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Fat vs Thin

musicispeace

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I don't have the greatest camera at the moment and have stuff to deal with but I finally got around to something I had wanted to post....neck thickness between standard thin in comparison to a fatback (a boatneck should be similar but will have less shoulder) So hopefully this illustrates things a bit for folks.
 

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Thanks for the photos. Wanting to find a thicker neck is how I found Warmoth in the first place.  I bought a Fender Clapton to get the v neck and found it too small so I found the Warmoth boatneck which feels great to me. Looks just like the fatback from the side but does have a distinctive  heavy V shape and narrower shoulders.
 
I agree. I'm so used to the standard thin that even the '59 feels like the big end of a baseball bat to me.
 
The shoulder area is uber-critical. I can feel comfortable on a much thicker neck if the shoulder areas are unobtrusive. But if the neck is all fatty-mc-fat-fat in the shoulders, I can't get comfortable, no matter how thin the neck is.


Shoulders are to necks what cankles are to legs.
 
TonyFlyingSquirrel said:
The jump from Thin to Fat is not for the faint of heart.
Some may need to transition slowly, ala the 59 on the way to Fat.


Or my personal favorite, the Wolfgang. Best profile we offer, IMO.
 
I like a beefy neck but the lack of taper on my fatback feels odd. 1.0 to 0.9 might be nice.
 
double A said:
TonyFlyingSquirrel said:
The jump from Thin to Fat is not for the faint of heart.
Some may need to transition slowly, ala the 59 on the way to Fat.


Or my personal favorite, the Wolfgang. Best profile we offer, IMO.

I think that the Wolfgang is even better in the wider 1 11/16" nut spacing than the 1 5/8".
 
I get cramps in my hand when using a thin neck. Maybe I'm doing something wrong but with the Boatneck my hand never has a problem. But I am thinking of getting a neck in either roasted Maple or Brazilian ebony with a Boatneck and then sanding the edges of the fretboard a little. But I would like to hear how people feel about roasted maple or Brazilian ebony and the feel of the neck.
 
They both feel like sex on a stick and you can't go wrong either way, although the Brazilian Ebony can be surprisingly heavy.
 
Well, it's not as heavy as Gabon or Macassar Ebony would be, but it does surprise you when you pull it out of the box the first time. Depending on the body/hardware/pickups you're using, it may or may not be an issue. For instance, a Tele usually doesn't have a vibrato bridge, and usually only has 2 single coil pickups, so given the right body wood you might not really notice the neck weight. With a typical VIP or Strat, it's a bit more obvious. I know I had my Ebony over Bloodwood neck on a Korina VIP body, and that thing was brutally heavy. But, that's just me, too. I can't tolerate a Les Paul's weight. If something in the 8-9lb range doesn't bother you, you're good to go.
 
No I'm going in the lighter direction. I have been stalking 3 - 3 1/2 lb bodies and want to put a nice neck on it so I can use it as a handy super light guitar always out and ready to pick up and play to maximize practice time during the day. I like the feel of the Warmoth satin nitro finish maple necks but I have read so much on how good a roasted maple raw neck feels that I am considering one even though I don't like the color of the roasted wood. I would put some ss frets on it and hopefully end up with a super light guitar with a very sexy feeling neck that I will want to never put down during the day. At least that is my hope.
 
I think you can get there fairly easily, and the roasted Maple can be a good part of doing that. You can have the brightness and feel of the Ebony without the weight or cost.
 
WindsurfMaui said:
Thanks. Disappointing that the Brazilian ebony is so heavy.

A year or two ago at some point I had the chance to heft a Maccasar Ebony neck in person at USACG when I stopped by and it was definitely heavier than plain maple but I did not find it to be like whoa!I wonder what Cagey says on that in relation to a 3.5 pound body like you are talking about. I think on a 4.5 pound strat body it should achieve equilibrium. The one I held was a very custom job for some one.

To conclude I did want to add that the boatneck profile is actually my favorite. Chunky but with some of the shoulder shaved down very comfortable.
 
Not sure what you're asking, but when it comes to weight by species, some woods have a pretty wide range while others are more predictable. For example, if we pretend a Strat body takes a cubic foot of wood to make (it doesn't, but for comparison's sake...), then an Alder body could weigh anywhere between 26 and 42 pounds, which is quite a wide range, while a red Oak body would be very predictably 45 pounds. Same applies to necks, of course, albeit with different species. (density chart)

Heavy necks aren't necessarily a Bad Thing. For one, necks are generally a much smaller fraction of the whole, so even with a lotta fluctuation, the overall percentage is still smaller overall. Second, body style has a lot to do with the "comfort" or "playability" effect. With a Strat body, the forward strap hanger is so far forward of the center of gravity that even if the neck weighed as much as the body, it probably still wouldn't neck dive. Other styles, like an "SG", have their forward hangers placed too close to the COG, so the neck has an outsized influence due to leverage. Even with an unusually light neck, that design is on the hairy edge of imbalance right away.

Most guitars are designed to hang nice and are dramatically rearward-biased weight-wise, so the reason I usually mention neck weight has more to do with overall weight than any imbalance issue. Hanging a 6 or 7 pound guitar off your shoulder vs. one at 8 or 9 pounds doesn't sound like much, but it's surprising how quickly a pound or two will make you wish you'd taken up keyboards whose weight is borne by the floor instead of your shoulder.
 
I've found guitars that are over 9lbs to be too heavy, and below 5Lbs as too light, with 7lbs 8oz as being perfect (for me).  I heard somewhere that an average human baby is 7Lbs 8 oz, so it was an interesting coincidence.
 
My Fender American Standard Strats weight about 7.2 pounds and that feels too heavy to me. My goal is to find a nice 3 1/2 pound body then throw on the pickguard w/pickups and pots, which I assume weight about 1 1/2 pounds and then a neck with locking tuners which must weight about 1 1/2 pounds (double truss rod) which adds up to 6 1/2 pounds. If I want to go lighter than that I would have to switch to a Soloist rear route body.
 
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