Fender truss rods and what is wrong with them ... (or me!) ...

[uwe]

Tell me more about rubber necks!!! I've had them from Rickenbacker, Fender and Gibson. And I have real stiffers where the truss rod needs to be released in full from Gibson and WAL. Those necks are mostly (with the exception of a fretless LP DeLuxe I have which has a maho neck) three-ply maple necks with two thin stripes of another wood sandwiched in between. Seems to be a good recipe for stiffness. But ultra-stiffness is not necessarily a good thing, it can lead a bass to sound dead. Which is a reason why not everyone cares for those biflex trussrods (which you don't really need on a bass anyway). Or why the Kramer alu necks did not conquer the world.

[Pilgrim]

Tell me more about rubber necks!!! I've had them from Rickenbacker, Fender and Gibson. And I have real stiffers where the truss rod needs to be released in full from Gibson and WAL. Those necks are mostly (with the exception of a fretless LP DeLuxe I have which has a maho neck) three-ply maple necks with two thin stripes of another wood sandwiched in between. Seems to be a good recipe for stiffness. But ultra-stiffness is not necessarily a good thing, it can lead a bass to sound dead. Which is a reason why not everyone cares for those biflex trussrods (which you don't really need on a bass anyway). Or why the Kramer alu necks did not conquer the world.

The potential for thread deviance in the above statement is unequaled in my experience with this forum.  I bow to the master.

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, SAY NO MORE!   

[JazzBassTbird]

Tell me more about rubber necks!!! I've had them from Rickenbacker, Fender and Gibson. And I have real stiffers where the truss rod needs to be released in full from Gibson and WAL. Those necks are mostly (with the exception of a fretless LP DeLuxe I have which has a maho neck) three-ply maple necks with two thin stripes of another wood sandwiched in between. Seems to be a good recipe for stiffness. But ultra-stiffness is not necessarily a good thing, it can lead a bass to sound dead. Which is a reason why not everyone cares for those biflex trussrods (which you don't really need on a bass anyway). Or why the Kramer alu necks did not conquer the world.

Belive it or not, I've seen several aluminum necked basses with starightness issues. (A few Kramers with far too much relief and and a Travis Bean with a back bow!)

[JazzBassTbird]

Do not use ball end wrenches, they chew up hex head adjusters as you have found.  There should be no reason to adjust a neck seasonally unless you live without the modern conveniences of air con and heating which I doubt.  I'm sure the variation of temperature and humidity are minimal wherever you keep your basses.  You have a bad neck, which doesn't seem to be uncommon from Fender USA these days.

Was the 'socket screw' more than 3-4mm recessed into the neck when it froze?  If so you may have run out of thread on the rod.  The wood surrounding the rod sometimes compresses causing that problem but it usually takes years and a lot of adjustments (which also would indicate a problem neck).  The solution can be adding a washer to get some thread back.

Unfortunately you have a 'vintage style' bass with it's difficult neck adjuster access without the reliability of an actual vintage instrument.

It's not the temperature so much as the humidity. If you live in a cold climate, you will have drying issues in the winter and possibly bowed necks and/or sharp fret ends. There's no way you can warm 20 degree F. air to 72 F. without drying it out. Humidifiers on the heating system can help, but most people fail to maintain them since the filters are expensive and they're a pain to de-scale.

By the same token, if you live in a really swampy place, like Florida, for instance, you might have backbow problems.

Here in New Jersey the winters are moderately cold and summers are pretty hot and humid. I've found that vintage wood is much more dimensionally stable than newer, which often require seasonal adjustment. I've been advised that any instrument that's not going to be played for 3 months or more should have the strings loosened a fifth in pitch. (Except ones needing little or no truss rod tension.)

[Dave W]

On the whole, a 100 year old piece of air dried wood is going to be no more or less dimensionally stable than the same species and thickness of one year old kiln dried wood. There are differences in individual pieces since no two pieces of wood are the same, but that's not due to age. If "vintage woods" are more stable in your experience, then your experience isn't broad enough.

[dadagoboi]

I suggest googling 'case hardening kiln drying'.  I very much believe  that modern techniques of drying wood put stresses on lumber which result in problems that take longer to manifest themselves than earlier practices which involved more time in turning green lumber into dry...and I don't really put much faith in government agencies beholden to corporations looking to make a fast buck which support today's two week or less cycle.  Slower is better and kiln drying was a slower process in the past.  

[Dave W]

I'm well familiar with case hardening. A casehardened board warps when you cut it. If the warpage were minor enough that you were able to use one in a piece of furniture or an instrument, instead of turning it into pallet grade wood, I've seen no evidence that it would later change dimensions any more or less than an air dried piece or a perfectly kiln dried piece.

I'm also not sure that kiln drying schedules for commercial hardwoods today is much different than when we were young. Construction grade softwoods, definitely.

[dadagoboi]

I guess it comes down to this:

Are there more necks with problems than in the past and if so, why?

[Dave W]

I guess it comes down to this:

Are there more necks with problems than in the past and if so, why?

I asked Ray Henning about this when I was still in Texas. He's been a Fender dealer and authorized repair center since 1960 (Heart of Texas Music in Austin). He said he sees fewer neck problems today. That's just one shop, but one with broad experience. He's also yet another repairman who will tell you that you're more likely to find ski slope on older necks.

No doubt, though, neck problems can happen with a new instrument.

[uwe]

From my, uhum, limited experience of a 150 basses or so which I continuously keep alongside each other in the same two environments (my office, fully air-conditioned, and my home, not air-conditioned) and as a trussrod adjustment obsessive I venture forth the following bold statement: Once a neck is older than ten years (the occasional rubber neck candidate excepted), it needs less adjustment than when it is "fresh". That is not to say that younger necks are worse, they just breathe with the climate more, new Gibsons are especially notorious that way, going back an forth the first few years. It's not an issue as long as the trussrod works easily both ways. It does become one when the trussrod is less than willing or less than accessible. On my basses thirty years older and more I only adjust necks - if at all - every couple of years (and not always tighter either). When those basses were young I would have probably felt compelled to adjust them more often too, I'm not saying that the wood was better then, just that it is older today just as today's wood will be three decades from now too.

I used to think that older wood lost the ability to absorb and lose humidity more than younger wood, but Dave, that old owl of scientific certainty, will no doubt immerdiately pounce on me for that, where is my helmet ...    

[patman]

fwiw

I have noticed that newer basses require frequent adjustments, and older one--yes 10 years sounds about right...are more stable.

I like them to get to the point where you don't have to fool with them.

[Dave W]

My experience has been the opposite, although it's not with 150 instruments.

Moisture exchange is only one issue, and that's more of a matter of finish thickness than age or type. Consider that you have 150-200 lbs. of string tension on that neck and a truss rod counteracting it. With the traditional truss rod design, that leads to crushed fibers, which leads to s-curves and a tendency to take a permanent set.

[JazzBassTbird]

My experience has been the opposite, although it's not with 150 instruments.

Moisture exchange is only one issue, and that's more of a matter of finish thickness than age or type. Consider that you have 150-200 lbs. of string tension on that neck and a truss rod counteracting it. With the traditional truss rod design, that leads to crushed fibers, which leads to s-curves and a tendency to take a permanent set.

One would think that a finished neck would be more stable, but '50s and '60s Fenders with basically no finish left on the back of the neck are usually among the most stable necks...
Maybe on a newer instrument.

[Dave W]

One would think that a finished neck would be more stable, but '50s and '60s Fenders with basically no finish left on the back of the neck are usually among the most stable necks...
Maybe on a newer instrument.

Again, I've seen no real evidence to support that. It runs counter to what I've read from Dan Erlewine, Frank Ford et al over the years.

[FrankieTbird]

In my experience with my own instruments, it takes 20 to 25 years for the neck to completely stabilize.  Before they reach that age, I find myself adjusting the rod twice a year.  Ebony boards on a maple neck are the worst for seasonal changes, I think.  Most stable would probably be maple necks without a seperate fretboard.