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3-bolt G&L necks
- Thread starter MascisMan
- Start date
If adjusted properly, nope. Ken knows far more about that but many of us prefer the 3 bolt.
Got many with it and no issues.
Jim
I don't know about a preference, but I've owned several 3-bolt G&L's and never had a problem with that aspect.
rkingly
"Playing Reverend Basses on a Regular Basis"
My L2000 is the older 3-bolt with bi-cut neck and my L2500 is the new 6 bolt with the newer neck design.
I prefer the 3 bolt because it has the micro-tilt adjustment in case I need to adjust the tilt.
The neck pocket/neck joint is done really well on the G&L so you don't have the issue of the neck being able to move around like on the older Fenders. And on those, even 6 bolts fully tightened down wouldn't have helped with that a great deal anyway
.So IMO, it makes utterly zero difference. They both look cool tho I slightly prefer the sort of vintage appearance of the 3 bolt with the metal backplate......
LS
I've got 4 G&Ls that sport the 3-bolt design and I've never had any problems with any of them.
The only issue I've heard about is that you can get some fretboard "ski jumping" if you screw around with the neck tilt adjustment and don't know what you're doing. Don't go nuts with the tilt feature and don't try to crank it when your neck is bolted tight and you should be fine, I think.
The only issue I've heard about is that you can get some fretboard "ski jumping" if you screw around with the neck tilt adjustment and don't know what you're doing. Don't go nuts with the tilt feature and don't try to crank it when your neck is bolted tight and you should be fine, I think.
This is what I ended up with with mine when I first started messing around with the micro-tilt. My 2K is a fretless model so the saddles were bottomed out on the bridge in my attempt to get the action low enough.
I put some tilt in the neck to try to correct this. It worked, but then the slope of the heel was too much and I had to keep too much relief in the neck to keep it from buzzing up by the nut.
After about a week of monkeying around with it, I ended up with the tilt back at the factory setting, completely flat against the neck pocket.
Mine still has a little bit of unwanted relief in the center of the neck that I cant quite adjust out with the tilt and truss rod but its not objectionable now (maybe in 20 years or so it could get worse).
But that's the kind of thing you can use the tilt to adjust out, i.e. if you have a hump in the middle of the board, you can tilt the neck back and loosen the truss rod to get it out of there, etc.
Otherwise, it's kind of a somewhat useless novelty, IMO
.LS
I think the consensus among those of us who are familiar with the 3-bolt "Precision Tilt" neck is that it's a good design and an improvement on the Fender "Micro Tilt".
There is a caveat as Jim said: "If properly adjusted." Over-adjustment can cause skijump.
A VERY little bit goes a long way.
Ken...
Not at all unusual for a G&L. The biggest help might be to have the nut slots filed to a proper fretless depth. Lot of folks like them cut right down to the board.
Ken...
The nut on mine is already cut almost right at the board, I fixed the bridge by filing down the saddles (g and e strings) so I can get the action down to the gnats ass now.
I had to do this on my L2500 also on the g string saddle.
Next time I have to dress the fingerboard I might try to help the dip in the center, but like I said it's not objectionable at this point. The board on the 2500 is perfect tho....
LS
I thought the G&L micro tilt was identical to that used in 70s Fenders?
Another preference for the 3 bolt neck here.
Nope. They're different. If I remember correctly, both designs were done by George Fullerton. The G&L 3 bolt is more stable and lines up reliably.
Ken...
Do you know how Fender's design differs from G&L? I thought they were both basically an adjustable screw in the body pressing against a dime sized plate mounted in the neck heel? I have never seen a neck pocket with the Fender design though.
No, I don't. I am passing on info learned from people much more learned than me on things from the early days. The basic design is indeed the same. The difference could be as simple as placement of the adjuster.
I've read that actual adjustment is more forgiving than on the Fenders, which kind of tells me that the adjuster is relatively closer to the bridge end of the neck plate. This would give it a tad more leverage and require more adjustment for a given neck tilt, if that makes sense. And by spreading out the contact points (2 screws and the adjuster) neck alignment should be easier and more stable.
Ken...
I've got an experience of using 3-bolt (1982 wunkay) and 6-bolt (2005 L-2.5k) designs. Both worked pretty well. No issues.
Ah I hadn't thought of that - the distance of the adjuster from the fulcrum. The further away the less sensitive so yeah that makes sense. I think I am going to look more into it since it seems that people can be a bit harsh on the Fender implementation but generally G&L players don't have any issues or even prefer the 3 bolt micro tilt. I always assumed with Fender that they had a higher frequency of sloppy neck pockets allowing shifting from side to side.
I've had mostly 3-bolts, and one 6 bolt. Of the 3-bolts, the 87 El Toro, the 81 Wunkay, the 86 and the 84 L2K's all benefitted from a modest amount of tweaking of the tilt. The later 3-bolts, 92-97, did not require any tweaking, and are in fact, dead flat in the pocket. Ski jumps? Yeah, that can happen, but that isn't as much year or bolt specific as it is a 'wood thing'.
