Reshaping a Bass Neck

[Matt R.]

Has anyone here had experience with getting a neck that may be a tad bulky, shaved down a bit for comfort? I'm considering that option on one of my basses and wanted to know your experiences.

[jayceofbass]

I had my luthier/repair guy reshape the neck on my Franken-T-Bird. It was an original Les Paul bass neck from Kalamazoo (NOS) with a T-Bird headstock grafted on. He was comfortable doing it because he was familiar with necks of that age and new exactly where - if any - stiffening rods would be.

If you know what the cross section looks like and know exactly how much you want to remove, you can do it safely. He turned the baseball bat LP neck into a Jazz neck that's amazing.

[fivebass52]

Matt - I've been considering for some time now having my R&B Custom bass neck narrowed. It's not too fat, but just a bit wide... if it was shaved a bit it would make the 36" scale neck feel a bit shorter is my thinking... After that, I would pull the monorail bridges, and, after reading Rod's review, I'd replace the 'rails and install a Babicz bridge. My only problem with the bridge though would be with my current pickups - they're Areo's, and custom made for the odd string spacing this bass has, which is (from B-to-G) 19/18/18/17mm... so I'd have put in new pickups. The plus side of putting on the Babicz though, is I would have a much wider and available pickup selection to choose from.

Now for the spoiler... Babicz only comes with a 19mm spacing. So narrowing my neck wouldn't let me use it, so that's out. I'd have to search for either a narrower bridge, or an adjustable side-to-side model. Any suggestions?

You can see from this picture of my bass the uneven string spacing.. not a bad thing per se, but has anyone ever seen or played spacing like this before?

[jayceofbass]

Now for the spoiler... Babicz only comes with a 19mm spacing. So narrowing my neck wouldn't let me use it, so that's out. I'd have to search for either a narrower bridge, or an adjustable side-to-side model. Any suggestions?

You can see from this picture of my bass the uneven string spacing.. not a bad thing per se, but has anyone ever seen or played spacing like this before?

Wow. I've definitely never played any spacing like that before but it kinda makes sense when you think about it. As far as replacement bridges go, I'd be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that one of the Hipshot A type bridges would sort you out. There should be enough string space adjustment to do the job.

That's my two cents.