any ideas/sources for an inexpensive parts neck with a shallow D profile? to buy or to mod?

vale

could anyone here, with experience of project part necks, recommend an affordable basic maple neck with a shallow D profile (pref same depth all the way up the neck) & a radius of 12-ish? or even just a shallow C neck with any not-too-curved profile?
i prefer 3-a-side tuners to 6-one-side, but that not a deal breaker.

basic ones on ebay say medium C or give no info, apart from photos. but not just ebay as even all-parts doesn't seem to do shallow D or shallow C. fashion seems to be standard to fat-chunky.
i know fancy places like warmoth do bespoke things, but as this is for a first project (which may or not work out) I am wary of throwing scarce funds at a posh neck for an experiment.

my favourite necks ever were on:
a bottom-end 1980s single-pup ricky solid-body (so skinny it weighed less than a heavy handbag),
a 1980s tokai lennon-type ricky solid-body copy (short-scale but fab neck),
a 1970s shergold (poss masquerader in vommy burgundy laquer) but a perfect neck for me.

all shallow D with same neck depth virtually all the way up the neck & a 12ish fretboard radius.

alternatively (modding mode) I often used to think about shaving my jagmaster neck down from a regular C to shallow C/D, but resisted because I worried the truss rod might pop out like the penis monster in alien.

are there any shaven ravers out there (woop!) who rate the sport?

thankq kindly to anyone with any ideas, advice or links on the theme.

WezV

I don't think anyone makes after market necks like a Ricky or Shergold profile. 

I have recarved a lot of necks, but wouldn't try to get a skinny D profile out of most other profiles.  It's not wise too go to skinny of recarves, better not to remove any depth at all.  V shapes work great on recarves for this reason.

vale

@WezV thank you for the advice about recarving, WezV. i had a feeling it is dodgy territory but good to hear it from someone who knows.

it is a bugger that all the parts places (except pro-bespoke) seem to go for C (& chunky C), V (& variations) but D not at all. i've always felt it to be the nicest if you have not huge hands.

i think i-will have to do some do some research on which mass-produced not mad-money guitars have had shallow D's & get some ebay saved searches down for cast off necks.

WezV

Shergolds can often be had fairly cheap.

The necks are amazing.  I don't normally go that skinny but I love mine anyway.  I would describe as flat C rather than skinny D, but that is splitting hairs.  

Most of these terms describe fender or Gibson necks, which is what most people are familiar with and most people ask for.

i do have the shergold dimensions and a rough profile drawing around here somewhere....

vale

@WezV i will give the shergold a go but i had them down as too obscure to come up & ricky as too pricey. but who knows?

strange you should say you find the shergolds flat C. maybe they are, you are probably a better judge with more experience. i only tried one for a while, never owned one. but super shallow at the 12th fret. the neck gets wider but shallower as it goes up, so it always feels the same size. unusual but sooo easy to play. i would be curious to know how it measured.

on the shallow D or C, i tried to find dimensions for the ricky neck i mentioned & ricky forum commenters seem to consider the 1980s fat neck ricky years. so that has thrown me. but i spose with rickys all things relative. fatter than superthin is still not chunky.
& doesn't help that i can't remember the model. red, 1 pick up, 1 " thick body. toyish. may even have been a copy.

cool that you have a shergold. freaky guitars. you could put it in your garden to scare the crows off your tomatoes?

sweepy

I have an old Gear4Music bolt on LP neck you could have for £20, if you want something to hack about 

paulnb57

 I have Strat style neck somewhere which is a really nice not too chunky D profile, I'm pretty sure it was from an Elevation brand guitar.........

vale

@sweepy @paulnb57
thank you kindly for the offer sweepy & paul.
i am still working out body ideas atm so not ready yet. but will try to find some detailed dimensions for one of the necks i know i like & put a shout out in the classifieds for something as close as can be got. we shall see.

sweepy

No problem, us Magpies usually have something hiding in cupboards etc

WezV

That's the quick sketch i did when i first got the guitar.   You would swear there was very little taper on the thickness when playing it, but its there.

vale

@WezV neat work WezV. so a 3.4mm increase on the thicktitude meter. thankq for that.

actually your cross-sections gave me an idea. if i get the closest neck i can find according to your measurements maybe i can tweak the profile with neck profile templates (u-shaped wood block filled with sandpaper) according to your profiles.

& saw this in a diy shop
http://thumbs1.picclick.com/d/l400/pict/112160895980_/Large-CONTOUR-PROFILE-GAUGE-GUAGE-LAMINATE-TILING.jpg
which might be a useful tool for checking i'm symentrical as i go along..

your shergold is groovy & very well-preserved. check the hardcore tombstone slab body. looks good next that old selmer to keep the german gothic script theme going.

smart thinking with blacky. attach all your spare knobs to one guitar so you don't lose any.

mart

vale said:

...
smart thinking with blacky. attach all your spare knobs to one guitar so you don't lose any.

Lol!

WezV

Don't take those drawings as more than a guide. For a start the paper is creased.


it replicating a neck I normally take similar drawings at 1st, 5th and 12th.


i wouldn't recarve any neck as thin as 20.4mm without knowing precisely how deep the truss rod was

vale

WezV said:

Don't take those drawings as more than a guide. For a start the paper is creased.


it replicating a neck I normally take similar drawings at 1st, 5th and 12th.


i wouldn't recarve any neck as thin as 20.4mm without knowing precisely how deep the truss rod was

@WezV point taken on the drawing. thanks for the heads up.

& about the truss rod too. i won't embarrass myself by admitting i forgot about that for a moment. although i might have.

vale

WezV said:

i wouldn't recarve any neck as thin as 20.4mm without knowing precisely how deep the truss rod was

how do you think ricky & shergold manage to make their necks so thin without then bending to hell?
& rickys have two truss rods as far as i'm aware, which would seem to make keeping it thin even more difficult. it's just like magic.

WezV

Truss rods vary in depth by quite a lot...

curved single action rods work best when they are closer to the back of the neck at the midpoint of the curve.  That's most traditional fender and Gibson necks.

modern two way rods take up more depth but there is no curve in the channel.  

That covers 99% of guitar necks


Most truss rods sit on the centre line where the neck is always thickest.  Necks with two separate rods sit either side of the centre line and you can get away with different profiles



both rickys and shergolds are non standard neck construction and non standard truss rods.