Strat's Neck Pocket Change

[theodoropoulos]

Hallo again my dear friends!

I intend to make a stratocaster but i would like to change the shape of the classical "squared" neck pocket to a new modern with curves...Many of you you do this...My question is how can i do it from the standard plans??

in the diagram you see the two shapes:the old and the new..the old screws are in ACDE and the modernn in ABDC.....But i think if i make the distance AC to AB and the DE to DC,will it be dangerous ???

If my thoughts are wrong ,can you suggest a new plan ???what shoud i change???

thank you in advance!!

Edited October 5, 2012 by theodoropoulos

[Our Souls inc.]

It will be O.K.

I made a neck with only two screws and it worked good. Like only B and C.

Fender uses a 3 screw neck too.

You should be fine, in my opinion.

[curtisa]

What you've drawn there is essentially just the Ibanez All-Access Neck Joint. It's not often you hear many people complain that the neck joint on an Ibanez RG or S feels like it's going to give way

If it were me I'd move screwhole "B"to the left a little more just to spread the load distribution a little bit more evenly, and green screwhole "C" up and left a bit more away from the edge.

[theodoropoulos]

thank you guys very much...!

[pauliemc]

A,C & D (purple) should realy stay where they are. Id move green C 1/3 of the way back toward E. then round off all the corners like Ibanez AANJ.

It may not look like much is taken off but it makes a huge difference when playing.

Just my opinion,

[stratoskier]

A,C & D (purple) should realy stay where they are. Id move green C 1/3 of the way back toward E. then round off all the corners like Ibanez AANJ.

I agree with this and just did this exact thing to two square-heeled Ibanez guitars. I compared a pattern of the newer Ibanez AANJ neck joint to the traditional square pattern and found that the only significant change was in the location of screw E. It is true that D is moved very slightly inward (perhaps 1-2mm) but I see no reason to tamper with it for that small adjustment. I've also found that you can use the old location of screw E as a helpful guide when you recontour the heel -- the new arc will just barely remove the old channel for that screw. That is, the new shape will lie just inside of that screw hole, so I make the cut to leave a little of that hole and then sand it clean for the final shape.

[theodoropoulos]

@ Pauliemc

it may not look like much is taken off but it makes a huge difference when playing.

in which way you mean???

[Prostheta]

Brian May's guitar uses one bolt! It is a much deeper tenon however. Using bolts and wood inserts might improve the security.

[theodoropoulos]

i intend to load it with 0.08 gauge string.....so,the tension should be less...

[pauliemc]

@ Pauliemc

it may not look like much is taken off but it makes a huge difference when playing.

in which way you mean???

The AANJ style heel does not get in the way of your thumb as much as the square strat styled design. It allows for mush better fret access & curving the edge makes it very comfortable when you are playing up thet far.

Try playing a strat & then an AANJ JEM or RG for a comparison.

Prostetha !!

Brian mays guitar has 3 screws. A big fook off bolt that is visable in the back of the guitar up towards the heel, & then another 2 that are inside the pickup cavity holding the heel tennon down to the body. Odd set up, I make replicas of the red special, Although I do prefer to use better materials than the original.

[Prostheta]

I know about those two black Japanned screws ;-)

..and the non-functional truss rod!

My bolt-on builds always tried to maximise contact area size. This feels precarious to me, although whether or not it is so is debatable!

[dragonbat13]

there are a number of things to consider.. One is exactly how much material you really need to take off, and the other is contact area.

First off, decide how much material you can leave and get away with. The less you take off the best. You can always take off more later.

One area that is gonna be affected is neck angle. If you move the front screws back, your distance between the fulcrum of the front screws and the end of the neck where shims go is gonna be reduced, which will make it alot harder to set and stabilize the neck angle.

If you want to really get crazy, find a short scale neck, deepen the pocket back towards the bridge till the scale length is correct and carve away. You would have to look closely to see the wrong length neck on a strat body without the guard on it.

I dont know for sure since I really dont know ibanez guitars that much, but I would think they would have put the neck pocket further back in the body to allow a deeper trunion surface. That would allow all four screws to be moved back.

If you want the aanj setup, try and install one of those anchored stud kits. That allows you to put a metal insert in the neck and have a machine screw to screw into it. I heard it works really well.

Or you could do the older RG type of access where you dont change the pocket at all, you just thin out the back of the body and use shorter screws.

Good luck...