I just wish I had an oven big enough to roast neck-thru blanks.
No, I don’t really wish that...
I'm building shortscale headless basses (well, still doing the first) so the blanks are 24" each...
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How to get a neck that won't easily bow ?
- Thread starter skullbass
- Start date
I'm building shortscale headless basses (well, still doing the first) so the blanks are 24" each...
Started roasting my own maple for this
Though as the Talkbass Physicist you're probably gonna tell me that roasting it in my home oven isn't real torrefaction, aren't you?
Well... if you read up on torrefaction, you'll find a few things your oven doesn't do. Like remove the oxygen during the process.
On the other hand, I have a bass that has roasted Ash as a top, and I was trying to stain a piece of oak to make a matching thumb rest. I had a hard time with that, and resorted to roasting the thumb rest in my oven. While it isn't torrefied, for that application it doesn't matter, and it does have a much better visual match than I could get by staining. So, if you want something to look torrefied, and don't care if it's actually torrefied, I highly endorse DIY wood roasting (but make no guarantees whatsoever that you won't screw up whatever it is you're roasting). If your wife complains about you putting wood in the oven, make her some planked salmon; she'll probably be OK with it.
Actually, for once my whole family is on board with my projects, roasting maple makes the house smell like sugar cookies and/or maple bacon...
If you have a moment and would like to chime in, feel free to throw a few comments on my thread:
My home Torrefaction Experiment...
and yes, by that definition it's not true torrefaction. I am curious how much of a difference there is between roasting and the vacuumed process. If it doesn't have the stability, but at least gives some "speed" to the seasoning process, that's fine for me...
Oh and I don't think I'll ever use Oak on the build again unless I'm desperate, geez does that stuff splinter!
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Status Graphite!
This is lined fretless (fretted is same cost)
That neck doesn't care what temperature or humidity you have in Canada, it stays in tune!
They make replacements for USA Fender 20 fret 4 strings in three nut widths. They also make MMSR4/5 necks for the USA stuff. The MMSR4 will also work for G&L L-1000.
Cost to US with S/H was $425 when it was purchased with the exchange rate and no duties here, could be different in Canada.
If you can play any of those or get a Warmoth body set up as you like your neck issues are done!
This is lined fretless (fretted is same cost)
That neck doesn't care what temperature or humidity you have in Canada, it stays in tune!
They make replacements for USA Fender 20 fret 4 strings in three nut widths. They also make MMSR4/5 necks for the USA stuff. The MMSR4 will also work for G&L L-1000.
Cost to US with S/H was $425 when it was purchased with the exchange rate and no duties here, could be different in Canada.
If you can play any of those or get a Warmoth body set up as you like your neck issues are done!
Laminated wood is always stronger and more stable than a single piece of wood.
This is not debatable. Its fact.
I live in Atlantic Canada and seasonal neck adjust ments are ... well, seasonal. I have found that my most stable neck is a Conklin 5 string, 5 piece laminate wenge, purple heart. Canadian hard maple as they call it is used a lot and is ok but will always need a hand from summer to winter and vice versa. Choice 3 will give you a good stable neck .
Laminated wood is typically more stable than a single piece of wood, though not always. If you use lumber with no runout, then a laminated board can approach the strength of a solid piece. If there is runout, not laminating it will definitely give you a stronger board, as the grain will be longer.
The strength of a piece of lumber is in its grain. Uninterrupted grain is stronger than interrupted grain. Always.
Done! I bought a Schecter Apocalypse C-4 with:
1. multi ply neck
3. carbon reinforced
4. ebony fretboard!
That'll do....I hope! Thanks everybody for your comments and advices !
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4: Go for something multi-ply and with a dual action truss rod.
My "cheapo" Yamaha 5-string TRBX's neck was so damn straight after changing the stock strings that I had to even push it a bit /w the rod to have any bow. They tend to be rock solid and the customer support is great (at least here in mid-EU).
Hope it helps.
Find a Modulas neck, or better bass - carbon fibre neck - impervious to climatic change compared to pretty much anything else...cheers from NZ
come on. there is no single, solid grain in a laminate.
multiple layers of wood and glue IS ALWAYS STRONGER. There is no solid grain in a laminate. The layers of grain are not even the same. Search yourself.
The Science of Wood Laminate
Did you know that according to the building industry, “engineered” wood (laminated wood) is 50% stiffer than solid sawn lumber? Not surprising, really, when you consider the advances in adhesives and resins that have been made in the past 10 years.
Without disclosing exactly how laminate wood blanks are made, let’s just say that a very special adhesive is used that is pushed into the very fibers of the wood as the individual layers are pressed together under heat and great pressure. This process helps to bond the adhesive to the wood fibers at the microscopic level, and helps to cure the adhesive as it infuses into the individual wood fibers, actually becoming a part of the wood.
It’s no secret that the adhesive used in wood laminates helps to stiffen the wood and make it much stronger. That’s the beauty of resins; they are excellent stiffeners, bonders and waterproofers. With all those qualities and benefits coming from just one lamination process, you can see why engineered hardwoods are far superior in strength and rigidity to solid wood. And, rightly so – because the wood laminate has been “enhanced.”
Engineered lumber is a very different thing than laminating a neck for a bass. When you laminate a few layers of the same wood for a bass neck, the fibers that you're stressing are the same species on both sides of the neck - it's the same forces in compression and tension on the same material - there is no difference in strength from gluing together two pieces of the same species of lumber, assuming the grain is straight. If it isn't straight, then the solid lumber has an advantage in strength, since the fibers aren't cut. When making engineered lumber, there's a lot of things done - different species in different places in the stack, glues that penetrate the wood, etc. If you've worked with hard maple (what we make bass necks out of), you know that glue doesn't penetrate very far at all in maple.
If I was building a house, I'd be all for engineered lumber in the right places. If I wanted a stable neck for a bass (I have done this) then gluing up multiple pieces of wood to make it more stable would be something I'd do. But, it doesn't improve the tensile or compressive strength of the wood; it's not stronger.
If I was building a house, I'd be all for engineered lumber in the right places. If I wanted a stable neck for a bass (I have done this) then gluing up multiple pieces of wood to make it more stable would be something I'd do. But, it doesn't improve the tensile or compressive strength of the wood; it's not stronger.
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Just curious here about the OP. Just how bad is the change in your necks? 2 -3 mm or more? My Warwick is set so it's almost perfectly straight in the summer but has a bow in the winter. Neither bother me or affect the playability. No fret buzz with either season. I have just learned to not mind the slight change. I can raise or lower the strings if I need to, but most of the time I don't need to. I'm in the Nashville, TN area not close to a river or lake. Wenge fingerboard, Ovangkol neck, Ash body. JMTCW
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Could it be that many one piece necks are flat sawn, where l've seen quartersawn for laminates... meaning the 90 degree turn stacks the grains of each piece?
I can't measure it as I don't know how to do it, but the 2 luthiers I saw told me there was a S in the neck. Probably because of some tapewound strings that the previous owner put on with too much tension applied ? Because of a bad truss rod adjustment made after or before it ?
Anyway, the adjustment they had to make, in order to avoid fret buzzes, is to place the strings higher.
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Some necks are quarter sawn, some are flat sawn, some are in between. That's an additional factor that may contribute (depends on the species, I'm sure, as to how different that is); I'm just commenting on the fact that lamination itself doesn't change the strength. Yes, other things done to engineered lumber make it a better building material, but we're talking bass necks here. Common knowledge from another industry is sometimes helpful (where I work we are constantly adapting materials and ideas from other industries), but.....sometimes it doesn't apply.
There are just so many factors here, the most chaotic one is the material itself: wood.
Wood of any species is still organic and while you can assume that wood of type X will have attributes A,B,C... there will ALWAYS be exceptions to the rule. This is why the tone wood argument is a bit tricky (but I'm NOT diving down that rabbit hole!)
It sounds like you had a bad neck experience and you are moving to avoid a repeat. That is 100% understandable and you are paying the premium to ensure it doesn't happen again. At the same time, you are going to hear from others that swear up and down that their bass plays like butter even though they take it into hot showers and jump into icy ponds with it strapped on their back.
You simply can't predict how a particular piece of wood will behave over time. You can make a better educated guess with some precautions, but there will always be duds and diamonds in the least expected places. Rods and reinforcements are there to ensure the MAJORITY of necks can be bent (or unbent) into submission. But again, there is a point where more tweaking, more reinforcing, etc will be unnecessary 99.9999% of the time and only add expense.
Add to the fact that mass produced necks are simply not going to be examined beyond certain quality assurance thresholds. They'll operate on a formula to reduce the chance of a twisted neck occurring down the road, but they aren't able to predict it.
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Many bass (and guitar) manufacturers have web sites with instruction as to doing set up, and other stuff we just gotta do to our basses occasionally. Warwick's site has short instructional videos as to doing a complete set up. The ruler they use is a metric one so you should have one around the house. The simplest way to find the amount of bow is to hold the string down at the first and the last fret. Then have someone measure the gap around the 7th fret. If it's upwards of 5 -7 mm it probably has too much bow. If it's say 1 mm all the way up and down the neck, that's probably too straight. But each bass is just different so you have to find out first the distance your strings are above the fingerboard, and go from there. I've seen some high-dollar bases with 1.5 mm all the way from first to 24th fret, with no buzz at all. The above is a starting point. Every bass player needs to learn how do setup and intonation for himself (or herself!). Saves money and you just feel a sense of empowerment when you can do it. Hope this makes sense.
A: grats on your bass, it's a beauty
B: the proper way to fix those issues are depending how bad the curve is:
1: level/recrown the frets
2: refret then 1
3: replain the neck(fingerboard) to straight then 2 then 1
alternative: change the neck and set up from there
Unfortunately most of the times it just does not worth the effort unless you got some really expensive or exotic instrument or You just really want to save it, cause why not.
