Uneven Neck Bow on a Squier J-Bass pre-setup... No problem or Deep Doo-Doo?

SIx String Chef said:
Oh yeah, I'm well acquainted with the raison d'etre for the bow, AMS... What puzzles me a little is the visible difference in degree of bow from the treble edge of the neck to the bass edge. I don't recall ever seeing that particular occurrence before. But then again, this is basically the first time that I take a detailed look at a bass for setup. So far I had only tinkered with six-stringers (and a couple of 12-strings).

But even then, I can tell you that from what I see this one does seem to be pretty standard. I'd be surprised that a Squire would have a double truss rod or a neck tilt adjuster. But, I may be wrong....
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How does it play? Most guitar and bass necks have little quirks, Twisted necks can play very well, if they twist in the right direction.

When you're setting up any instrument, you have to start from where you are.
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
Hoping for you that the neck is a simple bow and not twisted. I think twisted necks are the bad bad juju
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Oh yes, Chili... And I've come across that twisted bad juju more than once, unfortunately... Lita, my BC Rich Bich, twisted neck fretboard broke at a stress point with a little ding; a laguna shredder guitar I once bought second hand from GC in one of my trips to the states and its neck just twisted almost overnight; and more recently that natural GK strat that I've started to upgrade... All with necks that would make for a great toy rollercoaster.
 
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Beagle said:
How does it play? Most guitar and bass necks have little quirks, Twisted necks can play very well, if they twist in the right direction.

When you're setting up any instrument, you have to start from where you are.
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So far, from what I've seen it plays decently. Intonation is just a tad bit sharp on all saddles and the action looks and feels a little too high but I wouldnt put too much faith in what I'm seeing right now, because the strings are really beat up. Wouldn't surprise me that they'd be the original ones. I'll restring it and like you say, work from there.

In any case, my son borrowed it originally from my stepson-in-law to do some demo recordings and he did not mention anything bad about it, so I'm hoping it's in decent shape overall. I want to give it a good cleaning, restringing and setup before returning it to my SSIL.
 
SIx String Chef said:
Oh yeah, I'm well acquainted with the raison d'etre for the bow, AMS... What puzzles me a little is the visible difference in degree of bow from the treble edge of the neck to the bass edge. I don't recall ever seeing that particular occurrence before. But then again, this is basically the first time that I take a detailed look at a bass for setup. So far I had only tinkered with six-stringers (and a couple of 12-strings).

But even then, I can tell you that from what I see this one does seem to be pretty standard. I'd be surprised that a Squire would have a double truss rod or a neck tilt adjuster. But, I may be wrong....
Click to expand...
I think fender does have some type of double adjuster, I don't know if it's on your bass...
In other words, it's warped to crap and you need another neck to replace it.
 
67plexi said:
I think it's good to return a borrowed what ever in better shape than received. That said it is a Squire bottom of the Fender line.
Just boil the strings in water with baking soda call it good. Why put a bandage on a sucking chest wound
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You're right plexi: strings didn't seem to be in such bad shape, so I kept them on. However, I still went ahead and did a good outside cleaning and full setup of the beastie.

I agree, it's always good practice and the minimum factor of common decency to return borrowed things in better shape than received and food containers or plates you received, refilled with some of your own cookin'. Learned it from my elders and passed it on to my kids...
 
Anyways, here's a quick rundown of the maintenance ops I performed on the bass:

- Fretboard cleanup and oiling
- Fret cleaning and polishing with steel wool
- Nut slots lubed w/ a little carpenter's pencil graphite shavings. Couldn't adjust the nut slots as I still do not have the proper files, but it's on my list of to-buys.
- Body / neck / hardware cleaned and polished.
- Screws and hardware in general, checked and tightened.
- Strings cleaned up with a little isopropyl alcohol and a rag
- Bridge saddles height adjusted to match radius of neck (set them to 10" per closest radius gauge fit).
- Adjusted (tightened) truss rod to get final neck relief of .012" at 8th fret, capo on 1st fret, fretting at 17th on low E and last fret (20th) on high G. No buzz detected.
- Adjusted intonation for all strings
- I'm leaving pickup height adjustment for later when I can sit down with my SSIL and have him give me some feedback as to how he likes his sound.
 
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