Neck Issues with my Fender MIM Jazz Bass

[rboyce]

Hey all.

Got a question for all you luthiers. I own a MIM Fender Standard Jazz Bass, purchased in 2001. About 3 months ago, the action (way too high) and intonation had gotten so bad that I finally took it into Jim Mouradian in Cambridge MA (a great guy and a great luthier). In addition, the skunk stripe had started to pull away from the neck (you could feel the poly "bump up" around the stripe). Long story short, Jim did a great job of repairing the skunk stripe and giving the bass a proper setup. When I picked it up, the intonation was perfect and the action was nice and low.

Here's my dilema - he fixed the neck so well that the opposite problem is now occuring - the neck is so strong that the action keeps lowering itself. The result is I have to crank the trussrod every couple of weeks to raise the action so there's no buzz (and so that I can play below the 3rd fret).

I'm wondering if the neck will eventually "settle in", so I don't have to keep adjusting the truss rod every few weeks. I've talked to Jim about this, and he didn't seem too concerned. I don't want to keep bugging him about this issue if either 1) this is normal for a J Bass neck or 2) it will eventually stop.

Any advice would be appreciated.

TIA,

Ray

[rboyce]

Bump...can someone please respond?! thx, ray

[Nino Valenti]

Personally, as soon as I releasied something was wrong, I would of brought it right back to Jim. That is if it happened a day or so after.

If it was longer than a week or so, it might just be due to the crazy weather we're having.

[quote[Here's my dilema - he fixed the neck so well that the opposite problem is now occuring - the neck is so strong that the action keeps lowering itself. The result is I have to crank the trussrod every couple of weeks to raise the action so there's no buzz (and so that I can play below the 3rd fret).[/quote]
From this description it seems like the neck did a slight (maybe not so slight) back bow.

I don't understand what you mean by "[i]crank the trussrod[/u]" but to me, that means "tightening" which will make the problem worse.

I really don't like giving set up tips over the internet cause it's difficult to judge with out actualle seeing the bass.

[rboyce]

Thanx for the reply...let me try and clarify a few things and maybe you can provide some more advice.

When I say "crank the trussrod", I should have said "loosened the truss rod". The neck is now bowing "in", towards the strings - obviously, that causes the action to become too low (eventually too low to play).

As far as talking to Jim about it...I first noticed this problem about 2 weeks after I got it back from him. I immediately called him, and I went down to his shop where he adjusted the truss rod so the action was raised to a playable level. Like I said in my original post, he didn't seem too concerned about the neck now bowing "in" (towards the strings) - his theory was that his repairs had done such a good job that the neck had re-gained a lot of its strength. Basically, he sent me away thinking that maybe only 1 or 2 more adjustments would be necessary. This may be true - I hope it is. I've already made one more adjustment. But I'd really appreciate some other opinions/advice.

Thanks,

ray