neck question

[CQBASS]

I have two necks, a fretless and fretted. I've been switching them on the same bass until I find a good fretless. Should I take all the tension off the truss rod when a neck is sitting around for a while? I have to crank em down pretty hard when they are strung up, so I'm wondering if leaving it like that when there's no string tension is going to warp the neck. Thanks.

 

[fretbuzz85]

It just might. From personal experience, i once owned a bass with a straight neck. Its a cheap bass, take that into consideration. Constantly changed tunings between standard E and standard C. that started to kill the neck a little. Then came the day when i decided to replace the E string with a low B string to do BEAD tuning. That totally killed the neck, it was twisted badly, dead spots, fret buzzing every where on the neck no matter how high my action was.

Had to spend 350 bucks to get the neck straightened at a local luthier. My advice is to stick to one neck, or get to basses that you can use, a cheap one maybe, if u wanna try out fretless bass. When u get really used to it, go for a higher range one.

 

[Bass]

Remove all tension from the trussrod when the neck is removed to help prevent a warped neck.

 

[Hambone]

In most cases of single action TR's once the strings are removed, the tension is released from the trussrod. It's only there to counteract the string tension. When there isn't string tension, the TR is essentially relaxed.

I have necks in my shop I've removed and had off the instruments for months and months at a time. Never had to do anything with them when they were reassembled but let them settle back in then tweak the TR for a final adjustment.

 

[CQBASS]

Thanks, I was worried I'd end up with two messed up necks instead of one! I appreciate it.