Roasted vs Standard necks - Stability?

[martthebass]

Just coming from the Short Scale Bass appreciation thread and noticed some comments coming up regarding roasted necks and stability of roasted, caramelised and standard necks.  Rather than hijack that thread I thought a separate thread to discuss might be beneficial.

 

For myself I've got 2 basses with roasted necks (EBMM DarkRay and EBMM Shorty Ray), 1 bass with a graphite neck (Status CW-1) and one with a standard maple neck.  Of these the most stable is the Status (no surprise there), which was adjusted when I bought it over 4 years ago and never touched since, the next are the Sandberg and the DarkRay which I've tweaked twice in the last year and the worst is the shorty Ray which seems to move a little bit from month to month.  A small sample group but not seeing a major difference which makes me think there are a number of factors at play.... 

Edited yesterday at 11:50 by martthebass

[LeftyJ]

I have no basses or guitars with roasted necks, but I do have 2 cents about Music Man necks moving: I had a Stingray 5 which was very susceptible to changes in humidity, and would move quite a bit with the change of the seasons, but it got a LOT more stable when I had the neck re-waxed by my favourite luthier. The Music Man necks are oiled / waxed rather than lacquered, which should seal the wood just the same against humidity, but unlike lacquer an oiled / waxed neck does require regular maintenance. 

[tubbybloke68]

My stingray neck needs adjustment quite often, it’s roasted (pretty sure anyway) . It’s one of the later ones, charcoal sparkle, yet my USA Sterling is very stable and a fair bit older. They’re both stored in the same room in the house too. X

[Geek99]

@tubbybloke68

”made in USA” equals “magic wood. “ ✨🦄

[Twigman]

My EBMM USA Sterling has a 'normal' oiled neck and never needs tweaking. I only ever need to adjust the tuning when I change the strings!

[Beedster]

I've had cheap necks that have been perfect and never needed a tweak, and expensive necks that were always slightly out. While of course quality materials and high standards of manufacture are protective, there's always going to be the odd bit of temperamental wood that gets through the process, and I guess it's possible that various treatments - roasted etc - might lower the risk os those that do being a complete PITA. But on the whole, if you keep your necks in fairLy consistent humidity and temperature, and don't change string tension or gauge too often, you really shouldn't have to touch your necks very often once set up.  

[martthebass]

19 minutes ago, Beedster said:

But on the whole, if you keep your necks in fairLy consistent humidity and temperature, and don't change string tension or gauge too often, you really shouldn't have to touch your necks very often once set up.  

I wish that was always the case Chris 😞

[Beedster]

1 minute ago, martthebass said:

I wish that was always the case Chris 😞

 

It's been my experience, perhaps I've either been lucky or have lower standards  

[neepheid]

Wood be woody.

[Sean]

My tip of the day is...

 

Keep the truss covers removed. I'm always adjusting truss rods, 1/8th of a turn here, tiny tweak there. 

[cocco]

I have two basses with roasted maple necks, a stingray special, and a parts P bass with a neck made by Shuker.

 

I've had the stingray for a couple of months, (it's a 2020 build) and the P bass since January (the neck was made this time last year).

 

The stingray needed a neck tweak when the seasons changed not so long ago, only about 1/4 turn, but the shuker neck hasn't budged at all. 

[tauzero]

45 minutes ago, Sean said:

My tip of the day is...

 

Keep the truss covers removed. I'm always adjusting truss rods, 1/8th of a turn here, tiny tweak there. 

 

Even easier, have headless basses with the truss rod adjuster exposed at the unheadstock end (Sei, Hohner).

[LawrenceH]

9 hours ago, LeftyJ said:

The Music Man necks are oiled / waxed rather than lacquered, which should seal the wood just the same against humidity, but unlike lacquer an oiled / waxed neck does require regular maintenance. 

 

Based on a sample size of one MM Stingray versus numerous lacquered Fenders, I think there's something in this. With the addition that oiled finishes are typically touted as 'breathable' whereas polyurethanes are far less so. The 'ray is lovely but it does drift with the seasons, the Fenders do not.

 

I also have a maple parquet floor that has been oiled and the pieces move loads with humidity. It's an inherently unstable timber

[Stub Mandrel]

I suspect it's got most to do with the individual properties of the bit if wood in question. Regardless of cut or roasting, wood is far more variable than carbon fibre.

 

Some basses need a half turn in winter and summer, some don't. 

[itu]

30 minutes ago, LawrenceH said:

I also have a maple parquet floor that has been oiled and the pieces move loads with humidity. It's an inherently unstable timber

A floor is one big unit. The comparison between a tiny neck and an acre of maple is not fair. A carpenter told me that any wooden floor moves, no matter if it's oiled, painted, or lacquered. It should float, or it can be attached from one side, but it moves a lot. 

 

I've had necks that need a tiny bit of adjusting in spring and autumn, like the original Affirma fretted 4, but not the fretless 5. My basses with carbon necks are stable round the year. 

[martthebass]

19 hours ago, LeftyJ said:

I have no basses or guitars with roasted necks, but I do have 2 cents about Music Man necks moving: I had a Stingray 5 which was very susceptible to changes in humidity, and would move quite a bit with the change of the seasons, but it got a LOT more stable when I had the neck re-waxed by my favourite luthier. The Music Man necks are oiled / waxed rather than lacquered, which should seal the wood just the same against humidity, but unlike lacquer an oiled / waxed neck does require regular maintenance. 

You may have something there.  My Sandberg is lacquered and the neck is pretty stable, more so than the 2 oil/waxed EBMM basses.

[HeadlessBassist]

Yes, obviously the graphite necks are the most stable and are usually 'fit it and forget it' spec where seasonal changes are concerned. I've never had any issues with my Status bass necks over the years.

 

I haven't seen any real difference in stability between roasted and natural maple. It seems to vary from bass to bass. My 30 year old natural ash/maple Stingray seems totally oblivious to seasonal change and just stays set up exactly as it always has been. Whereas my GB Spitfire does increase it's action by about 1mm when it gets cold, but otherwise it's super stable.

 

Maybe the one teller is the Cort Space 5, which has the roasted maple fingerboard on top of a 7-piece maple/walnut/purple heart neck. That thing lives in the boot of the car and never even needs tuning, whatever the weather outside, but that consistency seems to occur with most headless basses equipped with monorail tuners.

 

I definitely see a small movement on my natural ash/maple Fender Elite Jazz (with the posiflex rods in the neck) which does display a small rise in the action, but only around 1mm difference, whereas my American Original Jazz (with no graphite rods) never seems to change at all, but it did arrive brand new seven years ago with plenty of relief in the neck from the factory and I've never needed to change it.

 

I really don't know if it's down to the cut of the wood or the seasoning etc, but it may just be down to luck of the draw with maple necks in general.

[ebenezer]

I have a 2003 stingray 5 and the neck needs to be adjusted quite often...just learned  to live with it.

[Belka]

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/roasted-maple-stability.1432896/

 

There's a decent thread from the other side on the topic here. To summarise, roasting can improve the stability of  less stable woods, like figured maples, but it won't make them stronger - apparently it's typically overdone and actually makes necks weaker/more brittle overall. 

 

I'd imaging the MusicMan neck movement issue could be down to the wax/oil rather than sealed finishes, as it seems to happen with both their roasted and unroasted necks. Warwick necks are also known to move a lot. 

 

Roasting probably does make a lot of sense for companies shifting a lot of units such as Sire/Harley Benton  - it's a way to provide a stable neck without having to dry wood out over years, or to be picky about wood selection, but in the long run, properly dried high quality wood is probably a better bet - The likes of Alembic, Ken Smith, Fodera etc. generally use kiln dried timber that's been left for years in their shops for any signs of movement, and then slice them into laminates. Obviously that kind of approach isn't feasible for mass production, so roasting is a good alternative.

Edited 3 hours ago by Belka

[LawrenceH]

11 hours ago, itu said:

A floor is one big unit. The comparison between a tiny neck and an acre of maple is not fair. A carpenter told me that any wooden floor moves, no matter if it's oiled, painted, or lacquered. It should float, or it can be attached from one side, but it moves a lot.

Well I wasn't criticising maple to try and hurt its feelings  I like maple necks and all my current instruments have them. Was more just to point out that the urethane lacquers are actually quite effective at limiting moisture-related movement.

 

The floor is parquet blocks, each one about the width of a neck and considerably shorter. The gaps between the blocks can open up by several mm. Different blocks move different amounts too, and swelling/cupping are noticeable despite being constrained by a very strong adhesive (these are old reclaimed blocks, never designed to float). FWIW maple seems to be very similar to beech in terms of hardness and relatively large moisture-related movement. Great furniture wood and lovely to work but a disaster as a kitchen worktop.

 

In comparison a mahogany parquet floor laid the same way with the same oil treatment shows no sign of movement whatsoever across all ~35sqm. The tropical hardwoods are usually very stable.

 

 

[Noisyjon]

Good video here about roasted woods.

My summary - There's different processes being used to torrefy woods out there and it seems it come down to the initial roast in a vacuum oven and then the cooling/rehydrating process for the type of wood being treated that makes the difference.

 

 

 

[JPJ]

I can’t help thinking that ‘roasted’ has only come about as a result of CITES restrictions on the sale of rosewood and other dark fingerboard materials such as ebony. I don’t remember seeing a roasted neck before CITES became a thing?

 

Personally, for some unfathomable reason, I cannot get away with maple fingerboards on basses I play live. I had a beautiful sunburst Stingray 5 that had to go as I could not adjust to the maple board. 

[Dood]

Taking torrification out of the equation for a moment, yes—there are a number of factors at play.

 

The quality of the timber has already been mentioned. A piece of maple for a neck on a £100 guitar won’t even be in the same ballpark as that used by a top-tier brand like Shuker.

Not all truss rods are created equal, and some have been found to be prone to failure in cheaper instruments. Poorly cut channels and ill-fitting rods can mean the truss rod is already operating outside its effective range.

How is the neck wood cut? Is it quarter-sawn, for example?
Is the neck laminated, and if so, what laminates are being used? This includes the fretboard. I’d describe this as a cross-grain laminate, since the fretboard grain runs perpendicular to the neck laminates, offering additional resistance to twisting and lateral movement.

Is the fretboard a thin veneer, like on my cranky old P Bass (a “ball-bat” neck I’ve adjusted once, and it’s rock solid), or a thick cap? What timber has been used?

How much of the neck length, up to the end of the fretboard is attached to the body? On a standard P Bass, it’s from around the 16th fret onwards. Some neck-through basses join the body at the 24th fret. On a 35" scale-plus instrument, that’s a longer length of neck for forces to act upon. We know from school physics it’s easier to bend a longer piece of material than a shorter one. I’ll leave the exact term for that to the physicists—Beam Theory, maybe?

I also read about a guitar tech who highlighted issues caused by fret installation itself, which could effectively add uneven backbow to an otherwise relaxed board.

 

I’m sure there are plenty more reasons why necks move around, but these are the ones that came to mind while having a cuppa!

Edited 20 minutes ago by Dood

[Bigguy2017]

Yes some necks are very stable and others much less so...

 

I have a theory...

 

In chunky wood necks the wood is doing the work and the truss rod does very little - typically Telecaster necks are like this.

In slim necks the truss rod is doing more work... the truss rod (metal) is sensitive to temperature variations (expands and contracts), causing more movement.

 

Heavy guage (high tension) strings also cause more movement with temp changes.

 

All my Teles and Fender basses are very stable.

My MM stingray (slim neck) is most variable and requires  tweaks as the seasons change.

 

Unfinished necks may be more suseptible to humidity changes - laquered ones don't really care.

 

 

Edited 23 minutes ago by Bigguy2017

[Cato]

48 minutes ago, JPJ said:

I can’t help thinking that ‘roasted’ has only come about as a result of CITES restrictions on the sale of rosewood and other dark fingerboard materials such as ebony. I don’t remember seeing a roasted neck before CITES became a thing?

 

The rise of roasted necks may initially have been related to CITES but imo it very quickly became one of those classic guitar 'snake oil' things where manufacturers claim, usually without evidence, that a certain component or process gives the instrument some kind of special quality.

 

I definitely first started seeing the roasted necks on high end instruments  like Stingray's but now they seem to be available at every price point. 

 

Personally I like the aesthetic of roasted maple but, as with most of these things, I'm extremely skeptical about any special qualities, at least to the extent that would make a noticeable difference from a non roasted neck.

Edited 6 minutes ago by Cato