Your next guitar?

[xtp]

are you going to replace the fingerboard yourself? I tried once with an old Warmoth neck...now I have a Warmoth neck with no fingerboard

Hmmm I almost lost the morning coffee then.

I will get my Luthier to do it. Its actually the main reason the neck has sat on a chair for the last 14 months, after completing the rest of the guitar I have been bonding with it and haven't wanted to lose it for a week or so.

He will have to change the fingerboard, put the inlays in and replace and set up the neck. He does a good job, so I enjoy having his input.

[DF2R]

are you going to replace the fingerboard yourself? I tried once with an old Warmoth neck...now I have a Warmoth neck with no fingerboard

This is really funny, but awesome.

[Hink]

it's true Without the right tools getting the neck flat to match the fingerboard just was not happening. However years later (that was around 1990) around 2001 part of my Kramer headstock got broken. The Warmoth was a jackson style headstock so I cut the tip off and put it on the kramer neck, you can see the line above the 4th tuner hole.

[Ian B]

It sure as hell wouldn't be one of these http://www.warrguitars.com/

But in the right hands

[hibidy]

It sure as hell wouldn't be one of these http://www.warrguitars.com/

But in the right hands

Oh my goodness!

[Ian B]

timing is everything...first Ian I am like you, I miss a maple neck and that's why I want to use the tele neck I have from my baritone conversion (which is maple too) but nothing is like a worn maple neck (like beck's old broadcaster).

So I get an AMS catalog (though the link will be zzzsounds) and this was in it

http://www.zzounds.com/item--ESPST203FR

399 aint bad and I think I might see if I can find one at GC to try...naturally I would swap out the floyd rose and put in one of mine and I would change the pick-ups

eric if you read this give me the dope on it

I know it's nonsense/all in the mind Hink, but I've always felt maple frerboards are faster than rosewood

I don't know about that but I think there is a tone difference, I have owned more rosewood fretboards but I always prefered maple but that doesn't make it better

Thinking about it, my impression of maple boards being faster than rosewood is almost certainly down to the fact all the maple boards I've had have been heavily lacquered.

The new neck arrived today at 10.20am and after a cursory inspection showed no obvious problems had been fitted by 11.30.

Onto the details........

Finished with a thin coat of satin lacquer (not my ideal but I can live with it) it's made of a single piece of maple. No binding but only a couple of fret edges are showing, again I can live with this as the neck edges are totally smooth. As it was a couple of mm narrower than the original I had to use two very thin pieces of card, one either side, to get it centred before drilling the holes for the 4 neck bolts, then I just measured the depth on a suitable drill on the original neck, marked it with tape then drilled away merrily on the new one.

I had to make the tuning peg holes somewhat larger, which appeared like it was going to be tricky as at first it seemed like my drill wouldn't take the required bit, tho' it did. I would have had it done in half the time but struggled to get the tuners off the old neck.

Once fitted and the old strings used, tho' I never fully took them off the body, I was staggered to find there was virtually nothing else to be done, in fact the action had less buzzes right off than the old neck. I'll need to raise the G string a tad to stop it choking, but that's it, oherwise the action is superb and with a bit of effort may well go even lower.

Now the cons, tho' these are hardly worth mentioning, The nut is too low a profile, I'll need to get a string tree for the top E and B. Played with my now regular 10's, it doesn't take much force for the top E especially, to jump out of the nut slot. The frets had a slightly rough feel to them, tho' nothing some concerted string bending won't soon put right.

A pic of the finished article, with the original neck by it's side for comparison. Surely only a rabidly anti maple neck or rabidly pro tree of life inlay fan could argue this new neck isn't a vast improvement. All in all, I'm chuffed to bits

[Hink]

it looks awesome Ian You should get yourself some fret files though, very handy to have

[Ian B]

Thanks Hink, it plays beautifully now, as good as it sounds to my admittedly cloth ears

I've got a *home-made* fret file that's served me well over the years, but this roughness is nothing that a period of playing in won't put right. I know it's only a budget guitar to start with, and it could be argued with some justification I've wasted money on first upgading the pups and now this neck should I ever wish to sell it, but I've got a pretty much unique guitar as a result.

It's crying out to be restrung and has been for some time tbh, but while it was so neglected there seemed little point, plus the old strings will serve me well for bending notes that aren't usually bent, but will be to smooth the frets out.

If anybody reading about this neck is tempted to splash out on one, if mine is typical they're a fantastic buy imo http://www.dangleberrymusic.co.uk/p-462 ... board.aspx

[DF2R]

A pic of the finished article, with the original neck by it's side for comparison. Surely only a rabidly anti maple neck or rabidly pro tree of life inlay fan could argue this new neck isn't a vast improvement. All in all, I'm chuffed to bit

That neck makes it look so good.

[Ian B]

A pic of the finished article, with the original neck by it's side for comparison. Surely only a rabidly anti maple neck or rabidly pro tree of life inlay fan could argue this new neck isn't a vast improvement. All in all, I'm chuffed to bit

That neck makes it look so good.

Cheers

That was my thought before ordering, thankfully it's worked out even better than I'd hoped.

[Hink]

here's what has been stuck in my head for a few days now, I still have that other tele neck (maple) from the baritone conversion as well as all the psrts including an old (true original) Floyd Rose (gold). I could go with two humbuckers in a rear rout strat body for 240 dollars (maple body, mahagony would be the same, swampash, alder and basswood less...other exotic woods go up from there fairly steep).

on the other hand I could go with the same body top rout (S-S-S)for 220 dollars and go traditonal strat






(battery box just in case )

but I really do not have decent enough single coils so I would need pick-ups and of course a pickguard too. I've been studying up on dye finishes and I have that body that has a crack in it to experiment so I have thought about trying a sunbust but I might just go with a black dye hand rubbed in.



Or I could buy that worn LTD...but I like the warmoth route better (for now) basically it would work out to the same price

[Ian B]

My vote goes for S-S-S with black dye Hink, add a oil or wax finish and it'd look super-cool

[hibidy]

Yeah, that was the one thing I didn't take into consideration when I sold the strat, how much I'd miss the s-s-s config.

Don't get me wrong, I'm content in my decision, just saying I love that config and you CAN'T replace it if it's something you'll use.

@pickups: Consider the fender "noiseless" as they sounded fab! I wish I could put those pickups in this ibby hardtail..........BLISS!

[Hink]

yeah I would probably go with the noiseless...I was thinking about duncan 1/4 pounders but saw some good deals on the noiseless...and of course another stratoblaster

[Ian B]

Don't overlook the GFS Neovin silent pups Hink, I've got a set of Fat Vintage on my Curvycaster and I'm very, very impressed I had a set of Fender Vintage Noiseless tele pups on another guitar, and while the GFS are Strat pups so different, they were every bit as good in sound and a damn sight cheaper.