Ike Turner Almost Ruined My Bass Guitar

I was feeling pretty giddy when the time came to screw the neck onto the body, string up the guitar, and test her out.  Feeling a bit jovial, I threw on Ike and Tina’s “Come Together” live album.  Blistering tight bass lines throughout.  That Ike could really slap it.

I couldn’t find much info on what size the pilot holes should be.  Playing it conservative (i.e. I’d rather have the screw bite a lot of wood compared to just a little), I drilled out the body pilot holes to 1/8th and the neck pilot holes to 5/64ths in order to fit the 1 3/4″ #6 screws that came with my neck plate.  I inserted the neck into the pocket, made sure it was sitting firmly in there, and then flipped the body over and began screw.

So close. . .

The screws were really hard to get in.  So hard that I couldn’t do it with a screwdriver without almost stripping out the heads.  Naturally, I did a dumb thing and used the Phillips attachment on my socket wrench to crank ‘em on home.

When all was said and done, there was a 1/32nd inch gap between the neck and neck pocket.  The wood screws bit into the body, and since I didn’t clamp the neck to body while screwing, a bit of relief formed.

After sleeping on it (figuratively, not literally), I decided to play it safe and remove the neck to drill out the body pilot holes.  I removed three of the neck screws, and, wouldn’t you know it, sheared the 4th screw right off.  Now I was stuck with a neck and body screwed together but no way to get them apart.  I gently “persuaded” the neck off, pretty much chewing up the body pilot hole.  I then had a piece of the shaft sticking out of the neck butt.

I clamped onto the shaft with some vice grips, and began to turn.  Wouldn’t you know it – I sheared the sucker off AGAIN, this time about 1/8th inch down inside the neck.  I tried to extract it, but after talking with some guys at the guitar store, they said that three bolts should be enough provided “you’re not doing any weird Jaco shit”