Shen Bass Golf Cart Accident

This bass neck hit a tree while riding in the back of a golf cart. The owner wants a new neck installed.

My assistant, Matt Hannafin, in the background.

Fingerboard removal.

New neck from Shen. Hot off their CNC and the slow boat from China.

The new neck from Shen was very beefy and needed quite a bit of work to match the shape of the old neck.

Cleaning things up.

Matthew Hannafin did a great job of cleaning up the mortise, as seen here.

I had to use a shim to achieve the correct overstand with the new neck that was sent to the shop. I was hesitant to use a shim for a new neck, but after talking to the Shen people on the phone I was assured by them that a shim for a new Shen bass neck is standard practice. Samuel Shen said so himself.

I don't want to say how many shims I made until I had just the right fit, but it was a lot.

Here's the new neck freshly glued into the body after lots of time was spent fitting.

I glued the fingerboard on with the instrument still in the white, which isn't what you're supposed to do; but due to time constraints and keeping costs down for the customer I glued the fingerboard down and cleaned everything up before applying a thin finish. Can't say I regretted it too much, but I'll do what I can to avoid ever doing it that way again.

I think I took this picture at 4 in the morning.

I won't give away Shen's finishing recipe, but here's the bass with finish applied.

And here we are, all set up! Customer told me that the bass sounds (and looks) better than ever.

Thanks, Hannafin, for helping out. I really couldn't have done it by myself.