Recent content by ijmus12

Not much to share, unfortunately -- after a couple more tries with the heat gun setup I wasn't able to get the thing straight without a huge push so I caved and found a decent deal on the stratosphere. It was just about as much as the whole affinity bass was a few years ago but it seems worth it...

no no no that was a joke!! just saying that we're all on the same page about this neck being a lil wonky haha didn't mean to be accusatory at all

Haha I hope you're not looking for an argument! I don't think anyone here thinks the neck is going to be fixed by one or two quick fixes (certainly not at this point, at least), and I know there's a great chance I'll be ordering a new neck tomorrow morning. I'm just using this as an opportunity...

that image is great. thanks so much! I'll let you know how it goes.

are you saying that it should cool back down before clamping? haha yes it'll keep me busy in quarantine regardless! you mentioned earlier that the truss rod's job isn't to straighten the neck but to resist the tension of the strings. Should I loosen the truss rod before this operation to...

dammit, you're right. I'll shove it in an oven this afternoon. no chance the finish melts and becomes toxic, right....?

I'm temped, but I think it's best to just replace the dang thing. Between worrying that the neck (if successfully straightened) will go back to its ski-jump shape and a number of other issues -- rust, small cracks in the fretboard, truss nut starting to strip badly -- it'll be worth it to invest...

I see. I'll give that a shot tomorrow!

I agree -- so if I'm still unhappy with the action does that just leave it up to dialing in the shim? I saw the video, pretty cool procedure! Are you saying that you would've recommended that if it didn't appear to be so straight? Or are you saying that I should use that technique to back-bow...

Gotcha! I played with the rod and got it to here, which looked flat to the naked eye. I was able to pass a piece of paper between the frets and the level without resistance between the 10th and 16th frets (or so). Tightening the truss rod helped but I was unable to tighten by hand any further...

I'm assuming you want the side shot with the strings back on? I'm a little worried since I've already tightened the truss rod quite a bit (and it's starting to creak/resist) but I suppose there's no real harm in breaking it at this point if I'm most likely going to upgrade it anyhow. I'll get...

I tried shimming with some cardstock just as a test before moving to making one from wood...and I'm pretty sure I just need a new neck. With the shim in and the saddles adjusted high enough for the open string to ring true, the action over the 12th fret was still pretty bad (see attached image)...

I'm pretty confident the truss rod won't do it, I've already played with that pretty extensively. I'll try making a shim as soon as I can (we've got a decent woodshop here and plenty of scrap so it shouldn't be hard find something decent to make one out of) and if that doesn't seem to make it...

...you're not wrong. I'll look into getting that shimmed up and hopefully we'll be on a path to less atrocious action! Thanks for your help.

awesome, noted. one last question -- I'm worried about the creaking in my truss rod I talked about in my first post...I'm wondering if I should bite the bullet and just upgrade the neck while I'm messing around with this bass. Do you think it's best to just replace the neck and then think...