EVH MIM Neck Compatibility?

[PDC]

Not necessarily a Warmoth question - but I think the most knowledgeable builders on the net are on this forum.  Also, I have 4 top-shelf, pride-n-joy, best-of-the-best Warmoth builds, so I am a Warmoth devotee.  Here's my issue: I recently came into a very cool but admittedly inexpensive EVH Bumblebee Stripe 'copy.'  The paint job is pretty clean with a very nice heavy clear coat over the stripes.  The neck is nice, but too chunky for my taste - seems like it was intended to be sort of a 'Wolfgang' copy.  The headstock has a convincing Charvel Art Series logo - and it clearly isn't. 

The heel is a true Charvel size 1-1/4" width - not the traditional Fender / Warmoth 1-3/16" width.  The heel is also 'square' sort of like a Tele heel.  It looks a lot like the heel of a MIM EVH Stripe Series guitar.  But the Stripe series guitar necks have a 'recess' cut into the heel of the neck for the truss rod wheel where the MIM Charvel guitars have the recess for the truss rod wheel cut into the body.

It looks to me like the heel of the Charvel is flush with the 22nd fret on the fingerboard where the heel of the EVH necks appears to extend noticeably past the 22nd fret on the fingerboard.

Question - does anyone know if MIM EVH necks are 'interchangeable' with MIM Charvel bodies and vice-versa?  Or does the difference in the 'meat' of the heel between these 2 necks effectively alter the scale length once installed???

I gotta find a 1-1/4" heel neck (with a slimmer profile) for this new counterfeit 'mutt' guitar, but I want to be sure that the heel of the neck sits where it belongs in the neck pocket of the body for the guitar to intonate properly. 

Hope this makes sense...

THANK YOU!

 

[musicispeace]

Welcome to the forum. Give things a couple of days past the weekend because its summer and see what responses you get. I am not able to shed light on this question myself but it certainly reminds me of how all these different manufacturer standards drives me nuts!

 

[stratamania]

It looks to me like the heel of the Charvel is flush with the 22nd fret on the fingerboard where the heel of the EVH necks appears to extend noticeably past the 22nd fret on the fingerboard.


This probably answers your own question.

If the scale lengths are the same, which they probably are, the difference in length of heel would mean even if one neck fits into the body of the other it will be in a relatively different position to the bridge. This means it will not intonate.

The easier course of action if the neck is too chunky for you is to either sell the guitar or get to work with some files and sandpaper and reprofile the neck to a shape that you do like.

 

[PDC]

I’ve scoured the net and I think I have a solution - Musikraft offers necks with 2-1/4” Charvel style heels.  It’s not just the extra 1/16” of width, but they also have the Charvel-specific heel shape, which is more square than a Strat heel but not as ‘square’ as a Tele heel.  From a google image search, it looks like the rear most part of the ‘meat’ of the heel is directly in line with the 22nd fret on the fingerboard.  I know I can’t ‘caliper’ an image on the net, but it sure visually matches the shape of the heel and the orientation of the heel in relation to the 22nd fret on my ‘mutt’ neck.  It sure looks to be close enough that any discrepancy is likely within the intonation range of the saddles.  We’ll see.

Now that Charvels as SO prevalent, it would be cool if Warmoth could tool up a Charvel compatible heel as an option - even if it cost extra.

 

[pabloman]

You can pickup an actual Striped Series neck from the Stratosphere. I'm not sure about the profile those come with though. Good luck!

 

[musicispeace]

Ah, I'd forgotten that about Musikraft. Good find.

 

[PDC]

You can pickup an actual Striped Series neck from the Stratosphere. I'm not sure about the profile those come with though. Good luck!

Stratosphere has tons of cool stuff, no doubt. But I think the body and neck pocket of this ‘clone’ guitar that I have ‘looks’ to be a copy of a Charvel body.  Those stripe series MIM necks appear to have a longer ‘heel’ that extends past the 22nd fret on the fingerboard and - I assume - a correspondingly longer neck pocket to compensate.

Of course, I’d need to splurge and buy one to mic it out. In theory, the EVH bodies may have the bridge location adjusted to compensate (?) But that seems like waayy more headache than adjusting the neck pocket.

Strange that MIM Charvel necks and MIM EVH necks have such different heel construction to accommodate the same truss rod wheel.  They must have intended to discourage interchangeability between their products.