Straturday Upgrade: A New Neck For An Amazing Guitar.

I have to say, I'm really proud of the first guitar I ever put together.  But to be honest, a lot of other people did a lot of the work.  That's why I say I "put it together" and not, "built it."  I went all out on it.  It had an insane paint job.  I've had a few different pickups in it, but they have always been top notch.  All the parts from the locking tuners to the real Schaller made Floyd Rose, even the knobs were all top notch.  Back when I put it together (around the year 2000) my total cost (including case) was $1,080.00.

So I'm sure you're wondering, "Well, why the ever-loving hell would I upgrade it some more?"  The truth is I've never really been happy with the neck.  There's a few reasons why.

1.  The nut width for my Floyd Rose locking nut is 43mm.  The nut width on this neck is 42mm.  So the locking nut hangs over the side of the neck.

2.  The neck shape is closer to a Les Paul 59' shape instead of a Fender Strat shape.  It was like holding the end of a baseball bat.  Honestly, that bothered me more than anything.  It made it very difficult to play compared to my other guitars.

3.  The old neck was only 21 frets.  This new one I ordered is 22 frets like an American Strat.

4.  The new neck is a satin finish.  The old was had so much high gloss on it, it gave the neck a sort of sticky finish.

5.  When I first bought the neck I was apprenticing under a master luthier.  I fret-dressed the frets a little too much so there wasn't much fret-life left.  Eventually I was going to have to re-fret the neck.

The one drawback I did have against changing necks was the matching headstock.  I really dig the matching headstock on the old neck.  But now that I have new logos I felt okay on pulling the trigger to change necks.

So first things first.  I put the logo on, and gave it time to dry.  Next, I fret-dressed the neck.  All the frets were pretty even except for one.  I know, just one dang fret screws it all up right?  Now that I have almost 20 years of luthiery experience I am much better at fret-dressing.  This time I kept it extremely light, and only took off what I had to.  (Like I do with all guitars nowadays.)

The one thing that did concern me was that the frets were cut really easily with my fretting file.  That meant they used softer metal than a lot of companies.  If I played one guitar all the time I would have just gone ahead and re-fretted it right there.  But since I'm always switching up guitars, it will be years before I have to fret-dress it again, and years after that before I have to re-fret it.

So here's the neck post-fret-dress:

Next, I moved over all the neck hardware.

After that it was time to install the neck.  I have my own method of putting one on so that it lines up properly.  It's a bit technical so I won't bore anyone with the details.  Let's just say, it went on perfectly.  Namely, because it went on exactly 100% perfectly.  I have to say, I'm really happy with myself.

Next it was all a matter of setting it up properly.  We'll skip the details and head straight to the pics.

I am ecstatic with how it turned out.  She plays so much better now.  Hopefully I will take her out of her case a little bit more.  Due to the amount of money I spent assembling her I was always hesitant to take her out to play a gig.  It's a guitar player's dilemma.  Once you finally manage to buy nice equipment, you are scared to take such nice equipment out for fear that it will be stolen.

There was one difference on the new neck that helped with one thing, but hurt another.  The previous neck was much thicker at the heal.  That meant I had to put the pickups up high so they would be positioned correctly.  It was difficult for my middle (Strat) pickup to reach the correct height.

The new neck is thinner, so I can adjust the pickups easier.  The thinner neck did create a problem I did not anticipate.  Since the neck sat lower, I had to lower the posts for the Floyd Rose tremolo.  After tuning up I pulled back on the Floyd only to find that it didn't have the clearance it had before.  So in essence, I gained the ability to adjust the pickups correctly, but I gave up being able to pull back on the Floyd Rose tremolo as much as I previously could.

Overall I am really happy that I changed out the neck.  I wish I had set it up like this years ago.  I have to remember that there are so many items available on the internet now that weren't available back when I put this guitar together.  So I can't be too hard on myself.  All I can do is play my heart out.  And I plan on doing just that.  Keep rockin' on everyone.