Be Careful When Mounting a new Musikraft or Warmoth Neck to a Vintage Strat
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- Happy Easter! This is a Public Service Announcement to hopefully alleviate any heartaches from cracking your new, especially Roasted Maple, neck. It is common knowledge that Roasted Maple is more prone to cracking when mounting the tuners or attaching the neck to the body due to the hardness of the baked Maple wood. The Roasted Maple sounds wonderful but extra precautions should be taken when mounting the hardware and the neck. One precaution that didn't dawn on me was the size of vintage Fender neck mounting screws. They are quite a bit larger than modern screws as shown in this video. The first neck I mounted to a newer Nash Strat went off without a hitch. I had drilled slightly larger holes for the Kluson tuner screws and the Nash neck mounting screws were the modern size. No problems. Not the case with my 1964 Strat. Fender used big screws back then. So, just simply always buy new mounting screws when you buy a new neck for a vintage guitar. And, the Roasted Maple Musikraft neck was a big improvement over the vintage 1964 neck so don't rule out replacing yours just because it is vintage. If you've never quite been 100% satisfied with the profile, feel, or playability of your vintage neck, you can tailor it down to every minute detail with a new neck. I wanted a larger reverse CBS headstock because, IMO, they sound and play better.
Happy Easter and thanks for the tip ! I didn't know this .
You, apparently, and thankfully, are on my feed. I would ask, what guitar is it that Master Millstap finds himself putting a replacement neck on. Intriguing stuff. I would submit, thanks to your screw dimension insights, that I would prefer to reuse the old school screws, by enlarging and deepening the pilot holes on the new neck ( Carefully gauged of course ). Ok, to a complete Newby to woodworking, that might seem daunting, but it actually only requires a little application of commonsense, and I would just feel a little better about the job. How about show us what guitar you got there with the new neck? And you probably should go ahead and crank it through, oh I don't know, your old Bassman? Please?
I tried to deepen the holes because I measured them and could see they weren’t deep enough. That roasted maple is so hard, the bit wouldn’t touch it. So, not thinking apparently, I put more pressure on the bit, (a fairly new bit with a depth stop on it to keep from drilling through the rosewood fingerboard) only to look at the fingerboard and see a bulge forming from the pressure. Heart attack time. To make the holes bigger could be the same issue and even chance breaking a bit in the hole. I highly recommend getting the proper screws the holes were drilled for. Musikraft and Warmoth both sell them. Forget the vintage screws. I would have never thought they were different but after this fiasco, it dawned on me. The first thing I was planning on doing when I got the Warmoth parts (video coming this weekend) was to remove a vintage screw and compare. That is when I did this video. Don’t attempt to drill in the roasted maple if it can be avoided. Of course, depending on your tuner choice, you may have to drill the tuner mounting holes which has to be done carefully. I did a video on it (Musikraft neck #1). I’ve had people tell me 1/2 of their headstock feel off when the crack went through all of the tuner posts and screw holes. Here is the neck in action just a few days ago. Plays and sounds great. How To Play Earth Blues from People, Hell & Angels - Part 1
ua-cam.com/video/MVM72L-xJ-c/v-deo.html
@@millstap Okay now, wait a dang minute. First, you are something else. Much respect. But....I now need to know the tale of the neck replacement. Obviously it was a vintage Strat, because you said so. What was the issue of the need for the new neck? That alone sounds like it would be a good anecdote. Secondly, what became of the original neck?, because this commenter is having dreams of procuring it from you, and doing something with it that you simply chose to avoid by getting the replacement neck.( Now if you smashed it over your Bassman, I will probably get over it). Also, do I infer that the depth dimension of the new neck is shallower than the original? That would be an interesting revelation. (Bulging fretboard, from drillbits about to protrude). The stuff of nightmares. I might be persuaded to follow your advice to forget the vintage screw adaptation, but if I had a 1960 Strat body ( I have pretty much resigned myself to be satisfied with my '73 Strat that I bought in 1974 ), I am pretty sure I would be grinding off the tips of the original screws, and would be unintimidated to resize the pilot holes.( I've been woodworking for a few decades, give or take a few). So if you feel inclined to indulge my curiosity, please do. And don't forget to get that junked vintage neck out of the trash can before trash day, there might well be a myself to adopt the little orphan. It is great fun to listen to your stuff!
Yo millstap!
I’d love to see a breakdown of house burning down one day. Love from california brother, been watching the channel for years!
Lol. I’d probably spend a month just on the intro with all the echo. It would be perfect for my Echoplex. I tend to shy away from the studio cuts with all of their tricks added to make it sound great. I’ll definitely look at it to see if I can get close. Jimi was definitely young and fired up on that one with those monster bends. For me now, it’s like an old singer that can’t hit the high notes like he used to. Let’s see what happens. Just getting that sound would be worth a video.
Loo Wood responded to this and I thought it was you. He mentioned the Scuffam Amp plug-in for House Burning Down. I was going to respond, lol, that that was cheating. I'm sure you guys know my channel partly focuses on getting the same tones with real gear. It's not easy sometimes but I actually had the House Burning Down tone down yesterday. At least pretty close. I pulled out my Phase 90 phaser to simulate the panning stereo phase shifting studio effect on the record. The other part are those incredible bends which are pretty easy for a 23-24 year old hand, not so much for one puffed up with arthritis (Uncle Arthur as my hand specialists likes to call it). My MXR Carbon Copy does a decent job on the echos so no need for the Echoplex.
@@millstap did you run it through the 1960 bassman?
@@zhairewelch8291 Yes, and a 1964 Super Reverb together.
@@zhairewelch8291 Another revelation on the intro bends is Jimi may be bending them with his middle finger instead of his ring finger. That made everything flow together better. Hopefully I can get that. His fingers were so long and that finger (for me especially) is stronger. He’s up on the neck where there is not much room because of the reverse body so his middle finger probably fit up there better too since it’s the longest finger.
🔊Valuable information👍🏼
So the vintage screws were too long and cracked the new neck? Or are you safe? 🙏🏻
The larger diameter is what caused the most problem but the extra length was also bad. I measured the pre-drilled holes before screwing in the screws and found them too short. But when I tried to lengthen the holes, I couldn't get the drill bit to drill them any deeper. I caused another little bulge on the rosewood fretboard just from the pressure of trying to deepen the holes even though I had a bit stop that would not allow me to drill too deep. Don't do that. Just get the small screws when you order a neck and be done with it. The neck sounds a plays wonderfully, albeit two cracks and a bulge, but by no means the desired result. Here it is in action two days ago, ua-cam.com/video/MVM72L-xJ-c/v-deo.html.
@@millstap ... Thank you so much for the reply.. appreciate it... I'm glad you made this video with the warning because I'm in the middle of switching out alot of necks on different bodies for all my Strats .. this definitely has me going the safer route now... I actually had to use a couple different screws on my 6-screw bridge not long ago and wound up poking holes through the body myself 😂... Thankfully you can't see it because I use 6 raw vintage springs and it covers it completely.. your videos are so enjoyable bud... Look forward to always seeing more here in New York.. 👍🏻🎸🤟🏻🔥
Oh no! I didn't know this happened to your guitar neck!