How to evaluate a vintage neck on ebay?

astack · #1 01-06-2013, 01:24 PM

What's the best course of action/questions? True, clean frets, clean nut, no cracks etc.?

I imagine I could ask all the questions I want, but I'll just hear what they want to say to sell the thing and then I could be stuck with a lemon. True or am I being too pessimistic? Just trust the feedback and get over it?

Is it really just a gamble based on looking at pictures? Speaking of, what's normal back-of-neck wear? Specifically, what am I looking at here:

Thanks in advance, TB!

mpdd · #2 01-06-2013, 03:36 PM

i think of necks like dogs, nobody is going to just get rid of a nice or good one

astack · #3 01-06-2013, 04:01 PM

:/ But nobody keeps the whole litter?? (not sure where this analogy is going...)

REMBO · #4 01-06-2013, 04:06 PM

a neck can be a hard thing to purchase without seeing it in person!

1. it could have a bow/back bow

2. the truss rod could be shot

3. the neck could be a re-fret

the one pictured here has a big scrape!

how much is it selling for?

you really do need to see the neck with string tension on it!!

list more info on this neck purchase!!

astack · #5 01-06-2013, 05:27 PM

Here's the neck:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1977-1978-Fe...torefresh=true

This looks pretty typical for vintage necks on ebay, as far as I can tell. It's not shown on bass, several nicks, etc. This guy's sold a couple similar necks before and got positive "just as described" feedback. It's a good deal cheaper than a lot of 70's necks I've seen, which could mean anything...

StyleOverShow · #6 01-06-2013, 05:36 PM

Looks like previous owner played in the same position. Looks like a wear burn through the gloss & paint to expose wood.

Agree difficult to asses without having/seeing it.

Suggest short evaluation period with insured return in pre-sale agreement? It's eBay afterall.

abemo · #7 01-07-2013, 10:55 AM

Tough to tell without holding it. As for the scrape, an hour of sanding and an hour of oiling should take care of that. I would want to see a pic of the neck length-wise to see what the relief looks like, to bad there's no pics of it at full tension.

astack · #8 01-07-2013, 11:53 AM

Thanks the tip on fixing the wear spot. I was hoping something like that would work.

I slept on it and am gonna go for it. Maple boards don't come up too often. The description covers all concerns -- even if there aren't the best pics -- so there is some legitimacy for a return/dispute. Worst case, I could flip it and lose maybe half the cost, and that's fine with me. Anyway, I'm optimistic

Thanks everyone for the input!

astack · #9 01-10-2013, 07:47 PM

Welp, got it today! At first look, it's dead straight with no twist. Score. That spot in the pic above is more indented than I was expecting/hoping. Might need a bit more elbow grease to flush out. I think one of the tuner holes was bored out slightly. Or maybe these old ones are just like that. And the tuner screw holes look like newer tuners were installed at some point. The frets could be cleaned up some (feels like it came from upstate New York in the winter, which it did).

A few more "heavy" wear items (mojo?

), but all in all about what I was expecting. I'll take it to my repair guy for a final check, but barring a problem there, it's a keeper!

walterw · #10 01-10-2013, 11:02 PM

how easy is the truss rod to turn? does it push the neck into backbow without too much cranking?

as for that blem, i dunno about "sanding and oiling"; seems to me that if you did anything at all to it, you'd want to (after cleaning the wood as much as you can with naphtha or whatever) look into filling it with a hard gap-filling finish, superglue maybe, to get it flush with the rest of the gloss. at that point, scraping, sanding and buffing should make it one with the overall finish again, to where you don't feel it while playing.

narud · #11 01-11-2013, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by astack

Welp, got it today! At first look, it's dead straight with no twist. Score. That spot in the pic above is more indented than I was expecting/hoping. Might need a bit more elbow grease to flush out. I think one of the tuner holes was bored out slightly. Or maybe these old ones are just like that. And the tuner screw holes look like newer tuners were installed at some point. The frets could be cleaned up some (feels like it came from upstate New York in the winter, which it did).

A few more "heavy" wear items (mojo?

), but all in all about what I was expecting. I'll take it to my repair guy for a final check, but barring a problem there, it's a keeper!

fwiw, you bought it from a tb'r who buys stuff and parts it out, so its not like he put any of the wear on there.

BawanaRik · #12 01-11-2013, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mpdd

i think of necks like dogs, nobody is going to just get rid of a nice or good one

I've gotten dogs from people who getting rid of them that were great animals.

Better than most people.

walterw · #13 01-11-2013, 02:18 PM

i have a whole bunch of nice old gear that i've accumulated from one guy who's always buying and selling, looking for that one elusive piece that will transform his playing

(thing is, he sounds great, and exactly the same, on everything he plays through.)

astack · #14 01-11-2013, 03:59 PM

Popped into the tech's over lunch. Clean bill of health! Well, again relative to it's age and as far as he can tell without putting it on a bass and stringing it up. But truss rod is functioning and he didn't see any cracks/structural problems, which is the big thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by walterw

how easy is the truss rod to turn? does it push the neck into backbow without too much cranking?

as for that blem, i dunno about "sanding and oiling"; seems to me that if you did anything at all to it, you'd want to (after cleaning the wood as much as you can with naphtha or whatever) look into filling it with a hard gap-filling finish, superglue maybe, to get it flush with the rest of the gloss. at that point, scraping, sanding and buffing should make it one with the overall finish again, to where you don't feel it while playing.

Makes sense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by narud

fwiw, you bought it from a tb'r who buys stuff and parts it out, so its not like he put any of the wear on there.

Good to know!

Quote:

Originally Posted by walterw

i have a whole bunch of nice old gear that i've accumulated from one guy who's always buying and selling, looking for that one elusive piece that will transform his playing

(thing is, he sounds great, and exactly the same, on everything he plays through.)

Thankfully, I'm not in this boat. This will just be a cool, fun little project build. No silver bullets expected.