Advice for neck issues on a NON RIC.....

Exceptional restoration is in the details

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antipodean
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Re: Advice for neck issues on a NON RIC.....

Post by antipodean »

Tony,

These "adjust at the head" Fender necks seem to be designed to be hard to service. Most of my experience is with the old-fashioned "adjust-at-the-heel" type necks where the nut is easily removeable. I have had a look at my P-bass elite (same basic set-up), and it appears that Fender have placed a plug of wood at the top of the truss rod channel which allows you to access the nut but not remove it, unless you can find a non-drastic method of removing the plug. Maybe Paul with his luthier's expertise may have a suggestion as to how this can be done. My worry is that you will end up removing part of the fretboard as well, or at least partially delaminating it.

The sad thing with Fenders is that if the truss rod is broken you do need to remove the fretboard (separate boards) or skunk-stripe (one-piece necks) to remove the truss rods, which is a lot of work for a $150 bass, but this may be the way to go.

There is an ebay auction for a cowpoke with a replaced neck - the seller has used a US J-bass neck, so at least we know that other Fender necks will fit if that is the road to go down. Whether he has an intonation issue due to a change of scale, I can't say.... He may not actually know himself!
"I don't want to sound incredulous but I can't believe it" Rex Mossop
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ajish4
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Re: Advice for neck issues on a NON RIC.....

Post by ajish4 »

Thanks for that info Evan,

UPDATE....

A fellow on Talkbass contacted me that he just won a "cowpoke" on Ebay and the body was butchered. He said he'd part out the bass.

He offered to sell me the neck at a very fair price, so it looks like this may have a happy ending.

The weather has been really lousy here so I haven't managed go get some decent shots of the old neck.

There is also a fellow on EBay now selling a 22 fret neck that sounds almost as bad as mine.

Thanks for all the help and advice everyone. I still can't get over that I can't find out how Fender necks can be repaired.
Strange, very strange! :evil:
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johnallg
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Re: Advice for neck issues on a NON RIC.....

Post by johnallg »

ajish4 wrote:I still can't get over that I can't find out how Fender necks can be repaired.
Strange, very strange! :evil:
Probably why they are bolt on. :wink:

Great about finding another neck.
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