So I got my bass together and the Wenge/Ebony neck is really pulling because the body is just Alder/Maple. I know I've seen some people talk about this and was wondering if anyone had come up with any simple ways to remedy it, other than moving strap buttons. On another note the Wenge/Ebony combo is great for a neck. Think thats going on my next guitar build for sure!
Neck heavy
- Thread starter shanejw
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tubby.twins
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You could try hanging some weights from the strap near the bottom of the body. 
Alternately, you could try using a strap with a more rough inner surface, such as sueded leather. Levy's Leathers straps work nicely for this. The sueded leather should grip your upper body more strongly, and prevent the neck from falling too much.
Alternately, you could try using a strap with a more rough inner surface, such as sueded leather. Levy's Leathers straps work nicely for this. The sueded leather should grip your upper body more strongly, and prevent the neck from falling too much.
I've had the same issue and solved it gradually -
1. A nice suede strap does help manage the dive but doesn't actually solve your problem.
2. hipshot ultralite tuners if you haven't already. Shaves 1/2 lb off the end of the neck. 1/2" size (get them from bestbassgear) fits the Warmoth BML sized holes. This is the best move you can make to solve the neck dive. They are ace tuners besides being light.
3. I still needed a bit more balance after replacing the tuners. So I epoxied a couple of big sockets from an old socket wrench set into the rear of my cavity. Anything heavy would have worked but they were the right size and I don't own a car anymore so it's hard to see reason not to use them.
Added some weight, sure, but it is definitely not neck heavy any more. If yours is a top rout, you could use lead fishing weights and glue / epoxy in the control cavity or under the bridge itself.
1. A nice suede strap does help manage the dive but doesn't actually solve your problem.
2. hipshot ultralite tuners if you haven't already. Shaves 1/2 lb off the end of the neck. 1/2" size (get them from bestbassgear) fits the Warmoth BML sized holes. This is the best move you can make to solve the neck dive. They are ace tuners besides being light.
3. I still needed a bit more balance after replacing the tuners. So I epoxied a couple of big sockets from an old socket wrench set into the rear of my cavity. Anything heavy would have worked but they were the right size and I don't own a car anymore so it's hard to see reason not to use them.
Added some weight, sure, but it is definitely not neck heavy any more. If yours is a top rout, you could use lead fishing weights and glue / epoxy in the control cavity or under the bridge itself.
Superbeast520
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Thank you for writing in about this, I am considering a Wenge neck on a Strat with a Chambered body and am wondering if this will also be an issue, though being that a bass neck is longer it may not be for the Strat.....Can't tell you what to do to solve the problem...but I sympathize as I once played on a Hamer and it was neck heavy, and the neck constantly pulled toward the ground and I hated it and vowed never to buy a Hamer from that point on. I have never even considered their guitars since because of that one point alone. Good luck Mate :-\
jackthehack
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Superbeast520 said:
I've got a wenge/ebony neck on a hollow BK bodied VIP and it isn't neck heavy at all: this is weird, was going to post a link to the VIP gallery, but all the galleries disappeared?
Depend on the body weight, really. If it's a really super light chambered body you might have an issue, but if it's at least 4 lbs it shouldn't be an problem.
