Fixing a neck... is this a video good or not?

[heinpete]

...Something tells me John Hall isn't too interested in my opinion, however.

...definitely, as he handed over the company to his son Ben!

 

[Ric5]

up date ... the neck is stable and holding ... it is not flat, but it is very playable ... with the lighter string and the modified pickups and the 5th string ... it is a truly exceptional one of a kind bass brought back to life with a c-clamp

 

[Gilmourisgod]

If it ever goes wonky on you, you can probably do this again, nice save. I've got an old Fender with a bad case of ski jump, might be worth a try.

 

[heatheroo1]

Dan Erlewine has been writing repair columns for magazines like Guitar Player and Vintage Guitar since the 80’s.

I drove 400 miles to Dan's shop to have him repair the broken truss rod on my '77 T-Bird. He got the rod working again but wasn't satisfied with the resulting straightness of the neck.......so he didn't charge me anything. He told me to put the $ towards gas and coffee to get me home. That's pretty good service. I eventually had a protegee of his, Chris Maul, do the heat treatment and all is good. I have found it needs to be re-treated about once a year. I joke that my T-bird gets a trip to the spa once a year.

 

[Jeff Hughes]

My old boss used to have Dan E work on his stuff. My boss said he would talk and talk and talk and talk...

The little product placements are funny. Sometimes I think the Stewmac videos don't go over what could go wrong whereas Dave and Rosa String Works really show you all sorts of problems that can occur.

Like a Hollywood ending the Stewmac vids always end with resolution. The other guys are a little more realistic though.

 

[Ric5]

OK ... 3 months later and the neck is still better ... but not flat ... and the twist is better.

I will do this again with heat

 

[Ric5]

OK 10 months later ... the bow came back, but the twist is still a lot better.

When the weather gets warmer I will try an electric Iron heat treatment in my garage with clamps. I may also replace the truss rods.

 

[Ric5]

I tried clamping two necks without heat and neither really responded to that. I put a clothes iron set on polyesters (medium?) heat with a 1/8" thick, 1.5" wide, ~36" long aluminum strip sitting on the frets. The aluminum strip helped distribute the heat. I also released the tension on the truss rod while heating. This process worked well. Don't over bend it as you can put too much backbow in the neck, too.

Initially, I set the iron for the lowest setting and let it sit on the center of the neck for ~20 minutes. I removed the iron and let it cool over night while clamped in the backbowed position. That didn't do much, so I increased the temperature to the polyester setting. That may be medium to medium low on your iron. It is the lowest among the "steam" range of heat settings on my iron. I did not use steam, just dry heat. Anyhow, you could feel that the back of the neck was very warm and the aluminum was hot to the touch. Let it sit for a half hour and let it stay clamped until the neck was cool.

View attachment 3857054

I did this to the neck above from an Aria Pro beater to test and then to a nicer Fender neck. You may want to be a bit more conservative with that Ric, but the heat definitely worked to get rid of forward bow.

this will be my next step ...

 

[Aceonbass]

this will be my next step ...

Sometimes straightening and reinserting the truss rods helps, but replacing them won't.

 

[Ric5]

Sometimes straightening and reinserting the truss rods helps, but replacing them won't.

yes ... but ... the existing rods are a little worn where at the nut ... and it is always good to have an extra set of 4003/4 truss rods

it is interesting that this bass here had a tempermental neck ... but it settled down and is now behaving very well.

I think some of the 4004 basses were bought by people who don't play them much and don't adjust the neck and do setups, then the bad neck adjust settles in and it becomes harder to adjust out the front bow

 

[cholyoke]

this will be my next step ...

Be gentle. If it gets too hot it could darken the clear coat on the maple where you are applying the heat.

 

[Ric5]

Be gentle. If it gets too hot it could darken the clear coat on the maple where you are applying the heat.

it would be this bass here with the bubinga fretboard ... no clear coat

The one with the maple fretboard is straight

 

[Ric5]

(1181) In The Shop: Heat Pressing a Neck | Elderly Instruments - YouTube

 

[Ric5]

(1181) Fender Bass Bent Neck Repair - YouTube

 

[Ric5]

I adjusted the rods and put on new strings

120 90 67 50 42

It plays and sounds great

 

[Ric5]

I tried clamping two necks without heat and neither really responded to that. I put a clothes iron set on polyesters (medium?) heat with a 1/8" thick, 1.5" wide, ~36" long aluminum strip sitting on the frets. The aluminum strip helped distribute the heat. I also released the tension on the truss rod while heating. This process worked well. Don't over bend it as you can put too much backbow in the neck, too.

Initially, I set the iron for the lowest setting and let it sit on the center of the neck for ~20 minutes. I removed the iron and let it cool over night while clamped in the backbowed position. That didn't do much, so I increased the temperature to the polyester setting. That may be medium to medium low on your iron. It is the lowest among the "steam" range of heat settings on my iron. I did not use steam, just dry heat. Anyhow, you could feel that the back of the neck was very warm and the aluminum was hot to the touch. Let it sit for a half hour and let it stay clamped until the neck was cool.

View attachment 3857054

I did this to the neck above from an Aria Pro beater to test and then to a nicer Fender neck. You may want to be a bit more conservative with that Ric, but the heat definitely worked to get rid of forward bow.

so a long time later the neck kinda went back to its curvature ... So I am doing the heat treatment

 

[Aceonbass]

This looks an aweful lot like a tutorial for removing a fretboard. I think it's time to take the bass to a luthier.

 

[Ric5]

This looks an aweful lot like a tutorial for removing a fretboard. I think it's time to take the bass to a luthier.

ya I could spend more than the bass is worth to put a new neck thru neck on it

 

[Aceonbass]

ya I could spend more than the bass is worth to put a new neck thru neck on it

Or you could have the fingerboard removed, the neck planed flat again, and converted to a single DA rod.

 

[Turnaround]

Consider the amount of time it took the neck to develop a forward bow. Probably more than a few days. So it will take more than a few days to reverse it.