Fixing a bowed / warped bass neck

[-Boscoe-]

Do you put it between the spoke wheel and the wood or inside the pocket of the neck?

 

[-Boscoe-]

Update: After the previous heat treatment I let the neck stand for a day and took off the clamps. Neck was almost completely flat, with maybe a smidgen of bow in the middle. My notched straight edge had arrived so I was able to check it pretty closely. Given that I want to have a slight backbow with the truss rod completely tight I warmed up the neck again and put a bit more backbow into it with the clamps. Left it under heat for about 12 hours and turned it off. I'm going to take the clamps off later and see if I've managed to get some more backbow. I'm also going to go see if I can find some washers small enough to fit into the spoke wheel's pocket.

 

[-Boscoe-]

Removed the clamps and there was backbow! After letting it sit for 24 hours there was still some backbow, so I attached the neck and tensioned the strings. .010" (0.25mm) of relief! A little too low but I'm going to let it sit and see how it is in a few weeks before loosening the truss rod. Action is nice and low. Played it all last night and it played great.

I'm going to declare this bass fixed! I might have to repeat this process in a while but it wasn't hard and was definitely better than replacing the neck. Thanks for all the help everyone!

Here's a picture of the bass:

 

[tindrum]

Removed the clamps and there was backbow! After letting it sit for 24 hours there was still some backbow, so I attached the neck and tensioned the strings. .010" (0.25mm) of relief! A little too low but I'm going to let it sit and see how it is in a few weeks before loosening the truss rod. Action is nice and low. Played it all last night and it played great.

I'm going to declare this bass fixed! I might have to repeat this process in a while but it wasn't hard and was definitely better than replacing the neck. Thanks for all the help everyone!

Here's a picture of the bass:
View attachment 5428171

AWESOME!!!!

 

[jurberg]

I have an old Fender MB-5 that has always had a bow in the neck. Up until recently, I could still get it straight enough to use by tightening the truss rod all the way. A few weeks ago, I did a fret level on it. After that, I could no longer get the relief set properly again. Thanks to all the advise on this thread, I put some clamps and heat on it for a few weeks and was able to get it back to playing condition. There’s still a small twist, but its doesn’t affect playability. Maybe I’ll send it to WarpedNeck.com to get it properly straightened, but it’s a backup, so it works for now. Thanks to everyone for the advise.

 

[Jim C]

FWIW, wharpednecks.com straightened my 73' J bass neck (ski jump) about a year ago and it's still perfect.
There was a slight upcharge for being super careful with heat because of the white binding and MoT blocks.
Highly recommended.