My fretted 2007 "Guitar of the Week" Les Paul Money Natural Satin Flametop always had a fretless lurking in it. Some fretted "sleepers" do. Being the klutz I am
or because of some inner voice commanding me to do it, I conveniently gouged out the trussrod nut when I tried to remove it to enlarge the needlessly tight cavity. That is when I learned the hard way
that 1. Money basses feature a biflex trussrod that goes both ways (utter nonsense if you ask me, as if a long scale mahogany neck bass without any strengthening hard woods - like on the early WALs - could
ever be too straight under the pull of bass strings) and 2. the nut of a biflex trussrod is
welded on to the thread and
cannot be removed. But you can sure mess the allen cavity up nicely while trying, jawohl mein Herr!!!
Money bass owners read this carefully and don't do as I did!!! I'm getting carried away, am I? Where were we? Ah, yes, now I actually had a good reason to bring the bass to my luthier with the gouged out nut.
His helpful and inquisitive "Didn't you know that biflex nuts are welded on?"
aside, he was good enough to not only put in a regular one-way truss rod, but also cover it up with a toothless piece of his sacred stock of Brazilian (Rio) rosewood which he secretively hoards. And here are the results (and yes, it does sound great, all blurry but with tonal focus and a double ocatve neck to do silly things with):
Exotic woods: A view of maple top, in between walnut "tone plate", maho back and Bazilian rosewood board.
Another great plus is the peace of mind this modification has given me. Given the fact that the blue Money bass (pictured on the left in the first pic above) also features an albeit invisible walnut tone plate, the fin was deplorably the only material difference to the natural satin one, which of course was in direct and grating conflict with my "I do not collect for fins"-mantra. A fretless Monkey is something entirely different though, I am absolved!!!
Looking at it now it seems to be one of the few cases where gold hardware would actually make sense and look better with the woods. Gold is just a more organic and warmer tone to chrome.
