Narrow peg box

[T-Bal]

I had to replace a string on a student's bass today, at which time I noticed that the space inside the peg box was so narrow, the nut slots for the G and E strings were actually outside of that space. Is this unusual? I had never seen anything like this before. The result is that those strings need to angle inwards and even then the E string touches the top / inner edge of the box on its way to the peg. I'm wondering if maybe the neck / pegbox comes like this, but normally is carved out more when the bass is assembled. The sides of the box did seem thicker than normal. Naturally I don't have pics because it's not my bass, but I was curious to know why this is.

[Matthew Tucker]

Not unusual at all in cheap and small basses unfortunately. It takes time to make a nicely shaped pegbox, and the makers just don't take the time or the care to do it! Sides of a nice pegbox are rarely thicker than around 12mm. Only thing you can do is make sure the nut slots move the string in as gentle a curve as you can, and keep the slots well lubed, and watch how you wind the strings onto the pegs.

[Rockman]

Hey Tom, I was wondering if I was ever going to run into you on here. The bass in question is about 2 years old, and has had the same set of Spiros on it for the duration. After looking closer at the string I don't think its the contact with the peg box that broke it because the break is right at the end of the windings and not closer to the nut. I will try to get pictures up at some point, a picture says a thousand words!