I don't know nothing about fixin guitars but man do I love the idea of bass x-rays. You made my day! Carry on
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Trying to fix a worthless Bass
- Thread starter Markshan
- Start date
I knew people would appreciate that. Plus, just like an anatomical exam, I actually did get a lot of useful information from the images. Stay tuned. If I'm able to get this last bit of curve out of the neck I will be injecting the epoxy and doing follow-up images.
So I thought about what @johnh89 said about being patient and coming up with a plan, and also thought about how @Turnaround described the usual next steps. This neck isn't even worth the effort it would take to remove the fingerboard and plane it and do everything over again. If it comes to that I really think I'll be learning just how to make a neck from scratch. So in that case if the next step is to put it under string tension, I still don't want to do that without putting the epoxy in that void first because I'm convinced it will just immediately spring back to where it was. So that took me back to trying to figure out how to clamp out a ski jump on one side without bothering the other side. Since I couldn't effectively clamp to one side because of the natural c curve of the neck shape, I thought about putting the neck into a 45° support. But then I thought that 45 might transfer the pressure through to both sides just as much as flat. So I decided on a roughly 30° angle to get me a flat enough surface that I could clamp onto but still have the majority of the pressure just on one side. I went to my basement looking for a couple pieces of scrap wood to cut into the saddles that I had pictured in my head. I found these very dense very hard foam pieces that were meant for an air conditioning install that I didn't use them for. I thought that would be perfect because if I clamped too too hard I would expect them to have some give unlike a piece of wood. I'm keeping the heat lamps a little further away than last time so that I don't have a surface burn. So I think between the give of the foam and the single clamp I might be able to straighten this without being too aggressive. On the other hand, maybe the heat lamps will just make the foam spontaneously combust. Or at least give off poisonous gases so if you don't hear from me again for a couple months...
Success .. ish. I think I got the bass side ski jump down from an estimated 1/16 to maybe 1/64". I don't own any feeler gauges but the way I checked it is that I can't fit a business card under any parts of the notch tool, but I can just fit an index card under from frets 11 to 20. And again this is just on the bass side. Plus it is still failing the eyeball test at the bass side heel. So I am going to do another clamp and heat, again not very aggressively, and see if I can get this even closer since I'm having success of some measure at each attempt.
From where I started, getting it this far feels very much like success. I don't know if this picture will tell you anything or not I tried to get a picture but it was difficult.
So I did another unaggressive clamp and heat at the ski jump on the bass side. With that, I got that side just about perfect, but I also introduced a back bow into the treble side. So I did the opposite to try to get that out and I got that out but that put the ski jump back in the other side. So I did one more and now I have just ever so slight bits where an index card will just barely fit under the notch tool. At this moment I'm thinking I'm close enough and my next step will be the epoxy, but I'm probably not going to have any time to work on it for at least another week so in that time I'll see if the neck changes any and see if my thought process changes any.
My new band has our first gig next Sunday, so I'm thinking I should spend my free time wood shedding instead of working in the woodshed.
My new band has our first gig next Sunday, so I'm thinking I should spend my free time wood shedding instead of working in the woodshed.
The gig was very eventful and went well, but I'm not going to sidetrack this thread with that. It occurs to me that I haven't posted in the new member section yet so I'll take this opportunity to post and give a little background on myself
So this morning I tackled the job of injecting the epoxy into the void after the truss rod. I had considered drilling a new hole, but if you look back to the x-rays of the heel on the first page you see that the hole for the end pin was actually in a pretty good location so I decided to widen the existing hole just enough so that it would accept the pipette I was using to inject the epoxy.
After each injection I picked up the neck and gave it several taps and tried to get the epoxy to settle. Several times I thought the cavity was full but it just took a little bit of time for the air to come to the top. Finally I got it to where it wouldn't move anymore no matter how I encouraged it.
So at this point I taped the hole with some masking tape and hung the neck from a guitar hanger because I still wasn't sure if there was any possibility of it seeping into the truss rod cavity if I left it curing flat.
I had mixed up 2 oz of epoxy, primarily because 1 oz was the smallest graduation I had on my disposable cups. I only ended up using about a quarter of that for the void in the neck. The neck pocket on the body was done very poorly and was quite loose with a lot of gaps. So, since I had leftover epoxy, and because I'm cheap and hate to throw anything away, I decided to try using some of it to fill the voids on one side of the neck pocket.
You may have noticed in the pictures above that I had plugged the old mounting holes on the neck. I don't know if it's obvious from the picture what a very poor job they did drilling those holes but they weren't close to being spaced correctly and the screws were driven in crooked. Since the epoxy says it takes a week to reach maximum hardness, I figured this would be a good time to deal with the holes in the neck pocket. I was going to go out and buy a piece of quarter inch dowel but I ended up with a little time on my hands this morning so I decided to do it with what I had on hand. One bamboo skewer and two toothpicks seem to be just the trick.
Don't judge me. A clean workspace is a sure sign of a sick mind.
Don't judge me. A clean workspace is a sure sign of a sick mind.
Okay I know everyone has been anxiously awaiting the post-operative imaging. The patient and myself have both felt your thoughts and prayers.
I wasn't sure how radiopaque the epoxy would be but as you'll see from the images it seems it's about the same as the wood. I could have let that sitting horizontally for another couple minutes and got a little more in before I hung it up, but overall for a first attempt at doing this I think it went pretty well. I expect the neck will be significantly stronger through that region than it was previously. I will be pleased to hear your thoughts.
I wasn't sure how radiopaque the epoxy would be but as you'll see from the images it seems it's about the same as the wood. I could have let that sitting horizontally for another couple minutes and got a little more in before I hung it up, but overall for a first attempt at doing this I think it went pretty well. I expect the neck will be significantly stronger through that region than it was previously. I will be pleased to hear your thoughts.
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My OCD is telling me that I could drill in at an angle from that same hole and fill in that last little space, but honestly I'm not sure if it would make a difference or not. An eighth of an inch void is much different than a 2-inch void.
I think the next step is string it up on Wednesday and let it sit under tension for a couple weeks and see what happens.
I think the next step is string it up on Wednesday and let it sit under tension for a couple weeks and see what happens.
So I realized that I might not have time on Wednesday to reassemble the bass, so I did it tonight. The strings have just enough tension to hold the bridge and the nut on. I won't bring it up to tension for a couple more days just to make sure that epoxy is completely hardened. I got very scared for a minute thinking that in spite of my best efforts I had put the neck on crooked because the strings were breaking to the treble side. However, I then noticed that the pickups are lined up with the neck. So I think what's going on is that tail piece is a little bit twisted and will either come straight under full tension, or may need encouraged with a hammer.
If the neck holds its shape I plan to buy a new tail piece anyway. That one is a complete piece of crap.
If the neck holds its shape I plan to buy a new tail piece anyway. That one is a complete piece of crap.
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Actually I made one other screw up. Like I said the old screws into the neck were driven in crooked and had some bending and some stripping of the head. I was pretty sure they were number 10 so I just stopped at the hardware store and grabbed a pack of number 10's real quick. Well I think somebody put a pack of 12s on the 10 peg (at least that's what I'm telling myself) and I didn't realize until they wouldn't countersink that the screws I got are too big. I won't have to do anything else to the body, maybe a tiny shim into the holes in the neck to make the right size screw grab securely. And of course it was made in Japan and I already know the hex nut was metric so the screws could be some metric number between a number eight and a number 10 for all I know. I just know it'll look and feel better once they are counter sunk.
This has happened to me SO many times. Now, I religiously check the part(s) before I leave the store. It's even worse with the loose parts that are in labeled boxes (like on the plumbing aisle). People pick something up, decide against it, and throw it back in the wrong box.
