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TWISTED NECK!!

I

iLikePetedotcom

Jan 17, 2016
5
0
53
#1
Hi All,
Newbie here.
Got my hands on a lovely old Marlin Sidewinder from fleabay..
All was as described apart from the TWIST IN THE NECK!!!!

The seller said the bass has been without strings for a few months..
So, would that cause the wood/neck to flex and if so, would new strings, a bit of time and atmosphere pull the neck back into line?

Or should I jump ship now and return the bass..

I've been an acoustic player for years, setting up my guitars etc etc so I'm not a complete stranger to the theory but at the moment new to the bass side of things..

Thanks in advance ..

Pete.
 
#4
post-26-1240851928.jpg


If that's roughly what yours looks like, it's a fine looking bass.

I hate to say it, but a twisted neck could be impossible to fix. A friend of mine has been fighting with a twisted neck on an Ibanez bass for over a year and he's still no closer.

Having no experience with straightening necks, my suggestion would be to take it to a repair shop and see if they think it can even be salvaged. It might save you time and money to have someone say if it's beyond repair. If it's a lost cause and yous till want to keep the bass, let the parts hunt commence!

***EDIT: If you don't want to keep the bass and it's not exactly what described in the eBay listing, you may want to start the ball rolling on a claim.
 
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#5
A twist in the neck is most often the result of the wood finding it's natural resting state. Depending on the tree, there may be internal stresses in the wood as a result of the tree leaning, etc. When the wood is cut, it may well be cut flat, but as the wood dries and ages, the stresses in the wood relax and it bends. When the wood is machined to make a neck (or anything else) wood is removed, and that may be some of the wood that was under stress. So having machined the wood you may have removed some stressed wood and thus created an imbalance in what remains. This imbalance will correct itself over time. It may be a short time (a day) or it may take years, but the result is the same - the wood bends, twists, or both.

We complicate the issue when we put the wood under external stress by pulling on it with several steel strings. But the fact remains that the wood will achieve a balance of the stresses involved - internal and external.

When you encounter a neck with a twist, you can try to correct it by stressing it in the opposite direction and hoping it will stay there. There's a good chance it won't. It may take years to adjust back to a relaxed state, or it may do so in days, weeks or months. How long-term will the correction last? It's a crap shoot.

Heat treatment may help. But it may not be any more permanent. The heat can help the wood to find a relaxed state in the position you force it. But it is by no means a guaranteed solution. I know of no way to measure residual internal stresses in the wood that may lead to planar shift over time. So even heat treatment may be a crap shoot, though there have been reports that heat treated necks have held their adjustment over a longer period of time.
 
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#8
I'll second what Richard (Turnaround) says above. Basically, twisting almost always happens by itself, the result of internal stresses in the wood. It's not caused by uneven string tension but, putting an uneven tension load on the neck may speed up the twisting.

Putting strings back on is unlikely to do anything to straighten it.

Clamping it to a beam and applying heat may work....maybe. Like Richard, I don't have much personal experience with heat-straightening necks, and I have some doubts that it would stay straight. But, I'm reading that some guys who specialize in this treatment are getting good results.

The permanent fix for a twisted neck is to rout off the fingerboard, correct the geometry by cutting and laminating, and put on a new fingerboard and frets. A complete rebuild, which isn't cheap. Like $400-$500. Obviously, the value of the neck has to justify it. I've done this type of rebuilds on maybe a dozen twisted necks over the years. Many of the Ampegs that I specialize in come in with some twist. A few years back, I rebuilt a badly twisted vintage Wal neck. I know I have pictures of that one in my files.
 
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#10
Cheers guys,,
Both sides of the coin there really..
More fish in the sea I know
but at £40 it's not worth sending it on another goose chase round the country ..
@£40 it's worth a bit of steam and see if I can have her singin again.
Or ....?? !!

Thanks again, all good advice.
 
#11
Which way does the neck twist? If the neck twisted so the E string is forward, that you can work with, because the natural inclination of the wrist will take care of it. All you have to do is redo the nut.

A version of a twisted neck that is done on purpose is the helix neck, like Jerome Little does. If that is the direction the neck is twisted, and is still relatively straight otherwise, that may even be a good thing.
 
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#12
iiipopes said:
Which way does the neck twist? If the neck twisted so the E string is forward, that you can work with, because the natural inclination of the wrist will take care of it. All you have to do is redo the nut.

A version of a twisted neck that is done on purpose is the helix neck, like Jerome Little does. If that is the direction the neck is twisted, and is still relatively straight otherwise, that may even be a good thing.
Click to expand...

Hi iiipopes,
Nah!! Looking down the neck from the bridge, it's the G string that takes a dive.. So, Yeah! That makes the E is forward in your parlance, is that what you mean? The E is high, the G takes a dive.
Good info on the nut .. Thanks..

Nut Job... Hahaa!! Nut Job..

Made me titter anyway..
 
#14
iLikePetedotcom said:
Hi iiipopes,
Nah!! Looking down the neck from the bridge, it's the G string that takes a dive.. So, Yeah! That makes the E is forward in your parlance, is that what you mean? The E is high, the G takes a dive.
Good info on the nut .. Thanks..

Nut Job... Hahaa!! Nut Job..

Made me titter anyway..
Click to expand...
Check the link above for Little Guitar Works, which I should have included instead of just Jerome Little's name, and compare his Torzal to your neck to see if it torques the same direction.
 
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#15
iiipopes said:
Check the link above for Little Guitar Works, which I should have included instead of just Jerome Little's name, and compare his Torzal to your neck to see if it torques the same direction.
Click to expand...
Yup, I did that, Looks very swanky.. My neck is indeed twisted that way..
OOoohh!! .. Interesting
New strings should hopefully be arriving tomorrow so I'll see how she behaves..
 

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