(Solved-Thanks) Gettin my first BASS today-Luthier Question?

Is your house climate controlled?

The extra 5th string may add too much stress... but I have lots of old to middle age guitars and a few bass guitars. They are all sitting around ready to play and I've never worried about the necks.

I think a lot of the problems associated with earlier guitars is 3 fold:

1) Fluctuations in environment temperature and humidity from pre HVAC lifetsyles.
2) Sourcing wood that didn't have the ideal mositure content.
3) Weird truss rod schemes.


I just don't think it is much of an issue these days unless you gig or travel or have some really nice under braced acoustic guitar.


best regards,
mike

I have a Schechter 5-string bass, bought it about 2 years ago. It has proven to be very forgiving with climate change; I live in a flood zone and we're in the midst of a wet cycle, so we've plenty of humidity to contend with. I don't gig, so it lives either in the house or at the church, both of which are fairly stable, climate-wise.

The guitar tech who does my maintenance work has me bring it in about every 6 month to make sure the neck isn't getting out of the safe zone.

HTH

I would leave it tuned.
If it's sitting in a stand and not exposed to
drastic climate change it should be fine.
If it does gives ( minor increase in neck bow due to string tension)
then it would probably have needed to be adjusted
anyway or if you had been playing it.

The question I have is for Mccue....what the heck are "weird truss rod schemes"?
The only one that I may think some would consider "weird" is when
two truss-rods are installed. Personally I haven't seen many instruments
get a "Z" in the neck and that's why they were doubled up...at least before
they starting thinking bass guitars needed to be a handheld piano.

I'm not familiar with your bass Mike but it is very common for a 5 and 6 str basses
to have graphite rods on either side of the truss-rod. And many truss-rods are
double action. "double" means that when the rod nut is turn in one direction it
will work against string tension bow. When turned in the opposite direction it
will force the neck in the same direction as the string tension.
The reason for that is it is possible for the wood to have a natural bend that has more
energy to bend to it's "memory" than the string tension. Should the neck wood do that
with a single action truss-rod...very bad. If it's a bolt-on it will probably have to be replaced.
If it's a neck thru...oh the pain...probably firewood.

Keep it tuned and adjusted even if you're not playing it. If neck bow increases have it
adjusted if you don't know how. Not a big deal.

Just my 2.