Official Zon Club Part 4

[Addison]

My wife is running the Nike Women's Marathon in SF this weekend through LLS (she raised over $5K! Woo hoo!), so I'll be making a special little field trip to the shop to meet with Joe Z and the team to go over a few things.

Any special questions or requests?

 

[tombowlus]

My wife is running the Nike Women's Marathon in SF this weekend through LLS (she raised over $5K! Woo hoo!), so I'll be making a special little field trip to the shop to meet with Joe Z and the team to go over a few things.

Any special questions or requests?

I would ask to have Joe show her my wood, but that just sounds wrong...

Grats to your wife on raising so much money and also for running a marathon! That is quite the commitment, and one heck of an accomplishment.

 

[portraitoftracy]

Hello Zon heads,

Has anyone had their fretted zon converted to a lined fretless?

thanks

 

[Damian Coccio]

These are my all time favorite strings for any fretless, including the Sonus Special fretless I had at one point (best fretless ever, IMHO)...



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Vic (and anyone else) how do you find the tone of the narrow bars and the pup spacing on a sonus special? I'm somewhat used to my legacy special with two soapbars. I like a warm growly tone on a fretless. For the sonus special I put on order this is my final option I am tossing around. Curious as to your thoughts. Thanks.

 

[Papersen]

I used to own one in the past.
The conversion was made at Zon's shop by one of the previous owner.
Best fretless I've ever played.

[/I]

Hello Zon heads,

Has anyone had their fretted zon converted to a lined fretless?

thanks

 

[portraitoftracy]

I used to own one in the past.
The conversion was made at Zon's shop by one of the previous owner.
Best fretless I've ever played.

[/I]

Cool, maybe I'll just call Joe and see how much, although I'm afraid it won't be cheap thru the shop.

 

[ppal]

Cool, maybe I'll just call Joe and see how much, although I'm afraid it won't be cheap thru the shop.

It might not be cheap, but it will be done right! Joe and his crew have all the tools to work with the phenowood, and more importantly they are the experts when working with this material (not all luthiers provide the same quality workmanship, especially with phenowood, this stuff is extra HARD) Don't cut corners, get the fine workmanship done at the factory, you, and the value of your bass will be glad you did

 

[golower]

Putting out a bassgear magazine is no small feat either so congrats on that . Read in the electronic version for the first time a few weeks ago and felt the article on Glockenklang was very well written.
Switched from DR Hi beams to Sunbeams on my 5-1 .I like them and it tamed the high end down a bit . Noticed the Hi beams were chewing on my frets a bit when I took the neck off to raise the action to reduce some B and E buzz.Now it started buzzing on the bridge saddle on the E -? Basses are a very particular instrument .Hate taking the neck off .When you release the pressure on those screws holding the neck on it is a bone chilling crunch .The reason they make the basses that way is they do not need to be adjusted much .They want people to play them not fiddle around with them and have seen people who shouldn't be adjusting their own instruments strip the truss rod right out of the neck .I bet they have seen all sorts of stuff with people.Iam fearful of stripping a bolt hold out of the neck when I put it back on ,obviously you want it snug.
Made the(probably wise) decision not to router into the body of my bass to be able to adjust the truss rod .When I started measuring how much material the plunge router would have beavered off to be able to move the Allen wrench on adjustments it became clear that I just needed to to schlep the neck off whenever it needed to be adjusted -crunch .Tell Joe I think the necks need to have the truss rod be able to be adjusted without taking the neck off .If someone is that neglect to strip the truss rod out of the neck they should be void of a warranty replacement. Was also going to put a brass round dial with holes in it onto the truss rod but the engineering on that was not a fun venture either and was about as much material taken off the body as a knee replacement on a pro football punter.Hopefully the optimum setup for my climate will be found and I can have sat it and forgot it.I find composite necks do take more time to adjust to the adjustments than a wood neck .

 

[golower]

If you ever want to save some money on having "the shop" router on your bass ,send it to me .Ill do ink on that thing for cheap.

 

[golower]

LOL laugh its good fer ya

 

[tsar nicholas]

Here's a couple shots of me playing the fretless with Baja Snake at the Grand Avenue Festival. This bass is such a joy to play, especially with the D-string tuner restored thanks to the generosity of TB cool cat Bobunit!


The guru would kill me for backsliding to my crummy left-hand technique as seen here, but c'est la vie. I find it kind of hard to keep my technique straight when doing ambient extended-technique type stuff, especially on the fretless.

Every time I play this thing, I'm more convinced that Zon has mastered the Platonic form of the fretless electric bass.

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[Addison]

When I started measuring how much material the plunge router would have beavered off to be able to move the Allen wrench on adjustments it became clear that I just needed to to schlep the neck off whenever it needed to be adjusted -crunch .Tell Joe I think the necks need to have the truss rod be able to be adjusted without taking the neck off .If someone is that neglect to strip the truss rod out of the neck they should be void of a warranty replacement. Was also going to put a brass round dial with holes in it onto the truss rod but the engineering on that was not a fun venture either and was about as much material taken off the body as a knee replacement on a pro football punter.Hopefully the optimum setup for my climate will be found and I can have sat it and forgot it.I find composite necks do take more time to adjust to the adjustments than a wood neck .

I'm honestly really confused by your need to constantly adjust the neck on your Zon... you do realize that they are impervious to moisture and humidity changes, correct?

I live in North Dakota... this is probably one of the WORST possible environments for guitars to live in... and once I have adjusted the necks on my Zon to how I like them to FEEL, they have not moved... once... after hundreds of gigs over several years.

I mean... there's really not any wood there anymore, except for what is encased inside polycarbonate resin for the neck, and the fingerboard where the molecular structure has been permanently changed by a heat and chemical process... phenowood is not even technically wood anymore, so it does not take on moisture like regular wood.

You could take off your neck and let it soak in the bathtub all night, and not a single drop of moisture would soak into the neck and change its stability.

I had to put my 519 in a trailer when it was a bone dry -20° afternoon and drove for 200 miles to my gig, played it two nights in a row in a 90° club filled with hot sweaty bodies, put it in my gig bag, drove home in -20° weather, took it out of the bag that night to wipe it down, and it wasn't even out of tune.

 

[J.Wolf]

Technically this is true, and I haven't had to adjust mine since I initially got it and set the relief to my preferences, but I will say that when I worked for joe, we got a reasonable number of calls from guys who needed to send their basses in due to neck relief/string height issues. At that time there were no rods, and people were buying their basses in great playable shape, but at some point the neck moved and they needed it adjusted. So they move.. But I don't know about constantly having to adjust it. I would contact the shop and inquire if you're having to adjust it at all frequently.

 

[tsar nicholas]

Re : neck stability : every case is different, of course, but stability is the #1 reason I chose Zon for both my fretted and fretless basses (and I could have gone with pretty much any brand).

In Arizona, it can be dry as salt one day, then a weird monsoony thing can come in and suddenly it'll be all humid, or the autumn nights will be real cold then the afternoons hot, and I play a lot of outdoor gigs, etc etc. So I was getting HELL of frustrated with the neck on my J-bass going pretzel every time the ambient conditions changed. I'm a set-it-and-forget-it type of guy, and I hate hate hate adjusting my instruments. Moving to graphite / carbon (and Zon) was one of the smartest gear decisions I've ever made.

p.p.s. So to replace the "D" string on my fretless, which had been damaged when the tuner snapped, I inexplicably cheaped out and got a set of D'Addario XLs, which were the cheapest string available on short notice. I was like "well, I like this brand, how bad could they be?" BAD MOVE. This set is one of the stupidest string sets I've ever encountered. Not only is the tone VERY harsh and twangy, but the tension on the D string is over SIX POUNDS higher (!?!?!?) than the next highest-tensioned string, and tension across the whole set varies more than ten pounds! Why didn't I notice this when I bought them, you ask? Because the package is now designed such that you can't see the tension measurements until AFTER you open them!

I adjusted my technique to compensate for the tone difference on the replaced string, but the tension thing is just insane. What the hell, D'Addario? Who do you have designing these string sets, drunken nudibranchs?

I'm probably going to switch to a different brand -- sort of waffling between Thomastik rounds and one of the lower-tension DRs (Sunbeams?). What roundwounds do you guys have one your Zon fretlessesesses?

 

[Angus]

I'm honestly really confused by your need to constantly adjust the neck on your Zon... you do realize that they are impervious to moisture and humidity changes, correct?

I mean... there's really not any wood there anymore, except for what is encased inside polycarbonate resin for the neck, and the fingerboard where the molecular structure has been permanently changed by a heat and chemical process... phenowood is not even technically wood anymore, so it does not take on moisture like regular wood.

You could take off your neck and let it soak in the bathtub all night, and not a single drop of moisture would soak into the neck and change its stability.

This is actually not true.

Carbon fiber can and does move with temperature, particularly as it ages, and the resin does absorb small amounts of moisture over time. It is all in small amounts, but absolutely does. I have had to adjust my neck a few times in changing climates. We are talking 3-4 times in seven years, and usually when I have moved across country from warm to cold climates (or vice versa).

The fingerboard, though, is generally the culprit, as it also will absorb moisture and move with temperature. They use it because it will be less prone to movement than traditional wood, but it absolutely still will, and is generally the problem child when some movement occurs.

You can soak water into phenowood- it just does not absorb the same water content as other woods. Think of it like a stable ebony- there will still be moisture to absorb, even if it does not look like it does much.

The more moisture it absorbs, the more it will move with temperature changes. Big changes in ambient moisture could have the same effect.

No bass is completely immune from this, even if Zons in my experience have the most stable necks over time.

 

[Addison]

Technically this is true, and I haven't had to adjust mine since I initially got it and set the relief to my preferences, but I will say that when I worked for joe, we got a reasonable number of calls from guys who needed to send their basses in due to neck relief/string height issues. At that time there were no rods, and people were buying their basses in great playable shape, but at some point the neck moved and they needed it adjusted. So they move.. But I don't know about constantly having to adjust it.

I agree with you, but that's two different things.

I'm not a mechanical engineer, so I'm not going to pretend to know if what I'm about to say makes any actual sense, but bear with me.

Somehow, it makes sense in my mind that a poly neck without a truss rod could slowly bend over time with constant tension in fairly rare instances... however, having a solid steel stiffening mechanism inside the neck that offers counter-resistance alongside the already incredibly rigid polycarbonate neck seems like it wouldn't go ANYWHERE once it was set to how you like it.

This describes how my necks have behaved.

However, golower seems to be implying he is having to constantly readjust because of climate change... and, well... that simply doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[Addison]

This is actually not true.

Carbon fiber can and does move with temperature, particularly as it ages, and the resin does absorb small amounts of moisture over time. It is all in small amounts, but absolutely does. I have had to adjust my neck a few times in changing climates. We are talking 3-4 times in seven years, and usually when I have moved across country from warm to cold climates (or vice versa).

The fingerboard, though, is generally the culprit, as it also will absorb moisture and move with temperature. They use it because it will be less prone to movement than traditional wood, but it absolutely still will, and is generally the problem child when some movement occurs.

You can soak water into phenowood- it just does not absorb the same water content as other woods. Think of it like a stable ebony- there will still be moisture to absorb, even if it does not look like it does much.

The more moisture it absorbs, the more it will move with temperature changes. Big changes in ambient moisture could have the same effect.

No bass is completely immune from this, even if Zons in my experience have the most stable necks over time.

Interesting... I have not experienced any of that where I live.

Is this based on your experience or scientific knowledge of the process of making phenowood?

From what I'm aware, phenowood is not even wood anymore. It looks like it, but the wood is bonded to phenolic resin under high temperatures and compression at a molecular level, so it's pretty much just plastic.

I clean my fingerboards with WD40... water, sweat, whatever just beads up and rolls off... the fingerboards on my basses don't absorb anything.

Now I need to find out what's really going on... time to send emails!

 

[Angus]

I (was) a mechanical engineer with a background in chemistry, and worked with composite materials on a regular basis. There are better experts in the world for sure, but still.

The truss rod should not be looked at as a stiffening mechanism. If it is inside the neck holding no load at all, then it just a weight. Truss rods in necks do not stiffen or strengthen the neck in of themselves. The rod in my Zon is almost always set to slack, unless I get one of the unusual movements (usually a backbow).

Phenowood is not really wood, yeah- it is cellulose (one of the materials in wood, cell walls in plants, etc) without the lignin, filled with phenolic resin. Both are compounds that have available bonding points for water, though generally speaking not easily accessible such that it readily hydrates in normal conditions. Put phenowood in water, though, and it will warp, but not as much as normal wood.

And yes, it is plastic.

IIRC, phenowood has a thermal coefficient of expansion similar to aluminum, which moves a lot for metal, but very very little relative to wood. A little bit of movement, when constrained to a neck, can be enough for you to sense. I do not know what the coefficient of expansion would be with hydration, but there certainly is one.

Either way, they can definitely move- it just is not nearly as much as you expect with wood.

Water, sweat, etc, beads up and falls off after you apply WD-40 because WD-40 is an oil. You use WD-40 specifically to prevent water and finger gunk from getting into the wood.

I should specify that the amounts we are talking about here are quite small relative to other instruments, but it is still there, and you can't really avoid it. The phenowood is still the most appropriate choice, imo, for the carbon fiber neck. Modulus basses with wood fingerboards tend to have a lot more motion over time.

This is not to say that moisture is the biggest reason why necks fall into bowing over time- that is probably more to do with gradual internal stress relief over time.

 

[J.Wolf]

So wd40 is the preferred cleaning agent for the fingerboard on my Sonus Fretless?

The thing I notice is that I can set my action so low on my Zon that the littlest change can seem like a big shift, since the tolerances are so strict.

 

[Addison]

The truss rod should not be looked at as a stiffening mechanism. If it is inside the neck holding no load at all, then it just a weight. Truss rods in necks do not stiffen or strengthen the neck in of themselves. The rod in my Zon is almost always set to slack, unless I get one of the unusual movements (usually a backbow).

There is tension on mine always, since the prefabricated relief is a little too much for my taste... I like a REALLY flat neck (it's probably too flat, but oh well) so maybe the constant counter-tension on my necks explains why I have literally never had to touch it once after my initial adjustments.

Phenowood is not really wood, yeah- it is cellulose (one of the materials in wood, cell walls in plants, etc) without the lignin, filled with phenolic resin. Both are compounds that have available bonding points for water, though generally speaking not easily accessible such that it readily hydrates in normal conditions. Put phenowood in water, though, and it will warp, but not as much as normal wood.

Ok, thanks for clarifying in a way that makes sense to me.

I know that phenolic resin is also used in all-weather WBP plywoods for building outdoors... and those DO need the assistance of an outer finish to avoid warping over time, but those woods are not even NEAR the quality or caliber of the phenowood that is used for fingerboards... which is why I even mentioned the tub thing. If a piece of unfinished WBP plywood can go an entire season of sun, rain and/or snow without warping as what happens regularly when building homes in areas like where I live, a Zon neck should be fine in a tub overnight.

Anyway, even after all of the explanation, there is no "good reason" that a Zon neck should have to be constantly readjusted due to climate change, correct?

I mean, you said you needed to adjust 3-4 times over 7 years... I haven't had to once in 4 years living in the arctic tundra winter/hot summer wasteland I live in... and golower is implying it needs to be done fairly regularly.

That's why I'm confused and made my initial comments.