Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshua  Within the realm of reasonability, there is no such thing as "improper relief". A correctly functioning neck/truss rod allows for the relief to be set wherever the player wishes.
That said, if one leaves said realm of reasonability (say one releases all tension from the rod while keeping the bass strung to pitch), bad things can indeed happen... |
This is the scenario I'm talking about. After a time the head end of the neck will take a set, and remain warped. Then when you finally apply trussrod tension the heel of the neck will take the convex shape, while the head concaves.
Just last week I was working on a bass that has never been properly setup. While I was able to get it to play better than it had been playing. The lowest relief I could dialed in at max trussrod tension was about .017". This was with very light gauage rounds, 30-90. The neck showed a definate "S" shape along the length of the fretboard. It was a real shame because it was a nicely profiled neck.
I would say that letting a neck go for years with more than about .020" of relief will start to manifest some problems down the road. That is just my opinion, and individual neck dimensions, and profiles must be taken into account.
On my Geddy I recently had some 45-105 Roto flats strung up. Even though I had the relief set down to .012", the head end showed a noticeable bow in the last 4 frets. With lighter gauge rounds and the relief set to the same dimension the neck shows a more resonable relief pattern down the neck.
There just is not a lot of wood in the head end of the Geddy. The bass plays, and sounds great, but I would really like more wood in the neck. My Standard jazz has just a little bit thicker neck and does not exhibit these problems with higher tension strings.
