A customer brought in the this super cool Ernie Ball Earthwood Bass with a few problems.  The G string has a loud buzz and the neck has a rise starting around the 12th fret.

I determined the string buzz is due to a low string break angle at the bridge.  The bridge is tilting forward slightly and the original break angle has been reduced considerably.  The strings go through the bridge in oversized holes and the reduced angle is allowing the string to move around creating the buzz.  To test the theory I immobilized the string in the hole with toothpicks and eliminated the buzz completely.

A look inside revealed a few other problems.  There has been a lot of work inside and the is glue everywhere!  There are several loose braces which will need to be cleaned and reglued.

The tongue curves up drastically starting just after the 12th fret.  The fingerboard has separated from the neck in this area. My plan is to clean out the old glue and possibly remove some wood from under this area to allow the fingerboard to be glued flat.

With a little effort and patience I was able to separate the loose braces from the top with a palette knife.

I then cleaned and repaired the braces and reglued them.

With the bracing complete I switched my attention to the rising tongue on the neck.  In order the bring the tongue down I decided to remove some wood underneath this area.  The tongue was already separating a little and I increased the depth of the separation using the thin blade of a japanese pull saw.  I just where I wanted the tongue to begin descending.  I then pulled sandpaper through the kerf until I had removed enough wood to straighten the tongue.  This worked much like resetting a neck.  The sandpaper cut most aggressively toward the end of the neck creating a taper.  Because the end of the saw kerf was square and couldn’t be clamped shut I made a thin wedged maple shim to fill the gap.  This was then glued and clamped overnight.

To correct the break angle for the 1st string I turned a plug on the lathe to fill the old hole and drilled a new hole.  I cut a wedge block to use as a visual guide as I drilled.

I had to shim the neck a bit to bring the action down and adjust the relief but now it plays wonderfully all the way up the neck.  I made a new truss rod cover an I’m done!