bovinehost
Administrator
Paging Jon: String Tension and Bongo Necks
Jon (or anyone else with thoughts on this matter - although I will of course bow to Jon's superior knowledge and ability to answer with one word):
A friend of mine has a Bongo 4 banger. He initially had DRs on it and all was well. He brought it over here yesterday and had re-strung it with TI Super Alloys, which are pretty high tension strings (think Rotos).
I'm not Mister Expert Bass Set-Up Guy or anything, but I do my own and have always had compliments on how well my basses play. In fact, on my Desert Gold Bongo 4, I had some problems with TI Flats - not enough tension to pull the neck into proper relief. I solved that problem by loosening the truss rod all the way and tuning all the strings up about 3 steps past normal and letting the neck acquire some natural bow, then re-tuned and all was well with standard sort of truss adjustments.
Anyway.
I could not get the bow out of the neck of this Bongo. The truss rod was cranked up pretty good when he got here, so I was reticent to go much further. I loosened the strings and gave it a 1/4 turn, then back to pitch...not much improvement.
Loosened again, another 1/4 turn, back to pitch, same thing.
Hmmm.
The only thing I could come up with is to shim the neck a bit and change the angle, which he wasn't really willing to do. I was glad, because I didn't want to do that unless it was my bass, you know? But I would have.
The good news is he's not married to these strings and plans to go back to the DRS or something with less tension, but my question is - how do you approach this kind of issue?
Jack
(BTT in case Jon comes home and checks the forum.)
Jon (or anyone else with thoughts on this matter - although I will of course bow to Jon's superior knowledge and ability to answer with one word):
A friend of mine has a Bongo 4 banger. He initially had DRs on it and all was well. He brought it over here yesterday and had re-strung it with TI Super Alloys, which are pretty high tension strings (think Rotos).
I'm not Mister Expert Bass Set-Up Guy or anything, but I do my own and have always had compliments on how well my basses play. In fact, on my Desert Gold Bongo 4, I had some problems with TI Flats - not enough tension to pull the neck into proper relief. I solved that problem by loosening the truss rod all the way and tuning all the strings up about 3 steps past normal and letting the neck acquire some natural bow, then re-tuned and all was well with standard sort of truss adjustments.
Anyway.
I could not get the bow out of the neck of this Bongo. The truss rod was cranked up pretty good when he got here, so I was reticent to go much further. I loosened the strings and gave it a 1/4 turn, then back to pitch...not much improvement.
Loosened again, another 1/4 turn, back to pitch, same thing.
Hmmm.
The only thing I could come up with is to shim the neck a bit and change the angle, which he wasn't really willing to do. I was glad, because I didn't want to do that unless it was my bass, you know? But I would have.
The good news is he's not married to these strings and plans to go back to the DRS or something with less tension, but my question is - how do you approach this kind of issue?
Jack
(BTT in case Jon comes home and checks the forum.)
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