherent flex & Quartersawn necks less (for a rough 'n' ready idea, try bending a ruler edgwise - hard innit? - that's akin to Quartersawn. Bend it flatwise - segmented urea - Plainsawn stylee). Laminated Quartersawn should be even more stablerer. It's common sense to slacken the strings before adjusting the truss - especially if tightening it. Ditto, wise not to make huuuuge adjustments in one go. 1/4 turn ought to be OK, then tune it up & play. Tweak as necessary. There's a good few around who are over-cautious IMO, even to the point of changing strings individually. Personally I can't be doing with it - do you honestly believe that [i]any[/i] of the major manufacturers have a vast rack of new necks gently settling in with a "truss wallah" giving each one a bijou tweakette & then letting it settle for a day or so? I don't. If I drop a bass into The Gallery for a setup & am told it'll be "about a week" I also don't believe that the guys there diligently tweak mine a bit each day (as well as everybody elses) - they'd be out of business in a month! All IMO & note the qualified statements. That ranted... if you're in [i]any way uncertain[/i] then Overcautious is the way to go. It [i]might[/i] be that your "cheap basses" have fundamental issues like S bends, or poor quality timber, that can't readily be adjusted out. Pete.[/quote] +1 on all that - truss rods aren't magic but there again, why should guitar techs say otherwise if they're getting setup work off us mere mortals. A bass neck is a longer piece of wood, under tension and (probably more importantly), subject to the same dry/humid warm/cold conditions when living a 'normal life' as a guitar neck. I wouldn't say they're any more prone to warping than a guitar other than the fact there's usually more neck neck inches to go wrong. String tension shouldn't warp a neck though, it's made to have strings in tension strung along it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrcrow Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 (edited) a bass neck is not loaded as a normal column would be...in direct compression the tension from the strings is eccentric to the neutral axis and induces bending and out of balance tension and compression in the extreme fibres...if you include the fingerboard as an integral component..a sort of composite beam with direct end compression as well the truss rod does what it can to relieve tension but its position is not always at the same relative distance to the neutral axis so there must be instability somewhere in the system i think the design shape and amount of material does keep stresses in the wooden part of the neck low...but being wood it has differing qualities and response to compressive and tensile loading. not really a structural member in the true design sense...compromises and variations must occur shorter necks wont tend to be so affected by buckling criteria Edited January 25, 2010 by mrcrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.