This page is under construction...please check back soon! Here's
what I've got done so far on this page...
This is a raw, unfinished neck I bought from Warmoth. It's what they call
a short-scale conversion neck, which means they relocated the nut and shortened
the overall length of the neck to make a 24 3/4 Gibson Les Paul scale neck
to fit a Fender Stratocaster. I liked this concept, since my main guitar
is a Les Paul, and I wanted to be able to switch back and forth between
my Paul and the strat without a lot of awkwardness. The biggest thing I
was looking for was a flatter fretboard radius. The old neck is a 9 1/2"
radius, which tends to buzz and fret out when doing a lot of bending. This
is a 12" radius, same as my Paul, and it's much more comfortabe to me.
And guess what-- it works awesome! No problems with tuning, intonation
is dead-on perfect, and I think you get better tone from the shorter scale.
I know for me it's a whole lot easier to play than the longer 25 1/2 Fender
scale.
Again, I finished this neck in 100% top-quality nitrocellulose lacquer.
It's got about 12 coats of clear nitro, all hand-sanded, hand-rubbed and
hand-polished. In order to get that vintage amber color, after all the
preliminary sanding and sealing work, I dyed the neck with an amber-colored
aniline dye to darken up the color of the wood, then I sandwiched 5 coats
of the dye in between the first 6 clear coats. This lets the dye "melt"
into the laquer, for the same effect as a tinted coat. I've got quite a
few compliments on this neck, and it really looks fabulous. I also applied
an aftermarket decal to the headstock, which I applied before the last
4 coats of clear over it to keep it intact. You gotta look really really
close to notice that it's not an authentic factory neck. The big giveaway
is that it's squared off at the heel end, as opposed to the rounded corners
on a true Fender neck. But like I said, it plays awesome, looks killer,
and I like it! Sorry about these pictures, they came out really crappy,
but the neck looks awesome! When I get some better pics I'll post them.
