I changed the gauge from Heavy to Light on my Railboard. I made no adjustments to the stick at all and all is "almost" well. I did notice a very slight bow in the middle of the board, but I'm a little confused on how to adjust the truss rod for a railboard. I think there was another related post on this topic, but have there been any official, or semi-official posts from wither Greg or SE on this topic?

The truss nuts on each side of the stick are totally backed off where they are tightened against the opposite side vs. a normal wooden stick. How do you fix a bow vs. an arch on a Railboard?

So far I'm really happy with the string gauge change on the Railboard. It's a very stable instrument. In fact, I've never needed to make any truss adjustments to it.

I use the terms convex and concave. Photo attached.
Convex implies that the center of the fretboard is higher.
Concave implies that the center of the fretboard is lower.

Ideally the fretboard should be as flat as possible.
On my Railboard, a slightly concave fretboard works best.

The Railboard uses a divided truss rod that is anchored in the center of the fretboard. This design gives you the opportunity to adjust the fretboard halves independently from each other.

To adjust the Railboard fretboard more concave,
you need to move the adjustment nut towards the end of the instrument.

To adjust the Railboard fretboard more convex,
you need to move the adjustment nut towards the center of the instrument.


I've been experimenting with setting up the string height on my Railboard. I start with a very flat fretboard. This is verified by looking down the length of the Railboard while pointing one end at a ceiling light while viewing the fretboard from the opposite end. I sometimes flip it around the other way for verification.

In my case, the truss rods are completely backed off with no force in either direction. I thought that this was odd, but that is where it's the flattest.

I set my bridge and adjustable nut flap, so the strings are the same (1mm height on either end of the fretboard).

I tap a note at the center of the fretboard (just above the anchor for the double truss rods). The note rings clear. (If it didn't ring clear, I would have to raise the string height on either end.)

I work my way along in either direction testing notes for buzzing. (with a difference) I hold pressure on the fret above the note that I'm tapping. (i.e. nut side) I move along until I hear a note buzz, or not ringing clear. When I find a note that doesn't sound proper, I adjust the truss rod on that side until the note rings clear.

In my case, I had to increase/extend the both truss rods to provide a slightly concave fretboard. This sounds counter intuitive to the way that I thought it would work. When I visually check the clearance between the string and each of the fret rods, I'm at the lowest that I can go.

The end of this story is my Railboard is much easier to play now. The strings are now at 1mm clearance and the notes ring clear without any buzzing. The entire process was figured out by observing how the double truss rod was designed.

1. start with a flat fretboard
2. lower your string heights so they match at either end.
3. test your notes, starting at the center truss mounting location.
4. adjust your bridge truss rod, so that all notes from center to bridge ring clear.
5. adjust your nut truss rod, so that all notes from center to bridge ring clear.
6. double check your string heights along the entire fretboard length.
7. check the playability of the instrument. If it doesn't sound right, check which strings are at fault and raise the string height at each end and repeat the above process.

I have a dumb question... very straightforward... about doing this in the right order.

I'm a veteran bassist and very familiar with setup concepts in general. Just want to make sure that my head is screwed on right, given that there are adjustments on the Stick that don't exist on an ordinary electric bass.

I am changing string gauges, going from light to medium, so I'm essentially starting from scratch.

Am I correct in assuming the following?
1) First, back off both truss nuts, put the strings on and bring up to tension.
2) Second, adjust the truss rods for a flat board. (I assume that it only makes sense to aim for a flat board if the strings are under tension... true?)
3) Third, adjust flaps and bridge saddles for ~1mm clearance at either end of the board.
4) Fourth, tweak truss rods to eliminate buzzing. Re-check clearance to see if more flap/saddle adjustment is needed.
5) Fifth, intonate as needed (detune any string that's off to let the saddle move)
6) Recheck action/relief again and adjust as necessary.
7) Adjust pickup height as necessary.

Context:
I bought a Railboard awhile back. It came set up for Raised Matched Reciprocal with medium-gauge strings. For various reasons I wanted to go with Matched Reciprocal and ordered a set of light-gauge MR strings. At the time I didn't do a whole lot in terms of adjustment. It works but is not quite optimal.

I've decided to give mediums a try in this tuning, so this is an opportunity to start fresh and give it a full setup.

You've got the right idea but everything is interactive. There's a lot of back and forth. I back off the string tensions when adjusting the plastic flaps, so that I don't strip out the adjustment screw holes.

When checking for string buzz, I always start at the center of the fretboard and work my way towards the bridge first. The idea is to get all of the strings as low as possible. If one or two buzz, raise those saddles first and try again. If they all buzz, then adjust the truss rod on that side.

When you are happy with the bridge side of the strings, move on to the nut side. Once again, I start at the center of the fretboard and work my way toward the nut while checking for buzzing. The flap has two adjustment screws. By comparing which strings are buzzing, you will get a better idea of whether the flap needs adjustment or the truss rod on the nut side needs adjusting.

A lot of back and forth adjustments. If you get frustrated while setting up your Railboard, walk away. Come back to it, when you are patient and calm. This setup takes some time. One thing affects another. You may not be able to achieve a 1mm clearance, but try to get as close to this as possible. At the end of the day, it's all about the tone. You should be able to play any note on the fretboard and achieve good tone without any buzzing. I'm not an expert at it, but I have successfully setup both of my instruments to my satisfaction.

Exactly what I needed. Thank you!

Having done my own setups on my basses for many years, I'm very familiar with the interactive nature of these things.

Doing the deed right now. Wish me luck.

Side note: While repackaging the used strings, I discovered that while I'd bought a set of light MR strings, I never got around to installing them... the strings in the envelopes had straight ends and my caliper tells me they're thinner than what's on the instrument.. All this time I've been playing with the original RMR mediums, just re-tuned.

Duh.

No matter... I want to get fully involved with this anyway. I've never put any serious effort into learning the instrument and it's time to get busy.

I changed the gauges of strings on two of my sticks in the past few months. I didn't make any adjustments at first. Only after changings the strings, I tweeked the truss rod. If that didn't work, then I started making other adjustments to the bridge height screws and nut screws. I think I finally have the sticks fixed.

The key here, I think, is to not be afraid of making adjustments. As long as you keep track of what you've done, you can always return to exactly the way it was.

Got up this morning and spent a minute or two with it... I think I'm going to have another go at the saddles and the truss.

It's already improved compared to what it had been, but I think I can make it even better.

Also, I believe I've been thinking about the double truss arrangement incorrectly, I've been viewing it as two separate trusses, when it's really about the whole fingerboard.

Another question: I have a hard time confidently telling whether the board is truly flat... the bow/arch is quite subtle and very responsive to small changes in the trussrod. What if I were to lower the flaps and saddle so much that it put one of the outer strings in full contact with the X fret and last fret?

Or, I suppose, I could simply hold down the string at both ends... but I guess I'd need a third hand to check for any movement in the middle.

That'd give me an absolutely straight reference. Tap in the middle and if there's any movement, by definition there's a bow. Adjust the truss(es) to barely eliminate that and the board would be level for sure.

Thoughts?

To see if the Stick fretboard is perfectly flat, I've used a wooden pencil and an elastic band as my third hand in the past. I lay the pencil across the strings and run the rubber band around the back to the other side of the pencil. I've even done this on both ends of the stick at the same time.

Then, I try to wiggle each string at different points along the fretboard to see how close they are to the frets. I adjust the truss rod and visually check the straightness by holding the Stick up to a light and viewing the edge of the fretboard from either side. (from both the bridge end and the nut end) It's tricky to get a good view of it.

Another thought was to try setting your cell phone to video and take a video of what you are seeing. You can then play the videos back each time you adjust something and see if the video displays any visible differences. The advantage of the video is that you can add audio comments of what you did each time and you don't have to depend on your memory to recall what happened each time. Just play back the video and see if you see anything that you may have missed each time you made an adjustment.

I fixed my house furnace on the coldest day of the year by using the video recording method. I knew very little about how a furnace worked but after playing the video over and over, I realized that everything seemed to work except the blower fan. I made a jumper cable and tested that the blower fan worked fine. I traced the problem back to a relay on the control board by using a black fine tipped permanent marker to trace the path on the circuit board. I temporarily bypassed the relay with a piece of wire until the new one arrived.

The service technician wanted $1200 just to show up and I told him that he was the wrong guy for this job. It cost me $2.18 for the entire repair and about two hours of my time trying to figure things out. YouTube played a huge role in learning how furnaces worked. I repair multi-million dollar flight simulators for a living, so I spend a lot of time repairing things to the component level. My skills came in handy for fixing my own furnace.

Good ideas. As a boomer I keep on forgetting that I've got this instant-image-capture device in my pocket that makes a lot of stuff easier.

I just got done rejiggering the bass side. Another full turn came out of all saddles. In the process I raised the flap a bit. Tweak, test, rinse, repeat.

I'm really amazed at how much of a difference a small change makes. Getting the action super-low makes the instrument a lot more sensitive to touch.

Like you, I'm finding that loosening the truss entirely is producing good results. (Railboard, so darned stiff to begin with.)

Having had it recommended by Stickist member @KenCardita on Bob Culbertson's Saturday Zoom call I got one of these. Even with international shipping (I'm in the UK) it was a better option than anything I could find this side of the Atlantic.

If there is any sort of arch it will rock.
If there's a bow you can use your eye or (what I do) a feeler gauge.

Like WerkSpace I find a very slight bow is optimum for me.

Over the last 2 years I've gone from not even having adjusted a guitar truss rod to having completely changed tunings (quite radically - see Sig) of a Stick multiple times. Slow & steady (with copius notes, and the occasional picture), and help from the fine folk here, seems to be the way...