Basses w Maple FB's more stable than RW?

[conttador]

That is so contrary to most of the "knowledge " here. At least I'll admit to experience and not knowledge or book larnin'

Could have to do with the type of maple. My tech says that the more figured the wood the more susceptible to changes. Because in essence the figuring are knots in the wood and when they expand & contract wreak havoc.

I have other basses that have rock maple or quarter sawn maple and I never have issues with those. I have another bass that has a Wenge neck and I’ve never had to adjust it either.

 

[Thumper]

Yeah, been on Talkbass since 2000. I've seen these these theads come time and again. Not much new in this one. One of the often repeated claims was that multi-lamination and dual truss rods were superior, just found it amusing that that bass had both.

 

[J Wilson]

I will pass along an experience:

Of my three Squiers, the James Johnston Sig would come and go a little too often to suit. One more time, get out the rule and feeler gages. I chalked it up to green wood/new bass-itis.

So the next time I went to change strings a few months ago, I looked at the laurel fingerboard and thought 'that
really looks dry'. Duhhhhhhh . . . . .

So i take all the strings off and put one coat of F1 oil. Gone! Put on a second coat. Gone! The third time, it'd had enough and I had enough to wipe off. Gave it a while to dry, then re-strung and fine tuned the setup.

It hasn't moved a millimeter since.

I learned from that.

 

[Standalone]

Amazing necks

Ibanez basses, especially the MIJ ones and especially as they age, really have SOUL. I can’t explain it much better than that.

 

[LoTone]

I have a 2010 Mexican Precision with a maple fingerboard. Among all my basses, this is the one that is the most sensitive to humidity and temperature variations.

 

[vindibona1]

Dude.

You really should not, and should not need, to adjust a truss rod on a weekly basis.

This has nothing to do with the fingerboard material. One of the following is happening:

• You forgot that it can take up to 24 hours for a truss rod adjustment to fully settle in. E.g. you're making too big of an adjustment, then a week later it's off so you make another adjustment that's too big, etc.
• You need to suck it up and learn how to play with slightly higher action than you normally prefer.
• The neck is screwed.

I strongly recommend you bring the instrument to the best repair shop you can get to, and have a professional set it up. You shouldn't need to adjust it after that for another 6-12 months.

Or, you can just have the shop replace the unstable neck.

AT home I rarely have to adjust the truss rod. It's just that when I go to my weekly gigs there are a lot of changes that happen as it acclimates. All of us have to return, 2, 3, 4, 5 times in the first hour at the very least, while the tuning stability holds for days or weeks at home. As I said my Yamaha made in 2018 is the worst culrpiit. At least the truss rod is in a very accessible place, at the bottom of the finger board and a minute twist with an allen key fixes the issue. The neck relief, with a little help goes into proper place and I just have to retune. It's just annoying but having the tools with insures that it all works as it should.

Ibanez basses, especially the MIJ ones and especially as they age, really have SOUL. I can’t explain it much better than that.

My BTB675 is becoming one of my regular basses that I like rotating into. It appears to be the most stable of all. Perhaps it's because of two truss rods, but the one on the treble side has an issue with the nut being stripped. I wonder how easy that is to repair? But it doesn't cause an issue as everything is stable and on rare occasion the bass side truss rod needs small adjustments. For convenience I took the TR cover off and colored the interior of the cavity to match the head so I could just leave it off.

My 2010 Fender MIM Jazz5's stability lies somewhere in the middle. I try not to adjust it unless absolutely necessary as the TR is very stiff to adjust and I have to be super careful to make sure the Allen key is 100% secure before trying to to turn it. Measuring moments ago the relief measured .007" which is pretty typical of where I like the relief to be. It's pretty much the same on all my basses. The downside for me is that if getst lower then I get some buzz and if it goes higher at all, even a couple of 100ths it is very noticeableI don't like it.

Also, when COVID struck everything went on hiatus and I didn't do much in terms of maintenance. I just realized that many of my rosewood and ebony fingerboards hadn't been looked at in a few years. So out came the conditioner or oil and many have gotten a new dose of it. I haven't done my Yamaha or Fender basses yet, so perhaps that's a project for the next few days.