Fender Elite or Deluxe style neck heel

[rauchman]

Some of the newer, more ergonomic neck heels are much better feeling/playing than the standard Fender 4x4 screw rectangle block.  I bought a Tele body recently and cut/carved the neck heel to the Fender Elite style.  Much much more comfortable.

I figure if using the Fender Elite, or at least the Deluxe, style neck heel would keep to Fender standards, but allow for something more modern than the current almost 70 year old design.  Neck heel plates already exist for this pattern.  Of the non standard Fender heels I've tried, I like what Ibanez does, but understand keeping to a Fender setup would allow more flexibility.

Personally, not having this option prevents me from buying a pre finished body since I'd want to cut that heel.

 

[rgand]

The Elite heel looks nice, too. That's a two-way benefit.

It would probably require some major re-tooling for Warmoth, though. They could most likely get by with a standard neck but the neck hole pattern would need to be done differently. The heel shape would need to be re-done for every body style.  That said, I hope they can come up with an easy way to do that.

 

[aarontunes]

It would probably require some major re-tooling for Warmoth, though. They could most likely get by with a standard neck but the neck hole pattern would need to be done differently. The heel shape would need to be re-done for every body style.  That said, I hope they can come up with an easy way to do that.

That's the fly in the ointment. If you rearrange the neck hole pattern as would be needed for the sculpted heel, the Modern Construction necks will no longer fit, because the Side Adjust Mechanism is in the way. Yikes...that's a big problem.

 

[rgand]

It would probably require some major re-tooling for Warmoth, though. They could most likely get by with a standard neck but the neck hole pattern would need to be done differently. The heel shape would need to be re-done for every body style.  That said, I hope they can come up with an easy way to do that.

That's the fly in the ointment. If you rearrange the neck hole pattern as would be needed for the sculpted heel, the Modern Construction necks will no longer fit, because the Side Adjust Mechanism is in the way. Yikes...that's a big problem.

Yeah, I thought about that after I posted. Is there enough room to make a heel partly rounded off but not far enough to get a screw in the mechanism? That would require a special neck plate, though, then it's not standard and would have all the headaches that go with non-standard stuff.