Is this the dreaded fretboard split?

[derick]

Hi, I bought this neck, sans all hardware, about a month ago for $105 + 30 on Reverb. The seller stated that it had come to him with another bass and he had no idea if the trussrod worked, etc. I almost never see these come up, so after he said the rod did appear to tighten I decided to take the chance.

The trussrod works fine, it is a pretty decent neck. Slight hump at 8/9 frets that I will almost certainly attempt to "iron" out, but I have played necks that were much worse.

I did not notice until I drove the tuner ferrules in that there was a finish crack at the nut.

necksplit.jpg (98.82 KiB) Viewed 5093 times

So, does this look like the wood mushing fretboard split? There is no problem under tension getting proper relief on this neck. The nut turns smoothly and easily.

[Ken Baker]

You don't have the neck under string tension, and therefore no trussrod tension. I'm thinking that the big tell will be when you have it on a bass and tensioned. If the crack widens under those conditions, then you may have an issue. Looks small though, so maybe a touch of CA in the crack followed with CA accelerator can help to stabilize it.

Ken...

[derick]

Hi Ken,

I do understand that the photo does not show the trussrod under tension, but I have mounted this neck on two separate bodies and tuned it up. Neither had high tension strings, once with TI flats and the other DR Sunbeams. I am no longer accustomed to higher tension strings, they now feel like bridge cables to me. After I attempt to straighten the 8/9 fret hump I will mount this neck again, but the currently successful heat and pressure experiment on another neck puts this project on the back burner.

But yeah, superglue may help and can't hurt. That's a good idea.