Fixing a warped neck
 

Hey, I'm planning to start to modify a vintage bass I've inherited (It's 3 times older than I am almost), but the neck is a mess - the action on the neck is something like half an inch off the neck at the 12th fret, and this will have to be fixed If I am going to use this as a serious instrument. Is there a way I can "unwarp" or repair the neck of the bass without replacing it. By the way adjusting the truss rods dont help, the wood has actually bent I think?
Cheers guys, I'll take some pictures of it if you want, she truly is a beast!

u sure the truss rod just isnt broke? i think over the years it mighta got stripped out, or some moisture coulda got in there and screwed with it. I'd say go to a local shop or someplace to see if it's the truss rod or the neck itself

Unless u'r really good at luthierie work and can pull the fretboard off and see if it is.... cause if its about 3 times your age i'd say its time for a new double action rod in it

I wanna see pictures!

warped as in a bow in the neck, or its twisted? becasue a friend of mine has a guitar that has a twisted neck, its not atht bad tho, (his dad had it left in a damp storage container for about 5 years in the back yard) i looked online to see if it could be untwisted, but apparently, once wood decides to go a certain way, it can be quite difficult to convince it otherwise. i read this one dudes page, and he said its almost imposible to untwist a neck, but if its not that bad, tehy can defret it, plane the fingerboard so its flat again, and refret. sounded expensive tho

post pics n see how bad it is

[QUOTE=mnemonic]warped as in a bow in the neck, or its twisted? becasue a friend of mine has a guitar that has a twisted neck, its not atht bad tho, (his dad had it left in a damp storage container for about 5 years in the back yard) i looked online to see if it could be untwisted, but apparently, once wood decides to go a certain way, it can be quite difficult to convince it otherwise. i read this one dudes page, and he said its almost imposible to untwist a neck, but if its not that bad, tehy can defret it, plane the fingerboard so its flat again, and refret. sounded expensive tho[/QUOTE]
Its my personal opinion restoring a 40 year old guitar is worth any price.

[QUOTE=Jody LeCompte]Its my personal opinion restoring a 40 year old guitar is worth any price.[/QUOTE]
yeah, but only if it was half way decent when it was new. i mean, 40 years from now, i sure woudn't want to spend money on restoring a squier bullet

i dunno if you can untwist it can you?

If the neck is that bad, there's really not much you can do with it except to use it as firewood.

One thing to remember people; Just because something is old doesn't make it worth anything. As someone else stated, if it was a cheap guitar when it was new, it's only a cheap old guitar now that's worth much less than when it was new.

Back in the 70's, Vantage instruments were grouped in with the other cheaply mass produced starter instruments that Japan churned out by the thousands. Here are some other cheap starter instruments made back then.

Vantage
Kingston
Cort (the early ones)
Memphis
Cortez
Kent
Aria (the early ones)


There are alot more "house brands" out there, I just can't remember all the names.

That bass wouldn't be worth doing anything to in terms of restoring it.

It's probably only worth about $20.00 in the condition it's in now. If the neck were in good shape, it would probably be worth about $100 to $150 tops.

[QUOTE=NavyBass]If the neck is that bad, there's really not much you can do with it except to use it as firewood.

One thing to remember people; Just because something is old doesn't make it worth anything. As someone else stated, if it was a cheap guitar when it was new, it's only a cheap old guitar now that's worth much less than when it was new.

Back in the 70's, Vantage instruments were grouped in with the other cheaply mass produced starter instruments that Japan churned out by the thousands. Here are some other cheap starter instruments made back then.

Vantage
Kingston
Cort (the early ones)
[B]Memphis[/B]
Cortez
Kent
Aria (the early ones)


There are alot more "house brands" out there, I just can't remember all the names.

That bass wouldn't be worth doing anything to in terms of restoring it.

It's probably only worth about $20.00 in the condition it's in now. If the neck were in good shape, it would probably be worth about $100 to $150 tops.[/QUOTE]

actualy, i've seen some pretty nice memphis's. a buddy of mine has a neck thru memphis, and its pretty nice. pickups suck, but its a nice body.

although, it might not be the same company, becasue i've seen some pretty horible memphis strat-copys

Not vantage
 

I've already had a professional luthier look at it, and he said there was nothing he could do, but the neck isnt twisted, just bent so I'm not giving up. When I said vintage I didn't mean the make I just meant that it was old, It's model is a [URL="http://www.harmony-central.com/Bass/Data4/Hayman/40_40-1.html"]Hayman 40/40[/URL] [URL="http://www.shergold.co.uk/hayman.html#H4040"]Another Link[/URL]
In 1971 it cost £175 so I don't know how much that would be in relative to today's terms. I will post some pictures tomorrow when I can find a camera :D
Apparently the body is made of obeche, which is a wood I've never heard of before in bass construction, but one thing I can tell you is that its as heavy as a BITCH :D

If the luthier can't do anything, I don't see why you could. I say a new neck might be a good idea.

bent inwards? what guage strings do you use? maybe use lighter ones? also, if the truss rod isn't broken, you could tighten it. is it a bolt on neck? if it is, you could probably get another random bolt on neck, and mess with it untill it fits. there's some random bass neck on ebay for like 20 bucks i think

/was looking at basses earier

Actually, Hayman was a pretty good brand. They were related to the Shergold corporation.

One big user of Shergold basses was Mike Rutherford of Genesis.
I made a mestake. It wasn't Greg Lake.

He had a doubleneck guitar/bass Shergold.

It's too bad that the neck is messed up.

[URL="http://cgi.ebay.com/Kay-Bass-small-scale-neck_W0QQitemZ7420787149QQihZ016QQcategoryZ4713QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem"]http://cgi.ebay.com/Kay-Bass-small-scale-neck_W0QQitemZ7420787149QQihZ016QQcategoryZ4713QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem[/URL]

3 minuites, better hurry, lol

edit: short scale neck tho

[URL=http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hayman40400019oy.jpg][IMG]http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7852/hayman40400019oy.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL][URL=http://img65.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hayman4040002e1pa.jpg][IMG]http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/7210/hayman4040002e1pa.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL][URL=http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hayman40400034wt.jpg][IMG]http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/9629/hayman40400034wt.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL][URL=http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hayman4040004e5op.jpg][IMG]http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/9490/hayman4040004e5op.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

First bunch of pictures, sorry about that but some of them are blurry, its not that good a camera... if you have tips on how to take better ones they would be welcomed.

[URL=http://img108.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hayman40400051id.jpg][IMG]http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/70/hayman40400051id.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL][URL=http://img153.imageshack.us/my.php?image=im0002351sr.jpg][IMG]http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/2351/im0002351sr.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
Heres another two, the last one was taken a long time ago, but it has the body with the pickguard on and the strings.

that's a pretty neat looking bass you gt there. Maybefind a similar neck on ebay?

I'm not going to give up on fixing the next, I think it might just be the bolt on joint... I never actually asked the luthier to fix the neck or examine it, just to set it up and fix the action, so I'll be speaking with him about it. If I can get it fixed I will be modifying it, repainting it and hopefully replacing the pickguard and just giving it a general cosmetic makeover to something that suits me better.

Wow, nice vintage 4-string. I'd have to look at the neck to know what's wrong with it. Someone mentioned that the truss rod might be broke, that's always possible. Try taking the nut off the truss rod and cleaning/lubing it, and the threads of the rod too. If it's not broke, that should help alot. If it's broke, well... that can be expensive.

I'd be willing to pay a lot to get this fixed... any idea on how much?

give us some pictures of the neck joint. also try and take picture sighing down the neck from the headstock so we can see how warped it is.

Sure will do when I have a spare moment... the neck is very straight, but the arch in the neck is what is wrong.

[QUOTE=b00mer]Sure will do when I have a spare moment... the neck is very straight, but the arch in the neck is what is wrong.[/QUOTE]

I must be missing something here. How can the neck be very straight and have an arch at the same time? If it has an arch, then it's not straight.

The only way to have a straight neck with an arch is for the neck to be straight from the peghead to the body joint, and the fingerboard having an arch from one side to the other, but then again, that's a normal neck.

Your right I havent been particularly clear about what is 'warped' about the neck... ok so I'll give it another shot.
The neck joint itself is warped, im not sure whether its the socket where the neck is bolted on, or the neck at the point where the neck is bolted to the body. Hope that helps.

so... like the neck needs to be higher in the joint? if so, maybe try to unbolt the neck, and put some sort of shim underneath it, then bolt it back on

Yeh, good advice, I was in the process on making a thin sliver of wood for a shim when I read this, I'll let you know how it goes. If it works then i can move on to repainting and rewiring :D

Don't make the truss rod do all the work. If it isn't doing anything, it's possible that there's too much tension on the truss rod.

Here's what you can do:

Take the neck off and back clamp it or forward bow clamp it; if you said that the action is an inch off the neck at the 12th fret, it sounds like you have a wicked forward bow.

If the neck has a forward bow, get some wooden blocks with leather on top and lay them underneath the base of the neck (the wooden blocks should be going against the fretboard, not the back of the neck) and right in front of the nut. Get some leather on the center of the back of the neck, and get a C-clamp. Clamp the neck, trying to get it dead straight. Leave it there for a little more than a day, and then take it out and sight it for relief. If there is any forward bow, clamp it for a while longer until the neck is straight. You want to release all of the tension from the wood so you can adjust the truss rod, which I'm assuming has the ability to work but isn't due to the wood's bowing.

I wouldn't recommend doing this yourself as there is a very small window for fixing this problem, but maybe you could ask someone if they could do it for you. I only know of one luthier who does this, and he does it all the time. He also takes the guitar against his knee and forces the neck back, making a cracking noise. That is the tension being released, and making it easier on the truss rod.

In your case, however, I'd think that that wouldn't be enough. The C-Clamp is the only solution I can think of.

I've seen a horrifically bowed neck on a Squier before, and it was salvageable. Don't give up. Even if the truss rod adjuster is stripped, it can be fixed, although it will probably cost more than a new neck.

There are a lot of luthier stories. Almost anything can be saved. My friend fixed a completely busted up mandolin from the early 1900's; the fretboard was in 11 pieces, almost all of which were warped, and the body I believe was split open in more than one place. I can't remember most of what he said about it's condition, but he said it was an absolute nightmare. It took him 10 months to fix and cost the customer over 1,000 dollars, but it was rescued.

EDIT: Guess I missed parts of what you said. Still, that method can be used to get the neck in any playing position that you want. Keep looking around for luthiers. There has to be one somewhere that can fix it.

is it neck itself bent in anyway
if so you cant fix it

i was asked to repair a 49 broadcaster and the neck was warped we hung it up on a wall beacuse after extensive reasearch i found nothing could be done

[QUOTE=dudeness]is it neck itself bent in anyway
if so you cant fix it

i was asked to repair a 49 broadcaster and the neck was warped we hung it up on a wall beacuse after extensive reasearch i found nothing could be done[/QUOTE]
You must not know alot about fixing guitars there bud.

If the actual board is warped to ****, it can be planed down and restored.