Sanding Down the Neck

[cjrecord21]

I have a Chinese bass that has a really thick neck on it. I have played other basses and they seem to have thinner necks that makes the bass much easier to play with a more proper left-hand technique. Is sanding the neck down a possible way to fix this? How much can I sand before its too much?

Thanks

Jason Record

[Ed Fuqua]

How long have you been playing? When I started playing upright after playing electric for a number of years, I felt the same way. Give me a thinner neck. But teh thing I've come to realize is that a thicker neck actuall helps keep your fingerboard hand in a much more natural "C" shape than a thinner one. What's your teacher say? What does the neck on his bass feel like?

If the bass still has a varnished neck, you may want to go ahead and sand the varnish off, but don't leave bare wood. Get some bowling alley wax and use it to seal the wood.

[milomo]

Don't do it yourself. Find a qualified luthier in your neighborhood and talk to him/her about it.

[Ed Fuqua]

Excellent advice, I certainly didn't try to do this to my own bass. I actually had the neck "thickened" by putting a fatter fingerboard on. Jeff Bollbach did the work (and is chronicled with pics in my thread GETTING SOME WORK DONE) and smoothed out the back of teh neck and did the bowling wax thang.

[cjrecord21]

But... the neck is so much thicker than other uprights that i have played, and they seem far easier to get around on... not just because of action differences. I have never played electric bass btw....

any other thoughts on this???

[tbassist4]

I also have a thick necked bass. I recently tried two very nice thinner necked basses which I was possibly going to purchase. After I tried them I missed the thick neck, and it felt a little strange on the thinner ones.

It's really personal preference. Borrow a thinner necked bass for a while and see if you really like it enough to alter your current bass.

[Uncletoad]

Try to get used to the thicker neck if you can. The thickness helps you maintain proper hand position and adds stability to the neck. Thin necks can be unstable and can lead the player to wrapping the thumb around the neck in a guitar fashion. That leads to all kinds of ugliness.

What is your teacher's opinion on this?

fwiw if you chose to reduce the size have a luthier do it. Either way have a luthier inspect the setup to see if it's possible to improve the playability of the bass. You could have a fine neck and a bad setup.

[MingusAmongUs]

I second the suggestion to have a pro luthier look at it and get his/her opinion. Better too thick than too thin. Is it a new bass? If so, the fingerboard will be thinned down in planing over time, and that will make the neck feel a lot thinner.

[anonymous12251111]

I have the same problem as you, my neck is very round and thick, I would suggest you have your neck re-shaped so the back of it is flat and not round. That will help you a lot with your left hand technique, especially if you have smaller hands.