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Is a 1-piece neck on a 5-string stable?

#4
One-piece maple necks are stable for 5-string use. The G&L series, namely the 2500, has a one-piece maple neck. I've owned a graphite 5-string neck that bent horribly, but all of my wood 5-string necks, 2 of which were single piece necks, have all been stable.

No worries! Especially if it's a nicer bass with a nicer piece of wood.
 
#5
isn't the fingerboard a seperate piece of wood? is there a truss rod?
if so, you should be fine. if it is relatively straight now, it will remain
that way. if it has wierd curves etc... then not so good
 
#11
US G&Ls are actually two piece necks. If you check out their website, they explain that their necks are bi-cut, i.e. two pieces of quatersawn wood glued together. That said, one piece necks work just fine on five strings, just look at MusicMan, Fender, Lakland, MTD, Sadowsky, etc.
 
#12
Hansomatic said:
This is a grainger bass, not the production PRS bass.

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I've had one of the '80s PRS five-strings since 1997 and used medium-gauge D'Addario XLs the entire time. The neck is relatively stable, "relatively" meaning it doesn't wander around too much but over the first few years developed a 1/4" bow at the 12th fret until I got hold of a correctly-sized truss wrench.
My bass has a thin, narrow, un-reinforced one-piece quartersawn maple neck and it is my opinion that PRS didn't correctly calculate the string tension when designing my bass, which is an early first-generation model. Hopefully, they learned a few things before making your bass, but then again, it's a PRS. I read recently that Roger Sadowsky swears up and down that figured maple isn't stable enough to support string tension.
 
#13
This bass here appears to have one solid piece wood for a neck ...

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there is one piece of wood clearly visable from the back side but the fretboard is a different piece of wood glued on and under the fretboard there is even another piece of wood as well ... so the neck on a typical modern Rickenbacker has 3 pieces of maple glued together. And a typical Rickenbacker bass has 2 truss rods.
 
#16
Dr. Cheese said:
US G&Ls are actually two piece necks. If you check out their website, they explain that their necks are bi-cut, i.e. two pieces of quatersawn wood glued together. That said, one piece necks work just fine on five strings, just look at MusicMan, Fender, Lakland, MTD, Sadowsky, etc.
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Not any more, they changed to a new method recently. From their site:

Our latest construction methodology uses a one piece neck blank with the truss rod installed underneath the fingerboard. In the case of an all-maple neck, a layer of the maple neck blank is sliced off, and this slice becomes the fingerboard, ensuring a consistent appearance of a solid, one-piece maple neck.

Truss rod technology has evolved over the years, and G&L has carefully studied design options before finalizing its latest design. This contemporary design incorporates a secondary, flat-sided rod which bows away from primary rod. Unlike a vintage truss rod, this design does not compress the neck longitudinally in order to function; compression contributes to distortion of the fingerboard curvature. Operation is both fluid and accurate with the articulation of the neck, the "relief", being very consistent across the length of the neck. Unlike similar rods available today, G&L's rod has an additional anchor for the heel end of the neck, to help ensure long-term stability and ensure that the rod will never shear through the adjustment end of the neck. Finally, the channel for the rod is also carefully designed to provide a snug fit for the rod while ensuring free and complete articulation.
 

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