Geoff Benge here in Chicago just did a bunch of work done on one of my TB basses.

He fixed a wicked bow in the neck, and he lowered the pickup height, particularly on the side of the PU under the fattest strings.

The bass now plays better than any other Bean bass I've ever touched.

If anyone needs advice on this, hit me up. It's hard for me to believe I've been playing these things for >30yrs and am still learning new stuff about them.

I would like to publicly thank:
Geoff for doing this work and having the initial lightbulb go off ("i wonder...if I can do this the way you'd intonate an old Martin...)
Dave Johnson at Scale Model Guitars (Nashville) for posting about this on the unofficial Travis Bean forum in 2011 and talking to me about it for an hour on the phone with follow-up texts etc.

----

As to pickup height:

The PUs on a Bean are mounted directly to the neck. Non-adjustable.
The necks I've seen have two bars running in parallel down the length of the neck.
There's a channel cut in each bar at the spot where the pickups are mounted, and the PUs fit in that channel.

All neck pickups, in any guitar, are under a section of string that has maximum deflection up and down...
...and if a neck pickup is close enough to the strings, its magnetic field will have a dampening effect on string vibration.
It will kill sustain and fuck with your ability to intonate the guitar.
Particularly true for the fatter strings on the guitar.
This is why so many seasoned Les Paul players will have their neck pickups lowered to be flush with the guitar top.
Insert picture of Dickie Betts' Les Paul here.

Anyway, if those two shallow channels that hold the neck PU are made slightly deeper, you can bring the PU back from the strings a bit.
And if the channel on the "bass" side of the PU is a little deeper than the channel on the "treble" side...
...you can balance the output from the strings better and lower your action while still being able to intonate the guitar well.

Not trivially easy to do, and you certainly need the right person to do it.

But it's worth it imho.

As to neck adjustments:

Occasionally you'll run across a Bean with a bowed neck.
It'll be impossible to intonate properly.
Neck might be fine up to the 9th or 10th or 12th fret...then it gets funky above that.
EGCs have this issue sometimes as well.
You might think the metal has bent somehow, due to string tension.
I think that's what Bean thought had happened, and I suppose it had...temporarily...although the metal may not have been the problem, at least sometimes.
In the old days, they would actually bend the necks back (!) with a hydraulic press.
Which works, for what it's worth! At least for a while.

Finally, after all these years of high action and wombling around with the upper part of the fretboard...
...I found two people, Geoff and Dave, who understand what is happening in these instances.

What's happening is...at least on Beans and probably EGCs with wood fretboards...that the fretboard is shrinking.
The fretboards on Beans and some EGCs are made of wood. The necks, of course, are aluminum.

What happens to aluminum if it's in a humid or dry environment? Nothing. Aluminum doesn't give a shit about humidity.
What happens to wood? Humid...it expands. Dry...it contracts.

In the early days of Beans, they had problems occasionally with fretboards popping off of instruments.
Why? Well, I guess it was probably partly the glue--so they switched to using high-strength epoxy.
But I would submit it probably wasn't just the glue.
I wasn't there, of course, but perhaps...it was the fretboards drying out...shrinking...and pulling off the necks.
I would propose that this problem is more common on newer aluminum-neck guitars with wooden fretboards.
Reason: it's harder to get properly cured wood nowadays. There's just less of it.
Anyway, if the fretboard shrinks...and it's glued on there real good...it might NOT pop off. And it might put a bow in the neck.

Two tells that this has happened:
1. Your instrument is hosed above the 9th or 10th or 12th or 13th fret...can't get it to play in tune up there.
2. You can feel the edges of the frets sticking out of the fretboard a little bit, and they didn't used to do that.

Anyway, if you have an aluminum-neck guitar with a wood fretboard...and it can't be properly intonated...here's some stuff you can try.

1. Refret it with slightly bigger fret wire (for smaller problems)

Critically...the "tang" of the frets (the part that goes into the slot in the fretboard) can be crimped, like you'd crimp your hair before going to the prom, to increase the volume taken up by the tang.

When a fret with a crimped tang is driven into a slot in a fretboard, it will push the fretboard out incrementally toward the nut and the bridge...flattening it.
You do that enough...it actually has the effect of pushing the fretboard "out" enough to get rid of some/all of the bow.
Old acoustic guitar without a truss rod? This is how you introduce a backbow and get the neck to line up right. Same thing.

2. Remove and reglue the fretboard, THEN refret with bigger fret wire/crimped tangs (for bigger problems)

This is quite an undertaking, and the only two people I know of whom I'd trust to do it are Geoff and Dave, mentioned above.
When I was talking to Dave about this, he said, "look, the neck isn't warped, really--if you were to take the fretboard off it, it would pop right back to being straight." Which is exactly what happened when Geoff took the fretboard off this bass.

Now, you might be able to get away with #1 above to fix minor issues. With my guitars (there's a 2nd one in the works, a Travis Bean panback), they were pretty out of whack, and we decided #2 was the way to go.

<end treatise>

EDIT: Videos and pix here.

Thank for that. The pickup height on my 1000S is stupid high at the bridge. I popped the pickups off and noticed, as you mentioned, the channel at the neck had been shaved down a little, but at the bridge: no notch. If I drop the action low enough, the strings will hit the pickup cover, so I set it up a little higher than I want. I don’t really want someone taking a file to this instrument though.

HOF. Insight that is invaluable for those in need. That's not me, bit still

twelvepoint wrote: Sun Mar 08, 2026 8:34 pm Thank for that. The pickup height on my 1000S is stupid high at the bridge. I popped the pickups off and noticed, as you mentioned, the channel at the neck had been shaved down a little, but at the bridge: no notch. If I drop the action low enough, the strings will hit the pickup cover, so I set it up a little higher than I want. I don’t really want someone taking a file to this instrument though.

I feel ya. It is rather little metal off the neck, though—fwiw!

Have any of your Beans had metal shims/spacers under the pickups? When I took apart my TB2000 a few years ago, there's one or two shims under the bridge pickup. I left them in, but have been curious about taking them out and seeing how it adjust the sound, and possibly intonation, etc. Mines fairly early (#92) so maybe something more common with the initial run.

Earnie Bailey had to do some work on mine shortly after I got it as the fretboard was starting to come off the neck. He reglued it, and didn't seem to notice any other issues (and was the only person in the PNW who seemed to know enough about Beans that Kevin B would recommend to work on mine), but that was almost a decade ago and I've played and travelled with this thing a bunch since then.

It would also be ok if someone made a drop-in pickup that was like 1/4” shorter. I’d prefer to do that rather than hack down the aluminum.

I shaved down the plastic surround on my neck EGC to give it a smidge more space like you mentioned....

tallchris wrote: Mon Mar 09, 2026 11:09 am Have any of your Beans had metal shims/spacers under the pickups? When I took apart my TB2000 a few years ago, there's one or two shims under the bridge pickup. I left them in, but have been curious about taking them out and seeing how it adjust the sound, and possibly intonation, etc. Mines fairly early (#92) so maybe something more common with the initial run.

Earnie Bailey had to do some work on mine shortly after I got it as the fretboard was starting to come off the neck. He reglued it, and didn't seem to notice any other issues (and was the only person in the PNW who seemed to know enough about Beans that Kevin B would recommend to work on mine), but that was almost a decade ago and I've played and travelled with this thing a bunch since then.

I have heard tell of Beans with shims under the pickups. Don't think any of the ones I've had have had them, but i also didn't dig into the pickups on most of 'em.

Earnie's rep obviously precedes him...I heard he knows those guitars well. Do you know if he pulled the board off completely and reglued it?

twelvepoint wrote: Mon Mar 09, 2026 11:44 am It would also be ok if someone made a drop-in pickup that was like 1/4” shorter. I’d prefer to do that rather than hack down the aluminum.

Yeah. I would NOT let just anyone do it. I would (and did!) let Geoff or Dave do it.

Here's a link that shows the modified channel(s).

eephus wrote: Mon Mar 09, 2026 2:26 pm

twelvepoint wrote: Mon Mar 09, 2026 11:44 am It would also be ok if someone made a drop-in pickup that was like 1/4” shorter. I’d prefer to do that rather than hack down the aluminum.

Yeah. I would NOT let just anyone do it. I would (and did!) let Geoff or Dave do it.

Here's a link that shows the modified channel(s).

I needed to request access, fyi