Laminate necks for guitars

AToE

Junior Member
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I'm just planning my first Warmoth guitar, and I noticed that they can do laminates for bass necks, but it is not listed as an option for guitar necks. Any chance they can be "talked" (with money I assume!) into doing a five piece laminate?

On a similar topic, could they be talked into putting a thin "accent" laminate between the core wood and the top? Also, I can't find any info on the Warmoth site as to how thick the top is on a chambered strat, it doesn't seem right that it would be just a thin "drop top", eighth inch or something similar, I would expect it to be thicker?


Sorry for all the questions, maybe I should just email their salesstaff before I go bugging all you customers! What I'm planning should be pretty cool even without those options, but they would really help elevate it to something even greater.



 
AToE said:
I'm just planning my first Warmoth guitar, and I noticed that they can do laminates for bass necks, but it is not listed as an option for guitar necks. Any chance they can be "talked" (with money I assume!) into doing a five piece laminate?

On a similar topic, could they be talked into putting a thin "accent" laminate between the core wood and the top? Also, I can't find any info on the Warmoth site as to how thick the top is on a chambered strat, it doesn't seem right that it would be just a thin "drop top", eighth inch or something similar, I would expect it to be thicker?

Hey AToE, welcome.

Money is pretty persuasive, but I have never heard of a Warmoth laminate guitar neck.


They do the accent line but not on chambered bodies.  Not sure where that info is on the new site.  They have black and white... I think they're made of maple.

The top on chambered strats is still 1/8"
 
Thank, that pretty much answers all those questions then, I had my doubts but figured it was worth checking.

 
Better stability and sustain, plus the ability to "mold" the tone (say, ebony lamintates to brighten a wenge neck etc). Also, a five peice neck with the 3 main wood laminates thicker than the 2 "accent" wood laminates just looks amazing.

Stability is the main thing though, sustain and tonal benifits like "punch" (what a scientific term that is...) come as fringe benifits.
 
If so, why doesn't Warmoth produce laminated necks? Warmoth uses two steel stiffening bars, plus a double-expanding truss rod. Don't you think this provides the same amount of sustain and stability?

I think both techniques are ok. Having said this, I do wonder why the Gecko necks are laminated. Is it better?
 
Just knowing they offer it on the Gecko Bass necks and not guitars is awesome.  It seems all the custom neck options regarding inlay and binding are guitar specific. 
 
FinLux said:
If so, why doesn't Warmoth produce laminated necks? Warmoth uses two steel stiffening bars, plus a double-expanding truss rod. Don't you think this provides the same amount of sustain and stability?

I think both techniques are ok. Having said this, I do wonder why the Gecko necks are laminated. Is it better?

They're just different ways of going about it, I imagine both have their particular advantages and drawbacks. They probably don't do laminates for two reasons: cost vs demand. They're there to make money, and if an option isn't going to make enough money to warrant it's existence then they obviously wouldn't have it on the top of their list. The stiffening rods are only available in the bass necks though, not the standard 6-string electrics, and the double expanding truss does absolutely zero to help prevent twist. There are a lot of companies (mostly bass guitar manufacturers) that almost never build a neck out of a single piece of wood, they always laminate, even if all 3 or more laminates are the same type of wood. It adds stability.

As for why they do have the laminate option for the Geckos - I don't know why just that one bass neck has the option, but bass players are traditionally the people who are more often after laminate necks. I would imagine bass necks must just be more prone to twisting.

There's no reason to think that it would be a good option for a neck that says Gecko on it vs one that doesn't though, the fact that they only offer it for the one style of bass neck would much more likely have to do with the business side of things than that a p-bass neck doesn't sound good
 
A Gecko neck costs about the same as the other necks made out of the same woods.

A 4-string Gecko?  :headbang:
 
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