Basswood Worn Out?

[CharvelRocker]

Background: I've never bought into the theory that basswood guitars can wear out. My Charvel CX391 is around 17 years old, so for a "budget" guitar, it's lived a long life. Other than the trem crapping out about a year ago and the nut failing awhile back, it's been great. The body over time though had received it's fair share of hard knocks before I got it, being regularly gigged. I've been fairly gentle, but it's been out a few times in my possession as well. The trem studs also had a habit of slipping up out of the wood until I put some teflon tape on them. Anyway, to the beef:

Recently, I noticed the trem seemed to be leaning up more and more. I didn't think it was major, so I've made occasional adjustments when it starts becoming an issue. Today I was changing the strings and noticed something disturbing; the area where the studs are mounted seems to have a little bit of play in it Is this normal? And yes I am paranoid as this guitar has a lot of sentimental value to me. So has the wood "worn out"? Is that why there aren't any of these left?

[Bengal65]

Basswood is extremely soft and over time inserts and screws can come loose. I have successfully repaired Floyd inserts, with some wobble in Basswood bodies by using JB Weld epoxy. It works great as it fills the gaps and has a solid metallic content. A method, that takes a little longer is to drill and dowel the insert holes with a hardwood, then redrill for the inserts to proper press fit, and press them in.

[Soap]

Basswood is very good budget wood with good warmish tone qualities.
Its not my preference but it has purpose.
It is indeed soft, so bumps, nicks, scratches are real easy to do with it.
Usually it will last a good while although not as long as other woods,
even so I still like it for certain projects.

When combined with a SD 78 model pickup you get in the door to Ed's older early brown sound, VH2ish. Of course the amp and various settings and gear contribute to this as well, but that combo in itself can get you in the door of the VH2 sound/tone.
VH2 was very warmish and Ed's use of the Eventide entered the scenario as well and that helped to contribute to shaping the VH2 sound too.
Some do and some don't but I love VH2's sound/tone.

[CharvelRocker]

Bengal65, that JB Weld stuff sounds like PiG Repair putty, but geared more towards metal. I really like it, but it takes forever in that kind of setting to set, and I've had slight issues drilling it to the force you need to put on it, even with a 19.2 volt cordless drill. I also thought about hardwood dowels. th eissue is, I'm unsure if it solves the issue of the whoel area of wood having a little bit of play it seems. It's hard to describe, but it's like it's slowly buckling outwards due to years of pressure on it.