Cheap bass with perma-high action, some advice appreciated

[Saul Panzer]

Hi, I'm completely new at stuff like this so I thought I'd ask around on here for advice.

I picked up a super cheap jazz bass today and I'm having an issue getting the action low enough to be playable.
It was already far from set up when I picked it up so I've been playing around with the neck and saddle just to see if it's even possible to get the action relatively low before attempting to get it set up.

When I got it the neck was curved up huge amount, the picture below shows the neck as close to straight as I've been able to get it with the truss rod. I've been unable to get it actually straight or even bowed back,
the rod is taking some serious cranking force if I want to move it any more.
Is this something I should just keep going with despite the creaks and groans or is that just asking for a broken rod?

My gut is telling me I'm going to break it and that the neck has just set like this over time and needs replacing. I don't think the bass is super old, it has just been sat unused for however long.
Is that something any of you have experienced or seen happen?

At the saddle end I lowered everything as much as possible just to see how low things could go at the extreme, even at the lowest I'm showing 5-6mm from the 9th fret upwards.
 

At this height it's unusable for me so I want to get this sorted before I even get around to the other things.
I looked around for similar problems and have seen people mention putting something between the neck and body to tilt it back, I'm not sure how much of a difference that would make with the curve in the neck as it is.

Any recommendations would be great, I brought it as something to beat on and test out things like truss adjustments, changing electronics and such.
It's a project piece and I'd like to get it to a playable state eventually.

[Baloney Balderdash]

To fix the string action you would need to shim the neck pocket, take off the strings and then screw off the neck, then cut an old credit card or something similar to size to fit in the neck pocket (something not too thick that won't compress over time, a little thickness goes a much longer way than you'd properly expect), slide it in there and attach the neck again, that will bring the fretboard closer to the string's minimum position.

As far as goes the trussrod when you start to feel resistance, and certainly if the wood begins to creak, you should stop tightening it, otherwise you might strip the trussrod and possibly damage the neck as well, in case of the neck still having too much relief with the trussrod maxed out all you can do is putting on a set of strings of a lighter gauge than those currently fitted on the bass, to ease the string tension pull on the neck, which, depending on how bad the bow is, ought to allow you to straighten the neck up to the desired amount of relief. 

Edited November 1, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash

[Paul S]

I did this to a neck some while ago, like yours it seemed to have come to the end of the adjustment but still had a forward bow.  It worked a treat.  I still have the bass, neck is still straight.

 

[Rexel Matador]

41 minutes ago, Paul S said:

I did this to a neck some while ago, like yours it seemed to have come to the end of the adjustment but still had a forward bow.  It worked a treat.  I still have the bass, neck is still straight.

 

I've done this a couple of times too - I was scared to try it at first but it worked really well.

Edited November 1, 2020 by Rexel Matador

[Saul Panzer]

Thanks for the info, I think I might have a go at both..try to straighten out the neck and then maybe give the shim a go if things still seem to high.

Regarding the clamping, did you both clamp it just for turning the truss or leave yours clamped for a period of time?

[Chienmortbb]

Saul, Before you do anything too drastic, loosen the strings and try to loosen the truss rod. Assumming that works, tighten it again until the neck is staight. That should put the neck close to the right setting once you put the strings back on. Also those bridge saddles seem a long way back. Adjust the intonation before you take the neck off as part of your problem may be the the saddles are too far back and hence out of intonation. If the  neck is still bent, do the clamping trick above, then put the shim in and adjust.

Edited November 2, 2020 by Chienmortbb

[NancyJohnson]

OK, here goes.

Strings off so the neck isn't under tension.  If you try to tighten the truss rod (righty tighty), is the adjustment nut tight?  ie it won't move any more?

 

[Saul Panzer]

Thanks for the new tips!

[Bit of an update]

I wanted to test out the low hanging fruit so I removed the neck and fitted a test shim to the back of the neck pocket (slice of old plastic card), refitted the neck and the angle was massively changed. I had to raise the saddle way up just to stop the strings sitting on the last fret.

I removed the neck again and changed the test shim to one half the thickness, refitted the neck and checked again, the strings were at a decent enough height now..not counting the discrepancy caused by the bow in the neck which was annoying.

I haven't got much in the way of tools, clamps and such so I removed the neck with the plan of rigging something out whatever I could find. I got delayed on that due to life stuff getting in the way, leaving the neck sat detached.

When I finally got back to it I looked down the neck to make a plan and it had mostly straightened out by itself (even with the strings off it didn't do that while attached).
So I tried moving the truss rod back and forth, figuring I could at least make sure it moved freely even if to little effect.
It seemed to work well enough now, adding a little bow or relief as needed.

I removed the shim and refitted the neck, I restrung the guitar and tuned up. The neck had a slight bow but I was able to get that sorted this time, the saddle needed to be lowered all the way down again.
After tuning up and checking the intonation all seemed to be good, the strings are still too high for what I want at around 2-2.5mm but the neck is consistent now.

I've been playing around on it, it's not terrible now..not amazing but playable, the fret spacing feels long and weird going from 24 to 20 frets but I guess that's to be expected, perhaps it's just due to the different neck profile.

When I get the time I'm planning to fit a full sized shim in the neck pocket to raise the fret board but not change the overall angle, I think that will get my action down to where I want it without bottoming out the entire saddle and I'll have a bargain of a jazz bass.

Thanks a lot for all the tips and info everyone, lessons have been learned and I'm in a better place regarding modding and maintenance now.

[itu]

Once again: if you ever do any adjustments like truss rod, or fine tuning, go to a store and buy a new set of strings first. Old set is already in bad condition and dirty.

[Saul Panzer]

33 minutes ago, itu said:

Once again: if you ever do any adjustments like truss rod, or fine tuning, go to a store and buy a new set of strings first. Old set is already in bad condition and dirty.

I put on a new set of flats as soon as I got it home, the ones it came with were actually rusted..heavily on the D and G.

[Chienmortbb]

11 hours ago, Saul Panzer said:

I put on a new set of flats as soon as I got it home, the ones it came with were actually rusted..heavily on the D and G.

You need the angle of the shim, just raising the neck will not work unless you use a very thick piece of wood. Also 2mm is qiute  a low action, how low do you want go?