Bass relief

[marnold]

After the posting of the "cover" of Sweet Child O' Mine, I busted out my bass and started playing the familiar opening riff, only to hear the frets buzzing on almost every note. I hadn't checked the relief on the neck in a long time. I found that it had no appreciable relief at all. No wonder it was buzzing. Unfortunately the allen wrench that came with the bass is ridiculously short, to the point that I was in danger of stripping the nut. I went out and bought a new set of metric wrenches and tried again. Over a couple days I moved it between 3/4 to a full turn. Only now is it approaching decent relief.

Not sure how I ended up with so much back-bow. I think part of the problem was that I was putting a capo at the first fret and then pressing the string down at the 24th fret. The part of the neck that's bolted to the body isn't really affected by the truss rod at all. I checked it this time where the neck meets the pocket. Still, I'm surprised I didn't notice that before.

Also, here's a little tip. If you put your bass on a bed to take off the truss rod cover, make sure that the body is 100% on the bed and not sliding off. Thankfully, the room is carpeted and the bass landed on the body side before I caught it and not on the headstock, tuners, etc.

[deeaa]

Yep the truss rods don't by and large even extend to that area at all; typical trusses end before the over-the-body-part of the neck...makes sense in that it won't budge over there anyways.

I check my reliefs every time I play and end up adjusting them 2-4 times a year, sometimes more often.
Especially when I've left a guitar at the training facility and just kinda 'forgotten' it there for months and then pick it up, boy, it could be buzz galore.

Necks, made of wood, enjoy a little warmth from the hands. vibration from the strings and a little moisture...they can really 'dry' up and get cold to the bone when not used.

I would not be surprised at all, if you now played the bass quite lot and then found out it suddenly has a lot - too much - of bow.

I find on the guitars I use on (almost) daily basis I hardly ever have to adjust the truss; leave it be for a week and chances for needing some adjustment doubles. Make it a month and it's almost a given it'll need some tweaking to be perfect.

p.s. I have thought of using a bass truss for my next neck build, whenever that'll be - and have the truss extend into the body past the fretboard even (neck thru of course) and see what it does.

p.s.2. I have sometimes thought of maybe making some sort of 'nice' looking set truss adjustment 'bar' that could always just be there, and that I could adjust on the fly just as easily as I turn the tuners.