Spruce or other lightweight woods?

Have not...yet!
Spruce has the best stiffnes per weight ratio of all species. And is probably the easiest to find extremely straight grained lumber from.
However, the stiffness is not all that high, in absolut numbers, wherefore few have attempted to use it for necks.
But, wrapped in GRP, it is enourmously stiff! And just one layer is enough!

Nordstrand also used pine and spruce for the body. This works but needs old wood. The resin must dry out, which takes a while...

Old, slowgrown (Alaskan?) spruce and pine will do nicely. But the neck will probably rely rather a lot on the truss rod.

Hm, I feel inspired...

 

different rates of expansion and contraction might make for lots of stress built up in the neck. but the only way to be sure is to try!

 

lol that bass is on my desktop right now.....(the pic not the bass

 

Glass (fibre) Reinforced Polyester.

Best to use a light, wowen mat, turned 45 degrees to the neck. That will yield the best compromise for bend and twist stiffness.

 

I think Modulus did something like that too. I remember a review in BP about it. They really liked the bass.
The neck on my bass really relies on the truss rod, but it's a very beefy rod, so I'm not worried. Also being a singlecut it has less length to support. Jon at Bunnybass has only had to adjust the rod once in a month and Hawaii is notorious for humidity issues.
The next spruce necked bass will definitely have laminates. I want to see how it affects the tone. Maybe 2 pieces of wenge with 3 spruce...

 

Correct. Though I think they used basswood...IIRC, which is not always the case...

 

Would pine work as a tonewood?

 

Was it an issue with how old the wood was? How old was it?

 

Since Suburban and JP haven't said it yet...

Why not try one with horizontal laminations? Stiff wood fingerboard (wenge, purpleheart, various other tropicals... hey how about hickory?) and "back" layers, with a lightweight inner core, will give the majority of the strength of an all-high
-stiffness-wood neck.

 

Hambone,
The wood wasn't particularly old as far as I know. I got it from a place called Aircraft Spruce and they sell structural spruce for DIY airplane builders. I got two 4' x 12" x 3" bundles of miscellaneous scrap for $15 each. Pretty amazing deal, and the bulk of the stuff I intend to use as acoustic guitar bracing... someday.

pilotjones,
Actually that bass had a laminate between the fingerboard and the spruce, but it was just a decorative piece of black veneer. Maybe something thicker would be a good idea. I'd really like to try laminates in both directions. Ahh, if only I had the time.

 

Yeah, how come we waited for the pilot???????

And hickory is an interesting alternative. I like local wood - why cross wide waters to get something exotic, when good stuff is found next door?

 

Before I bought this big slab of African Mahogany, I looked pretty hard around the area for lumber mills or suppliers, but the nearest thing is 2 hours away! Lowes had poplar, but it wasn't thick enough, it was too expensive for a big enough piece, and I didn't know how or where to get it the pieces joined togethers for thickness.