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AVII Precision bass: action way too high

humbuckaroo

humbuckaroo

Mar 14, 2025
674
1,429
#1
I bought this bass in June. Did my best to set it up. Half turn on the truss rod, bridge dropped considerably. It played fine for a bit despite being at over 2mm action at the 12th (no frets pressed). Now I noticed it's back up to over 3mm (4/64ths) on the low E again and I didn't do anything to it. I am aware it's weather but there's nothing more I can do to drop the action at the bridge and it annoys the hell out of me. I hear shimming is an option. What degree do you guys recommend? What else can be done? Neck is currently fairly straight, just a bit of a bow but nothing noteworthy. Bridge is near its minimum height at the E and G strings.

Is this a known thing with these vintage basses or did I just (un)lucky? I've never played a P bass with action like this.

Please help before I give up and sell this thing.

Screenshot 2025-11-17 at 17.37.52.png
 
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#4
humbuckaroo said:
I bought this bass in June. Did my best to set it up. Half turn on the truss rod, bridge dropped considerably. It played fine for a bit despite being at over 2mm action at the 12th (no frets pressed). Now I noticed it's back up to over 3mm (4/64ths) on the low E again and I didn't do anything to it. I am aware it's weather but there's nothing more I can do to drop the action at the bridge and it annoys the hell out of me. I hear shimming is an option. What degree do you guys recommend? What else can be done? Neck is currently fairly straight, just a bit of a bow but nothing noteworthy. Bridge is near its minimum height at the E and G strings.

Is this a known thing with these vintage basses or did I just (un)lucky? I've never played a P bass with action like this.

Please help before I give up and sell this thing.

View attachment 7371492
Click to expand...
If you had 2mm action before (btw, Fender recommends 2.5mm), you can get it again.
 
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#6
I was actually just about to order those Stewmac shims, but i've also used feeler gauges, they work pretty well, like .015 in the back and .008 in middle of pocket. You want the neck to make contact across the pocket, not just sit on a hunk of business card in the back.

But first check everything is screwed down/attached tightly, tuners, string tree, nut, neck, bridge, bridge saddles.
 
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#7
I can top the stew mac post about shim material. On a frankenstien bass I'd cut up some Hamms beer cans and used about 3-4 sheets of the aluminum in varied lengths to get enough angle. that was just enough to where I could use the bridge height adjustment in the future. Put simply, it plays like buttah.

Why would anybody do something so ridiculous? I figured if I ever sold the bass the future owner would have a story to tell.
Bass4ThePublic said:

StewMac Neck Shims for Bass - StewMac

To change the angle of a bolt-on neck, players and repair shops have used shims for years. We've seen everything from matchbook covers to guitar picks stuck in neck joints.
www.stewmac.com www.stewmac.com


One of the .25 shims is all you need.
Click to expand...
 
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#10
humbuckaroo said:
I bought this bass in June. Did my best to set it up. Half turn on the truss rod, bridge dropped considerably. It played fine for a bit despite being at over 2mm action at the 12th (no frets pressed). Now I noticed it's back up to over 3mm (4/64ths) on the low E again and I didn't do anything to it. I am aware it's weather but there's nothing more I can do to drop the action at the bridge and it annoys the hell out of me. I hear shimming is an option. What degree do you guys recommend? What else can be done? Neck is currently fairly straight, just a bit of a bow but nothing noteworthy. Bridge is near its minimum height at the E and G strings.

Is this a known thing with these vintage basses or did I just (un)lucky? I've never played a P bass with action like this.

Please help before I give up and sell this thing.

View attachment 7371492
Click to expand...
If it was at 2mm before, using the truss rod will get it there again.
 
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#11
Not sure where you're located, but in many parts of the country, the neck should be starting to backbow at this time of year.

That should give you less neck relief and if anything, lower not higher action.

If you bought the bass new in the summer, this would be the first annual weather cycle the bass is going through being strung to tension and played regularly.

Could be the truss rod settling into the seasonal changes. As others have said, it's worth a check and a tweak.

If you listed the bass for sale here and said why you were selling it, your inbox would melt down with offers from folks who would have no problem dealing with an issue like this on a nice bass.
 
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#14
humbuckaroo said:
I bought this bass in June. Did my best to set it up. Half turn on the truss rod, bridge dropped considerably. It played fine for a bit despite being at over 2mm action at the 12th (no frets pressed). Now I noticed it's back up to over 3mm (4/64ths) on the low E again and I didn't do anything to it. I am aware it's weather but there's nothing more I can do to drop the action at the bridge and it annoys the hell out of me. I hear shimming is an option. What degree do you guys recommend? What else can be done? Neck is currently fairly straight, just a bit of a bow but nothing noteworthy. Bridge is near its minimum height at the E and G strings.

Is this a known thing with these vintage basses or did I just (un)lucky? I've never played a P bass with action like this.

Please help before I give up and sell this thing.

View attachment 7371492
Click to expand...

Unless magic gnomes futzed around with the bridge saddles, the ONLY thing that could have changed is the relief. Get out your feeler gauges and get us some real #'s (...fretted 1st & 15th, measure at the 8th).

Riis
 
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#15
Gervais Cote said:
I have a Fender MIM maple neck that needs adjustment each fall and spring season so it’s kind of normal. Half to 3/4 of a turn of the truss rod nut does it for me.

Any guitar tech or luthier would make it right easily and probably without any neck shims.
Click to expand...
Same here. Just yesterday I grabbed my MIM maple neck P and noticed the bow. It is that time of year again.
 
#16
Low Main said:
in many parts of the country, the neck should be starting to backbow at this time of year.
Click to expand...
And in many other parts of the country, the neck will forward bow at this time of year. ;) And for some basses may go the opposite way in each region. It depends on the local climate and the individual instrument.

I have a bass with a finished maple neck and thick, unfinished ebony fretboard. It used to be very sensitive to humidity, but that sensitivity has decreased since I've been applying pure lemon oil to the fretboard. It usually gains relief and needs a little adjustment in the fall/winter when it's heating season and the humidity in my house is lower.

I agree with @Zooberwerx that a little truss rod tweak should solve your problem. See ALL BASIC SETUP QUESTIONS ANSWERED HERE, download the Fender setup guide. IIRC, .012' relief is a good starting point. Fine tune the action and relief from there so it plays evenly all up and down the neck, your preferences will probably be different from Fender's average setup.
 
#17
Careful with shims. Fender necks are prone to ski-jumps (or whatever you call them)*. Shims apparently make the problem worse (or more likely to happen), unless you use those "full pocket" shims that fully support the neck.

* : the infuriating thing is that the problem still hasn't been solved, at least by Fender, over seventy years after the birth of the electric Precision bass. IIRC, some relatively high-profile luthier/guitar builder suggested inserting a pair of carbon fibre rods just around the 12th fret (say, from the 9th to the 17th fret) to make the neck's weak point sturdier without overly altering the structural rigidity of a Fender-style neck. Warmoth traditionally does it with steel rods running through the length of the neck, but some consider them to be overly stiff; Fender has experimented with graphite rods, again running through the length of the neck, but to little benefit. Probably shorter and possibly thicker works best, because of leverage and physics.
 
#18
Boneless said:
Careful with shims. Fender necks are prone to ski-jumps (or whatever you call them)*. Shims apparently make the problem worse (or more likely to happen), unless you use those "full pocket" shims that fully support the neck.

* : the infuriating thing is that the problem still hasn't been solved, at least by Fender, over seventy years after the birth of the electric Precision bass. IIRC, some relatively high-profile luthier/guitar builder suggested inserting a pair of carbon fibre rods just around the 12th fret (say, from the 9th to the 17th fret) to make the neck's weak point sturdier without overly altering the structural rigidity of a Fender-style neck. Warmoth traditionally does it with steel rods running through the length of the neck, but some consider them to be overly stiff; Fender has experimented with graphite rods, again running through the length of the neck, but to little benefit. Probably shorter and possibly thicker works best, because of leverage and physics.
Click to expand...

Not sure if you've seen this thread by @Turnaround, but it's quite interesting. I believe his conclusion was that shims do not cause ski jumps.

Turnaround

Thread 'Getting the Facts about Ski Jumps'

This first thread has been in the works for a while. The "pros" involved in this project are 202dy, walterw, JLS and myself (Turnaround).

I approached the others a while ago after hearing once again that shimming a neck can cause a ski jump. I've heard lots of opinions from many sources about the cause of ski jumps, but no actual facts concerning the subject - opinions are not facts in my book. I decided to enlist a few of my TB friends to join me on a study of ski jumps to uncover the facts about this relatively common occurrence. The result of this effort will show up in this...
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#19
Buying a new bass and finding out you need to shim it to get the action required annoys the hell out of me too. Obviously you set the truss rod first and then see where you are.

Ski-jumps - after avoiding them for the first half of my playing years they seem to be more common now. I don't play neck-through basses these days but that is one way to avoid/minimise the kink. Might be my ears but I always think I can hear their clank all over the neck too, not just up high.
 
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#20
Agreed about the ski jump thing not being an issue. I have always shim'd Fender style bolt on necks and never had it happen in over 30 years. (I hate saying that because I feel my age when I do)

For me personally I think a shim is almost always needed on Fender necks to get the low action/setup I like. I kind of wish Fender still did that neck angle adjustment thing they used to do. It just makes so much sense.
 
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