Suggestion of a good neck for a lightweight basswood strat body

[PatrikKl]

Hello. I have a lightweight (3lbs 12oz) basswood Warmoth-strat body which I need a new neck for, since the neck I have now is too skinny for me (Musikraft 59lp shape, maple/rosewood, .87-97"). I think I'm gonna look for a neck with a fat U-profile at maybe .90-98".
My guitar is now pretty dark sounding.
I was wondering if maybe a quartersawn maple neck with a rw fretboard is a better choice for the basswood body, since it's heavier and brighter sounding than a regular maple neck. What do you guys think?

 

[stratamania]

Perhaps roasted maple and ebony may be an idea.  With stainless steel frets.

Quarter sawn is also available roasted.

 

[swarfrat]

Roast maple is gorgeous to behold,  and at $40 it's the cheapest  no finish required neck option.  I just picked up a lovely roast maple baritone fatback with ebony board. I'm in love, but waiting on electronics to really get to hear the thing. 

 

[PatrikKl]

It seems like Quartersawn Maple is the way to go.
I don't really like the look of roasted Maple, although it seems like a very practical choice, since it resists moisture better and so forth... Is it actually brighter sounding than regular maple?
I also don't really want to switch for stainless steel frets, since a lot of tone conscious people have told me that I should avoid it, since it doesn't sound as good as nickle apparently.

 

[swarfrat]

Screw the tone conscious people. Seriously, it's YOUR guitar. Not theirs. Not that tone doesn't matter, but some other yahoo's idea of it doesn't matter to YOU.  The only way you can impress the folks at TDPRI if that's your goal is to spend more money than they did. (Wow, you must be a serious player to drop that kinda coin)

Most folks around here think that stainless makes either no difference or a barely perceptible difference in brightness. Since it's difficult to do an A/B comparison, I'm inclined to go with "no difference". Fret crowning probably makes more difference than the actual material., but again - it's not something that you can easily A/B, and more importantly, you are changing your fret profile when you change frets.  Roast.. I'm not done with my electroncs yet on my first roast neck. It feels and sounds acoustically like I would expect a full thickness maple neck to sound and feel. Others say no difference or maybe slightly more resonant. I wouldn't expect it to change the overall character of maple though. Less damped I could see as the wood has been dried out and caramelized.

 

[stratamania]

Roasted maple or any roasted wood theoretically is closer to old wood as the structure has become more stable due to the torrefacation process.

The thing about tone and stainless steel is a nonsense. It takes more time to work on it but the results are worth it. It's a bit like the nonsense that wood can breathe through nitro.

There's nothing wrong with going for nitro or nickel, but it's not a reason to dismiss stainless steel or poly which will last longer and done right is very playable which is what really produces tone, the fingers.

I have an 80s Hamer owned since new, re fret with stainless steel no tone difference and no more worn frets.

I normally don't get into tone debates but feel some myths need debunking.

Many of the worlds top builders use roasted woods and stainless steel. No one complains about those guitars.

 

[marianoarnaiz]

Just to throw something different into de pit, what about a Pauferro neck!

 

[fdesalvo]

1 pc maple.

 

[Cagey]

I was wondering if maybe a quartersawn maple neck with a rw fretboard is a better choice for the basswood body, since it's heavier and brighter sounding than a regular maple neck. What do you guys think?

I wouldn't spend the money for a quartersawn Maple neck unless there's some aspect of its appearance that appeals to you. Flatsawn or riftsawn Maple will sound the same. The advantage of a quartersawn neck is a lower incidence of physical distortion (warping/twisting), which happens very rarely on properly dried/finished Maple necks anyway, particularly on Warmoth "Pro" series parts. The "Pro" series necks are so stable, it's pretty much a "set it and forget it" setup no matter where you live.

The disadvantage of Maple necks is that even if they're quartersawn, they still generally require a hard finish, unless you're the gambling type. That not only costs money, it doesn't feel that great, relatively speaking. On the other hand, a properly burnished raw Maple neck feels like the finest silk you can imagine and there's no finish to discolor, change texture, crack, chip, etc.

There are two ways to get away from that. One, is to use Canary. Sounds very much the same, burnishes up like magic, and is very stable even without a finish. The other is to use "roasted" Maple, which is the same way but is a substantially lighter weight. Also doesn't need a finish, and burnishes up even better. Stuff is so slick afterward that you'd swear it's been treated with Teflon or something.

Add some stainless frets to that, and you've got a neck like you've never played before. Don't pay any attention to those who say stainless frets sound different. Chances are real good they've never played them and are just repeating misguided opinions they've heard from others who've never played them. Stainless frets don't change tone and are the whip!. They should be standard on all necks. The only downside to them is there are still a LOT of luthiers/techs out there that will charge anywhere from 50% to 100% more to set up a stainless fretted neck because their tools wear too quickly and there's some extra time involved. Fortunately, there are those of us who know better and buy good tools. Once you've had a neck with stainless frets, you'll never go back. They're super-slick and last forever.

 

[Jesse]

I know this is kind of a dead topic, but I wanted to give my $0.02 on quartersawn maple necks anyway.

I wouldn't do one with NO finish but I'd also say that they definitely don't require a hard finish.  Ibanez Jems were made with a hand-applied tung oil finish on the necks for the first 15 years of production.  It's possible to get that finish dead smooth with a velvet-like feel as long as you follow the proper finishing steps.  It is definitely not a forever finish, but with periodic maintenance, I would have zero concerns about the neck.

The pink guitar is from 1988 and the floral is one of my main players, a '99.  Tung oil finishes on both of those necks.  These are also both basswood guitars BTW.

 

[fdesalvo]

LOVE the monkey grips!