Any small co.'s building strat necks?

[martins3325]

Any small co. luthiers hand building oldschool strat necks? Outside of Warmoth, USA guitar..ect. I'd love a '66 replica neck but with a big fat V-neck. Mechanicland used to make some great ..and accurate necks but no longer does. Id attempt it myself but im now living in a crap aparment and have too many projects as it is.

[Ian Anderson]

There is not anyone doing the lam boards that I know of. Try finding a used Lentz neck out there. That sounds like it is exactly what you are after. We stopped selling necks a few years back.

[martins3325]

Yeah I know..much to my consternation! lol You guys woulda been my 1st choice too cuz not many companies brave enough to tackle the lam boards..which are my favorite. Add to that my love of the bigger headstock..makes it a hard thing to find.

[Ian Anderson]

The big head was cool, we made very few of those!

[RvChevron]

Originally posted by martins3325
Any small co. luthiers hand building oldschool strat necks? Outside of Warmoth, USA guitar..ect. I'd love a '66 replica neck but with a big fat V-neck. Mechanicland used to make some great ..and accurate necks but no longer does. Id attempt it myself but im now living in a crap aparment and have too many projects as it is.

If you can do just a little, (really just a little) woodworking yourself, give Tommy @ USACG a call.

I'm in the process of ordering almost exactly what you're looking for:

- Big CBS Headstock (mine will be reversed)
- Big soft V neck (.920"-.980")
- 12" radius "Cap board" (read: round lam)
- AAA flame on AAA flame

I'm just looking for someone who can drill the truss rod access hole @the headstock to fit a "Bullet" style truss rod nut.

The "little woodwork" will be to shape the headstock a little to look just like those big CBS's

I even already have a "Upside down mirror image" F*****/CBS Decal from ebay to go with it.

[memphisrain]

My partscaster has a neck from these guys. I'm pretty sure they can make you whatever you want


B. Hefner Company


mR

[Lex Luthier]

Mighty Mite used to make some fairly nice lam board necks, don't have a clue who actually made them, though. Dimarzio used to sell lam board necks as well years ago.

[jackaroo]

Skip Hefner seriously skip'em

paz,

Jroo

[martins3325]

Originally posted by jackaroo
Skip Hefner seriously skip'em

paz,

Jroo

Yeah ive heard that before, and to be honest ive seen some of thier work and wasnt impressed. Lentz, Mechanicland, or Callaham would have been my choice but I dont think any of them are doing necks anymore.

[jackaroo]

Do the usa custom thing and sand off the little nub that gets them around that whole TM issue with Fender. Or you can go on ebay and buy a real Fender neck.

[memphisrain]

Originally posted by jackaroo
Skip Hefner seriously skip'em

paz,

Jroo

I've had others tell me this before, but I didn't have any problems with them. Are there some horror stories that I haven't heard? Just wondering why you say this.


mR

[jackaroo]

Yes, now that my business is over with them, I'm fine with talking about my experience. First let me preface this by saying this is just what I think...if others have had different experiences, then great for you.

I went through a faze of building some guitars this year. I built a 60's tele and a 60's strat and 2 tele deluxes and a strat replacement neck as presents to friends. The projects were to be relic style Fender spec with 9.5 boards and 6105 frets...the only derivation i like in the Fender formula. I was initially inimidated by the need to remove the USACG "nub" on the headstocks, so instead I shopped around and found what I was looking for...or at least what I thought I was looking for at Hefner.

I ordered by phone and gave all the specific things I wanted e.g. radius, fret size, everything. I also got snookered into the upsale of getting the frets "Level, dress, crown, and polish" (for an extra 550 bucks) is how it's put on the site, to try to save some time/$$$. I was given a price and charged the full ammount and then told that Bernie would call me back the next day to go over the order.

OK so Bernie calls me and starts out by calling me the wrong name...I know - no biggie so I correct him. Literrally everytime we spoke from then on he still called me by the wrong name, or a derivitive nickname of that name! How silly. So I get used to my new moniker and get to the task at hand going through the details one more time with the big cheese...Fine by me- the details are what this is all about. I'm told to expect the necks in 5 weeks. Sweet....


4 weeks go by and I lob in a call to confirm my address and make sure that we're on schedule. Bernie proceeds to basically take my order all the details...all over again. He never sends any info stating what we've agreed to so there's no paper trail. So anyway he hasn't even started my order, but he should get to it soon. I ask him if it's posible to pick some nice dark simple pieces of rosewood for the boards, he says sure. And off we go again. I call again in 2 weeks, he runs down all the details again and tells me that he's waiting on the shipment of rosewood. I call back again in 2 weeks and ask again and he says he's got the rosewood and it should be a week or so. Two weeks later I send him an email showing him pictures of necks that I'm trying to emulate, and ask kindly what stage we're at.

11 weeks or so into this ordeal I'm really starting to get pissed. The summer is now upon us and shooting nitro in summer is a bitch with the humidity, so I call to find out what's up. He says that 2 necks have been shipped and I should have them in a day or so. I get the two strat necks with rosewood boards and they're just all wrong. Thw rosewood looked like desert storm cammoflage. Very sandy colored and with a crazy, busy grain all up the fingerboard. Second the back of the headstock is supposed to smoothly transition into the neck...with hus there was a very abrupt edge that is not at all like a vintage Fender. Plus I got plastic dots rather than the clay ones ordered. So on the phone I go, only to be called the wrong name again....

Bernie tells me that he didn't have clay dots as one of my options and that the rosewood was fine. I told him that we had to figure something out...so I sent him back the neck and the whole process started again. He seemed all put out to take the stuff back even though it was totally off.

8 weeks later I get the rest of the stuff, the rosewood is dark and even, but heavily died. A deep purple die is used to even out the grain, anyway, at least the other details were right. But the frets were just installed...no levelling or anything. Frankly, I was just glad to get what I got. After what seeded like forever, and a lot of hand wringing and maintaining my temper...I got about 80 percent what I wanted. The machine's are drilled wrong on 3 of the 5 necks, the wood was subpar, and the "fretwork" was a rip off.

A friend of mine ordered a $2000 Jazz Bass replica from Bernie, and 6 months later he hadn't even gotten started on it. So my friend asked for a refund...no refunds was the policy...so the CC company has to get involved and do a reverse charge. Anyway I'm jst not the type of guy to bash people on a public forum, but I'm going to do it now. That guy gives me the creeps. A little slimy snake of a liar. Ironically, his whole schtick is that he's supposed to be very religious, and a man of God. I've never seen anyone lie as much and just be so dishonest and disorganized with their business. I really regret ever getting involved with them. I should have paid more $$$ and done a little work with the belt sander and gone with USACG.

Sorry but you asked

[memphisrain]

I'm sorry you had such a bad deal with them jackaroo, or should that be jimboroo?

Well I'll keep that in mind before I order my tele neck whenever I get around to building it. Like I said I had no problems with them, but you can't run a business like that.


mR

[jackaroo]

si,

juanaroo

[Lashing]

Musikraft is the new B Hefner