Tongue

[InRodweTruss]

What is "Tongue"? Why does "Tongue" happen? How do I get rid of "Tongue"??

[Cerb]

*** are you talking about?

[Rodent]

Originally Posted by InRodweTruss

What is "Tongue"? Why does "Tongue" happen? How do I get rid of "Tongue"??

Tongue = the phenomina that occurs when using ultra rare and ultra figured bookmatched tops og a bass body

Tongue happens when you spend more on a bookmatched top than you did on your car

Tongue can only be prevented by utilizing Basswood, Alder, and/or Butternut on all of your bass body creations


did I miss anything?

all the best,

R

[InRodweTruss]

Originally Posted by Rodent

Tongue = the phenomina that occurs when using ultra rare and ultra figured bookmatched tops og a bass body

Tongue happens when you spend more on a bookmatched top than you did on your car

Tongue can only be prevented by utilizing Basswood, Alder, and/or Butternut on all of your bass body creations


did I miss anything?


R

Yes...

Ok..."hypothetically" speaking, lets say you have an MIM Jazz, and you can not get rid of the BAD fret buzz 12th-19th fret no matter how high your action is. You take it to the shop, and the guy says "It's setup pretty well now. Your neck has some TONGUE though..." What is he talking about?

...hypothetically of course...

[Phil Mailloux]

It means that the higher end of the fretboard is raised. It's something that usually happens on bolt-on necks. They fix it by removing the 5-6 frets at the end of the fretboard, shaving down the fretboard in that area and then refretting. I don't think you can do anything to get away from it, it either happens or it doesn't over the course of years. That's something that usually happens on older insturments

[InRodweTruss]

In that case...would buying a new neck would be the alternative to shaving?

[Phil Mailloux]

yeah it could be, depends on how much he'd charge to fix it compared to a new neck. You'll still have to install and setup the new neck though.

[doktorfeelgood]

Originally Posted by InRodweTruss

In that case...would buying a new neck would be the alternative to shaving?

Before you do anything, take the neck off and make sure that there's nothing in the neck pocket (burrs from drilling neck bolt holes) because if there is, when you tighten the bolts, that burr will actually warp the neck and cause what you're calling "tongue". Around here it's called "ski jump". It doesn't take much to make it happen. A very small burr can cause a BIG problem...it's happened to me. My current gigging bass is a 2006 Highway 1 J-bass and right after I got it last July, it started buzzing at the 19th, 20th fret even if I was playing at the 5th-7th frets. I do all of my own set-ups and have been for a long time so I pretty much know what I'm doing. When it started buzzing, I sighted down the neck from the headstock end and I could see that the last 2 frets at the end of the neck were going slightly upward. I had to bring it to a luthier for a leveling because that particular issue isn't covered under Fender's "lifetime warranty"....Imagine that. After spending $60 bucks for the fret level job, I brought it home and it played great for about 3 days then started to buzz again.
Turns out it was the same problem. This time I took the neck off and looked really closely and found a small burr fleft over from drilling the neck bolt holes that was in wedged in the very end of the neck pocket. I cleaned it out and bolted the neck back on, re-strung it and tuned it up and the problem went away. I called the guy who did the job and told him what had happened and he was very apologetic saying that "we usually take the necks off and look for those kinds of things before we do a fret level". So I said how about getting my money back seeing as how the fret level probably didn't need to be done in the first place. He wouldn't have any of it but has done a couple of small jobs at no cost for me so he's taken care of me. Sorry for the long story, but I would say have a look in the neck pocket before you do anything. Might save you the cost of a new neck. )-(

[InRodweTruss]

That actually sounds exactly like my problem. 5-7 and 12-19 are my trouble spots....

[SDB Guitars]

Straighten your neck using the truss rod and see if you have high spots using a small straight-edge. When placed across frets, the high spot will raise the straight-edge, leaving a gap on one or both sides of it.

Possibly a simple fret-levelling or dressing would help. Maybe just adjusting your truss rod then raising your action would help

[InRodweTruss]

well that would make perfect sense...but the problem seems to be, if i straighten the neck, it becomes to straight and buzzes through 5th. Too much relief, and the action will be too low and it will buzz 12th and up. It's just a little finicky to find that happy median.

I think I've solved though...

[doktorfeelgood]

So.....What was it? )-(