Tuesday 8 October 2002

Bass Project

The Project: Short-scale bass guitar - Pt 6: Stumbling Block

Continuing to re-attach the hardware, I put the pickup in place, followed by the scratchplate, thumb-rest, and the bridge. I then decided to put the strings on also, so I could see whether or not it was all going to work as it should.
Bass project
Bass project

The strings were very old, flat wound (or tape wound), but that was unimportant; they still highlighted a very serious problem. The action was extremely high.

Looking down the neck I could clearly see that, with the pull of the strings, the neck was as bent as a banana.

So, off came the truss-rod cover, out came the allen keys and having tighted the truss rod as far as it would go...

The neck was still bowed!

Possible solutions:
  1. Replace the bridge with a Fender style one that sits lower down on the body, and which might help decrease the action and make the bowing less pronounced.
  2. Find a new (straight) neck.
Either way, it's going to make this project much more expensive, and I can't see me being able to make my money back. But as it stands, no-one would buy a bass with a bowed neck.

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