Big Strat neck!

[Don]

I finally took the plunge today and ordered a USACG neck for my Strat.

The original neck is skinnier than I like and the frets are smaller than I like.

I e-mailed Tommy and ordered a 1 piece maple boat neck with 21 6105 frets, 7-1/4"-9-1/2" compound radius, Kluson ream, and the USACG clear fill logo (of course).

I bought a similar T-Style neck from USACG 5-1/2 years ago with an approx. .930" thick soft V shape and wanted something bigger this time around.

I'll put Minwax Wipe On Satin Poly on it like I did the T-Style neck. It was cheap, easy, feels great and has held up well. I'll put a bone nut on it as well. I think I have a spare or two from when I built the T-Style.

My Strat already sounds good and has a nice lightweight sunburst body, my old unwound Fralin pickups and a Callaham bridge assembly.

The only original Fender parts will be the body, pickguard, knobs and pickup covers! This was a brand new Hwy1 Strat when I bought it a few years ago!

I'm very excited about this!

[jerryjg]

THat neck is going to be awesome i think. The Compound Radius has been a concern/complaint of the necks from the Warmoth shop. Ive talked to Luthiers fairly recently who say that the Warmoth Compound Radius will never set up correctly.
I havent heard of the USACG( which as everyone knows are former Warmoth guys associated with Ellsworth who built the famous "boogie Body " Van Halen Frankenstart body back in thelate 70's.
The Compound radius idea is very cool, yet I reall think a a straight 10-12 would work well.
Waht I am most happy with about your neck is the Boatneck. I have small fingers, but thhey are stubby, and I lilke to manhandle my way around a Boatneck very much.
I love My thin profile Jacksons and Peaveys fo fast action, but when you want to grab some tone, that Boatneck is awesome!
As a matter of fact the entire project sounds liek a lot of work but well worth it.
Good show ,I say!

[curtisstetka]

jerry - can you elaborate on "will never set up correctly"?

Intonation problems? Action problems? Dead spots?

I'm asking but I'm dreaming up a Tele project and might go for the same sort of thing Don's talking about - a radius from 7.25 (vintage) to 9.5 (modern).

I'm a big fan of the Earvana nut for addressing intonation problems. I'm pretty sure USACG offers a nut slot for the OEM Earvana. That would be cool.

Good luck with your new neck, Don. It sounds like it'll be beautiful.

[Gris]

Fat one piece neck = tone city, esp. w/ larger frets.

Q - How do you play with 'unwound PU?'

(just kidding, i know what you mean)

[Don]

I guess I should say "underwound"?

[jerryjg]

jerry - can you elaborate on "will never set up correctly"?

Intonation problems? Action problems? Dead spots?

I'm asking but I'm dreaming up a Tele project and might go for the same sort of thing Don's talking about - a radius from 7.25 (vintage) to 9.5 (modern).

I'm a big fan of the Earvana nut for addressing intonation problems. I'm pretty sure USACG offers a nut slot for the OEM Earvana. That would be cool.

Good luck with your new neck, Don. It sounds like it'll be beautiful.

Well, all I can offer right now is that several builders ( not just assemblers) , and owners ahve said to stay FAR away from the warmoth Compound radius as it will NOT set up without string buzzzzzzing. I can do a little string buzzing on my Warmoth neck, and it does, and I'm not overly concerned cause I use quite a bit of distortion for that axe anyhow which hides it. But I tried a stab at copying and pasteing on my new linux distro and couldnt do it, but I'll try again later to get you the specifiec thread , or you can go to the Seymour Duncan Guitar Forum and type in Warmoth neck, and go back through all the pages to at least 5 pages and read everything with "WARMOTH" in the thread title casue thats where I found it.By the way everyomne seems to like thhe USACG Compound radius. No denying that in general Warmoth are fantastic necks otherwise, and people for the most part have nothing bad to say about thier regular radiused necks I don't believe.