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Straightening A Neck


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I am building a fretless neckthrough bass. After I had glued the fingerboard

onto the neck, I realized that while about 2/3 of the neck is perfectly

straight, the last 1/3 towards the headstock is cambered (convex bow).

Consequently, the lowest point of the FB is 1+ mm under the ideal straight line.

The illustration is exaggerated for clarity purpose.

Should I sand the FB until it is straight? I am afraid the truss rod will not do

the job in this case. (my design is angled headstock).

What is the best solution for this problem?

Does it make sense Clamping (and probably heating or steaming) the neck to straight piece of wood?

neckcurve2xo.th.jpg

Edited by screwdelulu
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Don’t worry, this can be fixed. First try to adjust it as straight at possible with the truss rod. Then plan the fret board straight. If you come reasonably close to straight with the truss rod this will be fine.

I have the luxury of having built myself a neck jug, so I would do it a bit different. I would have finished the bass (no fretting), strung and tuned it, adjusted the truss rod as good as it get, mount the bass in the neck jig and plan the neck under simulated string tension. That way you eliminate any warping crated by string tension.

A neck jig is easy to build and there is info on building one in this forum.

Good luck

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Well, to really simulate string tension, it's a much more ideal situation if the neck already has frets in it, because the frets affect how the neck works.

I assume if I ever build a neck from scratch, I won't get serious about the fret-work (putting it in the neck-jig), until the neck is several months old (based on the idea that a neck does a lot of settling in during the first year). I would put frets in it right away, but maybe without any glue, and they might even be used frets, if I have the right size on hand. When the time comes for the precision fret-work in the jig, I'd then glue in new frets after leveling the board, etc. (or pull and re-install the original frets if they were new when I put them in).

Yeah, I know I have some ideas that might take it a little too far.

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i surely hope your pic is exaggerated!! You can get most of that 1mm out when you radius the board, that is if you plan of doing that. youll just notice the fingerboard being thinner at that spot by the nut than every where else. Ive ran into this with the 2 fretless 5 strings ive done but not to that extent. The fingerboards ive been buying are 1/4" so theres a little room for this type of thing. the way i handle it is i sand it rough grit (with a radius block of course I bought the longest one i could) to get it semi flat, than i string it up put tension on it and let it sit over night, adjust the truss to flatten it to my liking ( i usually dont flatten it as much as i would during a setup but close), then i finish my radius sanding.. Ive had good results that way. The main thing is that you really have to stay on top of things with your straight edge... :D

Edited by scottyd
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Well, to really simulate string tension, it's a much more ideal situation if the neck already has frets in it, because the frets affect how the neck works.

Fretting a neck DO make the neck bow some, but if you make your fret slots uniform (all the same with) they make the neck bend REASONABLY uniform. Therefore it is no problem to plan the fret board under simulated string tension. I’ve done it on several problem necks.

I assume if I ever build a neck from scratch, I won't get serious about the fret-work (putting it in the neck-jig), until the neck is several months old (based on the idea that a neck does a lot of settling in during the first year).

My experience (based on more that a few scratch built necks) is that most neck reaches their shape within a week. If not, your wood, or even more likely your choice of glue or the actual glue joint is of inferior quality. A slipping joint between neck and fret board can cause the neck to continue to bend.

I'd then glue in new frets after levelling the board, etc.

Personal notes:

Gluing frets on a normal and functioning neck with a working truss rod is silly. Frets stay in without glue if you do it right that first time. Using glue to keep fret ends down is the only sane use of glue when fretting. This method should only be used if you have a very problematic neck that bends A LOT when fretted. Then you should remove some, or the entire tang and then glue in the frets. Even in this case I would suggest another method. Simply cut wider fret slots!!!

Another thing: Glues are seldom designed to bind to both metal (the frets) and wood (the fret board). I’ve seen hide glue and even Tite Bond suggested for this. Only CA is capable to do this in a good way. And when doing a refret on glued in frets where CA has been done the clue will produce poisonous fumes when heating the frets before removal. Stay away from glued frets. Do it right instead. But then again…just my personal opinion.

(or pull and re-install the original frets if they were new when I put them in).

That’s impossible. You’ll notice that after your first attempt to pull frets. They will get totally deformed.

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Ok, I see we got a wild one here.

Gluing frets is so common these days, there's no need to go into all the things "wrong" about it (I've already read the "old school" opinions on that in the 70's guitar building/repair books). It's probably the only way to really keep them all rock solid. I work on necks all the time where no glue was used, and these necks never have all the frets perfectly seated.

As for pulling and re-installing frets : Well, I've done the *impossible* enough times now, that I know I can do it perfectly fine.

I can over-radius a fret to 10", press it into a 12" radius board, with super-glue, with the fret perfectly seated. Then later, I can heat it, pull it out, and it will again be a fret with a 10" radius. *I've done it.*

(why did I do it ? Well, it was a spongy neck, and I decided to pull a few frets, and use some fatter tang frets to get a little more backbow. Did the trick too.)

And these "poisonous fumes"....Well, I'm pretty sensitive to weird fumes of any kind, and I've never become ill from the small amount of fumes from heated super-glue.

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Oh yeah, I also installed, pulled ,then reinstalled a fret on a job in October, on a neck with an extremely flakey rosewood fret-board. The end grain of every fret slot was what I would call "frayed". Little chips were just waiting to flake off. Well, I thought I had all those soon to flake off chips taken care of before putting in new frets, but after the new frets were in, and I was popping off the glue squeeze-out, a little rosewood chip popped off at the edge of one fret. I decided the easiest way to fix that chip, was to pull the fret, fix the chip and put the fret back in. In the end, it was nearly impossible to tell which one I had done that too, except that I remembered the whole time it was the 15th fret, so that's the only way I was able to keep track of which one it was without having to spend 5 minutes closely examining for it.

I guess I just do things much more carefully than some other do.

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This thread was supposed to be about straightening a neck, but OK...

Soapbar:

No1:

Did you AT ALL read the line "Personal Notes"?

The opinion that gluing frets is unnecessary is my PERSONAL opinion. I have NEVER claimed it to be “the true”. You can call me old school when it comes to gluing frets.

No2:

Are you recommending a not so experienced (my personal conclusion, based on the questions about truss rods) builder to pull and re-use frets? Not the best advise.

No3:

So you have re-used frets? I have never managed to do it, and I wouldn’t dream of doing it on a customer’s guitar. BUT if you have done it with success, good for you.

I would prefer to NOT be called “a wild one”, thank you very much.

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Yeah, I read it alright, and since it's "Personal", and "the only sane way" and any other way is "silly", you "called me out". Maybe some Euro- snob crap ? I have a special pair of boots for stuff like that :D

Do I recommend a not so experienced person re-using frets ? Yes, I do. Might be a more economical way for them to practice using them.

Here's some shots which include the re-used fret :

It's the one on the right side of the white position dot marker on the right side of the photo (15th fret)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v398/soa...coma_done4a.jpg

Another view. (I didn't even re-bend the fret to put it back in. it stayed bent when I carefully removed it)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v398/soa...acoma_done2.jpg

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This thread is about straitening a neck. I reacted to your comment that it wasn’t “the right way” (not a quote, I know) to do it with the frets in place. The comments on glued in frets are my personal thoughts and shouldn’t need to make you upset. If you don’t like it if someone have a different point of view, not my problem. AND Glu-in frets is a completely different topic so I will stop adding posts about it in this tread.

About your re-used fret:

I’m impressed. Nice job. I wouldn’t be able to pull the frets and re-use them.

We are here to learn from each other. There is no need for name-calling in this Forum. I prefer NOT to be called a “Euro- snob” either, thank you very much.

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If you don’t like it if someone have a different point of view, not my problem. AND Glu-in frets is a completely different topic so I will stop adding posts about it in this tread.

Apparently you had a real problem with a different point of view when you tore my original post into 4 parts with a review including the words 'sane' and 'silly', and how you can expect to have the last word with that is amazing. Bad choice of words on your part, for keeping a discussion civil.

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I see we got a wild one here.

Maybe some Euro- snob crap

Bad choice of words on your part, for keeping a discussion civil.

Hmmm. I admit to some bad choice of words, sorry about that, but I'm not alone

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