New Neck Day! VMS12939 - Quartersawn Goncalo Alves Neck Wood/Bocote Fretboard

[Learning]

Puyallup, Washington to Melbourne, Victoria - frets and all - in 8 days. I'm impressed.

See the attached files for crazy figured goodness.

 

[Rick]

Gorgeous!

 

[Cagey]

I'll bet you're the first kid on the block to have one of those! Beautiful!

 

[rgand]

What a great neck. I love the contrast of dark and light in it.

 

[kingua]

Wow, that is a gorgeous neck!

 

[Learning]

Thanks all. I'm super pleased.

It's funny, I bought it mainly because I loved the look of the neck, thinking "oh well, the fretboard will darken up eventually". Looking at it in person, I'm now thinking the fretboard is my favourite bit.

Now to source some staggered tuners (Hipshots, probably), and figure out if it'll fit the body I have (MiM Deluxe - will need to drill the offset hole for the recessed heel).

After that, it's finding out if the staggered pole noiseless single PUs in my HSS set will play nice with the new setup, or if I have to swap them out. Giving serious consideration to the Rio Grande Dual Calibrated Cuatro loaded pickguard... eventually.

 

[musicispeace]

A thousand congrats to you, that is a prime neck. Whenever I look at unique choice Bocote fretboards on the Warmoth site I get weak in the knees. Enjoy that on your guitar. One of the best things to happen to Melbourne in a while is you getting that neck.

 

[Tomatonator]

Very nice - I considered a bocote board with mine but went with goncalo/ziricote - also to Melbourne I also hand crafted some bocote and ziricote control knobs but not sure which ones I will use yet:
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=28935.0

 

[Learning]

@Tomatonator

Things in common;

• Melbourne
• Goncalo Alves
• Mockups in Gimp
• needing to drill an offset neck hole for a recessed heel

That's just spooky.

I actually wanted a figured ziricote fretboard almost as much as I wanted the goncalo neck wood. Almost.

 

[Learning]

Finally got this fitted.

Rather than messing with it myself, I took it to someone with a good reputation (Paul Dalby at Music Swop Shop, for those in Melbourne), and it looks/sounds like he's delivered the goods. The fret buzz, intonation, and overtone issues are gone.

Interestingly, he's shimmed the neck slightly to lower the neck angle. As soon as I saw this I remembered the setup with the old neck had half the the saddles wound all the way up. I don't know anything about anything, but maybe this means that the problem this whole time was the body's neck pocket?

Whatever the case, this was the first tech to get the bottom of things and make it sound like a guitar. I am, as we say down here, stoked.

 

[rgand]

Very cool to get it working right. Now you can enjoy it.

 

[bagman67]

 

[Tomatonator]

Another thing in common - similar colour burst Slow going on mine but should finish it this year - another coat of tru oil today.

 

[BigSteve22]

Neck and body look great together! Nice match up...  :headbang:

 

[doubledrive]

Beautiful... I was struggling with the choice between Goncalo Alves and Birdseye Maple... I'm almost wishing I went with GC... 

Next time...  :laughing7:

 

[Learning]

Beautiful... I was struggling with the choice between Goncalo Alves and Birdseye Maple... I'm almost wishing I went with GC... 

Next time...  :laughing7:

It darkens up pretty quickly, fwiw, so if you were looking to keep the yellowish streaks I wouldn't be too sad about choosing maple. The GC tends toward dark brown and red now.

 

[Cagey]

Yup. I have one here now that's not only dark brown, it's heavy. This one clocks in at 1.95lbs. Doesn't really even look much like GC.

 

[Learning]

Yup. I have one here now that's not only dark brown, it's heavy. This one clocks in at 1.95lbs. Doesn't really even look much like GC.

It's certainly not light. I don't know about yours, Cagey, but compared to the maple neck it replaced this GC one holds tune a LOT better.