Off With His Neck

It's been a while, and in my last blog post 9 months ago I wrote "...the only possible upgrade I can see in the future is maybe to replace the neck with a Warmoth compound radius model, but it would cost so much I don't think it would be worthwhile...".

With that in mind, say hello to Frank's new neck, from Warmoth. It has all the features I was after and remedies everything that I didn't quite get on with in the original 'vintage' neck.

The new neck features: 6150 stainless steel frets, a compound 10-16" radius, standard thin profile, vintage tint satin finish, 22 frets, new graphtech nut and some excellent flaming and birdseye maple. It cost £200 from Warmoth, then another £50 for import duty and tax, so £250 in all (which is much cheaper than the quotes I got from several UK builders). That pushes the total cost of Frank up to £876. Still, not bad given the quality of the guitar, and in my opinion infinitely better than a standard Fender USA Strat which would cost similar...

I didn't fit the neck myself, but I made a small truss rod tweak a couple of days after fitting and everything seems to be settled in place. I've played a few gigs already with the new neck and it's perfect. It has everything I was wanting, and has really elevated the overall feel of the guitar. I also think the lack of any logo on the headstock adds a certain mystique to the guitar ;-)

I'll admit now that I'm considering replacing the body with a Warmoth hollowbody model later in the year, so maybe the next post will be for that - after all, the body is now the only original part remaining from the guitar I bought off ebay 11 months ago!