the neck that wont stay straight

[brettf]

I recently bought a squier pbass for a backup, and am having slight problems with truss rod adjustment.

i can get the neck perfectly flat, but then in 3 hours the neck goes back to slightly bowed. ive done this adjustment about 3 times and it still goes back.

could i have screwed up the truss rod by tightening it to much? what do you think is going on?

[JustDavid]

I don't know fully what you are doing, so can't comment.

My method is to adjust the truss rod with the neck on the bass & it is strung to pitch. I go for about 1 mm of bow then, measured by fretting at the 1st & last fret & measuring the gap at the midpoint. Further I'll typically adjust it 1/4 (1/2 to 3/4 on a neck that's way out) turn & leave it until 24 hours later.

[Skywalker83]

The neck should not be "perfectly flat", it should have a little bit of relief in it.Check the stickes about setting up a bass and also have a look here

[JLS]

Originally Posted by JustDavid

I don't know fully what you are doing, so can't comment.

My method is to adjust the truss rod with the neck on the bass & it is strung to pitch. I go for about 1 mm of bow then, measured by fretting at the 1st & last fret & measuring the gap at the midpoint. Further I'll typically adjust it 1/4 (1/2 to 3/4 on a neck that's way out) turn & leave it until 24 hours later.

Fret the 1st & 15th fret, the frets after that aren't affected by trussrod adjustments.