Neck stiffening rods

[rubis]

I am in the early stages of a bass build and will be making two necks, one fretted and one fretless. I will be making them from maple, a five piece laminate construction with walnut stringers between the three lenghts of maple.
I appreciate that this is a widely accepted method of constructing a stonger neck, but I noticed on the Warmoth site that they offer a Superbass neck with steel stiffening bars parallel to the truss rod. I can see how this would strengthen the neck further, but would it really cut down or eliminate dead spots? They go as far as to say that steel works better than graphite, but offer both as an option.

Anyone got experience or knowledge of these or similar necks?

Is it worth me routing a couple of extra channels and putting in steel bars which are cheap and easily obtainable (unlike graphite) or will it just make my build neck heavy and not noticeably stronger or better sounding?

here's the Warmoth link

[url="http://www.warmoth.com/Bass/Necks/TrussRods.aspx"]http://www.warmoth.com/Bass/Necks/TrussRods.aspx[/url]

[Mr. Foxen]

I reckon the mass of steel would shift dead spots around compared to not, but the stiffness shouldn't be an issue unless you are gonna shave the neck Geddy style.

[XylemBassGuitar]

In my experience, extra rods (beyond the truss rod) are not necessary in a neck as long as the wood used is dry, well-seasoned and quater sawn; all glue joints in the neck are very good (both surfaces flat to .001" or .0254mm) including the fretboard-neck joint; and the frets are well-installed.

[i]Also make sure that the truss rod is very tight in its channel[/i], a truss rod that is loose or comes loose later can rattle or vibrate sympathetically with the strings, a possible cause of dead spots. The truss rod being tight in its channel is [i]very[/i] important. Knock on the neck with your knuckles throughout construction to make sure you don't hear the rod rattle. But, don't listen for rattle unless you have all the tuners and hardware off the neck, and if adjustment nuts or washers are on the rod when you do it, make sure to tighten them a little, all these things will rattle a little and you'll give yourself a heart attack when you mistake them for truss rod rattle after you've put 20 hours into the neck.

I've never had a dead spot on [i]any[/i] of the necks I've built this way.

However, there are lots of very good luthiers out there that swear by stiffness rods and I'm sure they make them work quite well.

Keep in mind that you don't want a stiff-as-concrete neck. You [i]need[/i] at least a little relief to be pulled into the neck by the string tension or you won't be able to get really good, low action.

Good luck on the build! Do we get to see some pics?

[henry norton]

Steel rods add quite a weight to a neck so if your body design is marginal you could end up making it neck heavy. I don't use stiffening rods because of this and the fact that if a bit of wood is going to twist a couple of bits of thin steel won't stop it. It's much better to find decent, dried wood in the first place. Warmoth claim the steel rods eliminate dead spots - I've never had many problems with that either but I suppose if you're running off thousands of necks there must be one or two that come out a bit off colour, so it might make sense to them in that way.