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Advice on DIY contoured heel!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Cederick
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Cederick

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I'm planning to upgrade my favorite Warmoth with a new 24 fret neck, and therefor I wanna do a contoured heel on it. I practiced on the squier body I beat up yesterday, and in my opinion, it didn't turn out bad at all!

So, I have some questions to make sure this upgrade turns out perfectly:

1. Since one of the boltes will be so low, should I make a new hole closer to the body and install screws bushings?
2. Or will three screws be good enough? (kinda like the recent Jackson Dinkys)

12509483_514295665415198_3654894772068735651_n.jpg
 
Cederick said:
I'm planning to upgrade my favorite Warmoth with a new 24 fret neck, and therefor I wanna do a contoured heel on it. I practiced on the squier body I beat up yesterday, and in my opinion, it didn't turn out bad at all!

So, I have some questions to make sure this upgrade turns out perfectly:

1. Since one of the boltes will be so low, should I make a new hole closer to the body and install screws bushings?
2. Or will three screws be good enough? (kinda like the recent Jackson Dinkys)

https://scontent-arn2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtl1/v/t1.0-9/12509483_514295665415198_3654894772068735651_n.jpg?
oh=3b930fbe7eab9a071221f5f12f0800c0&oe=570582E7

Leave the holes where they are.  Use shorter screws.  You will need two.  they are cheap. 
I actually just ground my existing ones down and put a point on them.  Make sure measure.  I usually run the screws to just a few mm under the fret board.
 
If the neck you get is compatible with it (i.e. the truss rod doesn't clash), I highly recommend using the Fender method of rounding the heel instead, or, better yet, the ESP method.

This is the Fender method. It is flat like a normal heel, and simply moves one bolt so the corner can be rounded off. You don't need shorter bolts, and everything sits flush.
Kq4hSeH.jpg


This is the ESP method. It's the Warmoth and Fender designs combined, so one screw is moved backwards to cut a corner off and the whole heel slopes toward the neck. This provides the very best access, but it's a harder join to make, you do need bolts of different lengths, and it's hard to get the bolts to sit flush with the neck plate.
EEEMKmw.jpg


The Fender one is done by simply filling in the existing holes in the neck heel and neck pocket, cutting one corner down, and drilling a new hole. There's no funny angles to mess with. You just need to be sure you won't hit the truss rod, which can be an issue with certain Warmoth necks. (And is one of many reasons why Warmoth need to stop using the damn silly side-adjustment.)
The ESP is, as you can imagine, a case of sloping the heel first, and then repeating the Fender method to cut off one corner and move a bolt backward. Again, your neck needs to be compatible, i.e. not using a truss rod side-adjust system.

If your new neck is compatible with either of those methods, go for those. Cutting off the lower corner improves fret access far, far better than simply sloping the heel, Warmoth-style. Making a Fender-style contour is also much easier and quicker than making a Warmoth-style slope.

And, though I wouldn't really recommend it, three bolts is usually enough. Fender use a 3-bolt join on many guitars. So you could easily simply ignore the bolt on the lowest corner, and round the heel any way you like, as long as the other three bolts are left more or less where they are; reducing to three bolts and moving them closer together wouldn't be such a great idea. Use bushings instead of a plate and you should be good to go.
 
Ace Flibble said:
If the neck you get is compatible with it (i.e. the truss rod doesn't clash), I highly recommend using the Fender method of rounding the heel instead, or, better yet, the ESP method.
Picture of why the two don't jive:
fender_cont_heel.jpg
 
That'll be the one. I have made it work, once, by cutting down bolt to a very short length, but by that point it was hardly going into the neck at all, and was really there just to 'make up the numbers', rather than as a point of structure; the other three, full-length bolts held the neck in just fine.
 
I am vary interested in doing this myself. I ask WM if they could do one on a Jagstang body, but they said no. Its not in the CNC programing for that body style. I ask if they could just go a little crazy with the sander, and add it in there... they said no. So...

Anyone know how much WM takes off? Say put a micrometer at all four bolt holes for a consistent shaving?
 
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