Truss Rod adjustment cutout?

[343 Salty Beans]

Welp, I've got a slight conundrum. I have a WD Music BEF fretless neck. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do a cutout to adjust the truss rod. I don't want to have to take the neck off every time I want to adjust the truss, and it's underneath the bottom of the fretboard. How would you folks suggest going about this? My only other bass has kind of a a quarter-sphere concave cutout, but the fretboard isn't extended like on this neck.

 

[mrbell321]

Do you plan on ever plan on playing that very last fret? You could remove at least part of that fretboard....

 

[noiseguy]

How often do you expect to adjust the truss rod?

 

[343 Salty Beans]

Do you plan on ever plan on playing that very last fret? You could remove at least part of that fretboard....

I've thought of that, but I'm still not sure how I'd even go about shaping that cutout.

As far as how often I feel I would need to adjust it, I honestly don't know. I set my fretted bass up every 9-12 months, but I can't imagine needing to set up a fretless very often after the initial setup, but it seems like a hassle to have to remove the neck to adjust it. Are there a lot of fretless basses like that?

 

[bigmoosepi]

Removing the neck is easy if you stick a capo on the first fret. Loosen strings, pop off the 4 bolts and it's off, takes less than 2 minutes.

 

[343 Salty Beans]

Removing the neck is easy if you stick a capo on the first fret. Loosen strings, pop off the 4 bolts and it's off, takes less than 2 minutes.

Ok, so this is a standard thing for some basses? Just seems odd to put the truss adjustment where it's inaccessible. If that's the case, I just won't make a cut and leave it as-is. Thanks!

 

[mrbell321]

semi-standard.

Some basses have the truss rod like this, and I agree, it's silly.
Other basses have the truss rod where it's useful.

 

[Floyd Eye]

I wouldn't do that. Taking the neck off the bass to adjust the truss rod is a PITA.

 

[343 Salty Beans]

I wouldn't do that. Taking the neck off the bass to adjust the truss rod is a PITA.

But the question is, how often will I need to adjust the rod on a fretless? If its once a year, I'm willing to not potentially screw up the body for a long cutout.

 

[P Town]

I don't think I would ever need to make use of the finger board up that high, and so I would just remove that part of it.

 

[JustForSport]

"Some basses have the truss rod like this, and I agree, it's silly.
Other basses have the truss rod where it's useful."
But some people insist on 'silly'.

 

[Ironfingers]

But some people insist on 'silly'.

In my experience these people are usually from a strange land called Marketing. I don't know where this land actually is, but I do know it has no connection to our physical plane of reality.

I feel like you kind of have only 2 choices. Remove the end of the fretboard and route an access into the body, or take the neck off once a year (or possibly less) to adjust it. Pick whichever one annoys you less...

 

[Beej]

You might need a pretty deep and long access route to get to that nut - I'd probably just leave it and take it off when it needs adjusting using the capo method. Pretty common, albeit cumbersome way of doing things...