I'm surprised at the seasonal changes that rogertvr mentions with this Status basses, but that is what the truss rod is there for. With a wood neck instrument, the seasonal variation is attributable to the change in humidity that goes with the seasons for most of us.
For what it's worth, I have a Status Stealth headed 5-string of pretty recent vintage and haven't noticed any changes in action during the year (I live in Northern California though where seasonal change is pretty minimal). One thing I have noticed about the Status instruments is that the truss rod has much more prounounced effect than a Modulus with truss rod.
The Status construction uses pretty much the same materials and process as Modulus, but the necks are a true one-piece construction, where Modulus is two-piece. Modulus lays up the pre-preg fabric in a mold then bonds two pieces together to form a monocoque structure. It looks like the Status stuff is done by creating a foam core and wrapping pre-preg fabric around that core. It's probably easier to tool up a mold to make foam cores than one that directly forms the neck, and another plus of the Status process would be that you should be able to hand cut any shape in the foam buck rather than have to fabricate a mold. I'm pretty sure this is how the German Basslab basses are made, many with really crazy shapes, but I haven't ever had a chance to look inside one of these.
There are a couple of Status models where there is a wood neck with a cosmetic graphite skin on top. I think this is how the Kingbass is made, but could be wrong about that.
There's a HUGE difference in expansion of the graphite neck and phenolic fingerboard of a Modulus or Status bass. The graphite is very stable, the phenolic has a lot more expansion and is very similar to wood. The phenolic material is actually formed out of sheets of something like kraft paper that is permeated with resin and squeezed under pressure. The end grain of the paper is exposed to the environment and will swell with humidity.
I have the original fingerboard of a Modulus of mine (for many years my #1 bass) that delaminated and had to be disassembled and reconstructed by the factory. The phenolic fingerboard was stripped from the graphite underlayment (the thick flat graphite plate that is bonded on the back of the neck to form the graphite monocoque, or tube structure), so there's a coating of epoxy on one side still. The neck was defretted first, so the fret slots in the top are bare, but I've been suprised to see the fingerboard has developed a significant bow since it was liberated from the rest of the neck. Over the course of 4-5 years, the raw fingerboard has developed a bow of almost 2.5(!). A little of that is probably from the fret slots, but I think most of that must be the differential absorbtion of the raw phenolic vs. the side that has epoxy on it. I don't think a wood fingerboard would warp that much.
I think this is actually part of the reason that the glue joint in this neck failed. This is actually a bit of a design weakeness in early Modulus necks. The gluing surface between the main neck piece and underlayment are the two milled flats, each of which is the thickness of the graphite structure. Since these necks are laid up by hand, this can vary from neck to neck, and sometimes the width of the gluing surface can be quite thin - less than 1/4. Impacts on the neck, or a hot trunk can weaken that narrow joint pretty easily. The phenolic fingerboard on the other hand is bonded by it's full width to the underlayment - a much stronger bond. If the fingerboard is applying spring force to the underlayment, that would stress the critical glue joint even more. By the mid-80's they were laying more material in the region of the nut so there would be a larger gluing surface.
David Fung
