Importance of guitar balance.

[casper]

My last Warmoth project was a alder strat body with floyd.  The neck was standard thin quartersawn maple with ebony board and 6105 SS frets.  The neck weighed a ton despite being standard thin.

Now the guitar has incredible tone, string definition, and cuts through in a band situation better than any other guitar I own, but over the last few years of playing it I've come to wish I had planned the weight balance better.
The neck tends to dip because it is so heavy and I spend extra effort holding it up.  I extended the strap screw a bit and that helped, but still an issue.
I suspect the ebony board is adding weight.  I'm glad I did not opt for a heavier neck wood! 

Next time, I'll probably use pau ferro vs ebony and maybe try the soundlock tuners by Sperzel  (5 oz vs the normal 8-9).  Then maybe, I'll just lightly finish it with tru-oil.

Anyone have any other tricks to planning a good balanced guitar?

 

[line6man]

I thought that Pau Ferro was heavier than Ebony?
Or am I wrong?

 

[Mor Paul]

I'm pretty sure ebony is heavier.

 

[GoDrex]

I fear a guitar being neck heavy more than anything that can go wrong when putting parts together. A neck heavy guitar makes me want to quit playing.

I'm surprised that a strat would be that way. The body must be really light. Normally the top horn is far enough forward to balance it out.

 

[tfarny]

Never heard of a neck heavy strat. I would definitely try to save 4 oz. on the tuners; a few oz way out there contributes a lot to the balance. If it's a tremolo, how about one of the heavy steel sustain blocks instead of what you're using now? Or adding some steel mass around the bridge area somewheres.
If you love the guitar otherwise, I would mod it instead of buying a new one just because of neck heaviness.

 

[GearBoxTy]

hmm...am I missing something? Warmoth doesn't seem to list neck weight.

 

[blue313]

Nope, and they apparently don't plan to any time soon.  Lighter tuners are a decent option. 

I tend to agree with these guys though.  It's tough to make a Strat neck heavy.  How your upper strap button placement?