A possibly hairbrained thought on neck profile

[ShatnersBassoon]

Just wondering if anyone has ever done a guitar neck that is faceted on both sides, like in the picture below. Would it feel awful I wonder? The only particularly left field profile I have seen is the Strandberg one, which of course isn’t quite the same as this idea.

Anyway…I mean something like this…don’t laugh  

[Bizman62]

You mean that the profile would be faceted instead of half round? Like this:

If so, there's a Crimson guitar named 'Odd' with that kind of a neck.

[ShatnersBassoon]

1 hour ago, Bizman62 said:

You mean that the profile would be faceted instead of half round? Like this:

If so, there's a Crimson guitar named 'Odd' with that kind of a neck.

I mean a bit more like this, where it is scooped at each side…’scalloped’ if you will. In theory mean less fiction on that part of the hand. Forgive the messy doodling.

 

My girlfriend has just pointed out that it looks like a pair of Y fronts

[henrim]

22 minutes ago, ShatnersBassoon said:

Forgive the messy doodling.

For a moment I thought I was looking at a pair of knickers. With somewhat off putting colours I'd say.

But it was a neck profile! I'm not really sure how my thumb would like that. Interesting thought though. 

[ShatnersBassoon]

9 minutes ago, henrim said:

For a moment I thought I was looking at a pair of knickers. With somewhat off putting colours I'd say.

But it was a neck profile! I'm not really sure how my thumb would like that. Interesting thought though. 

With some careful contouring maybe some of those issues could be negated. I’m guessing it would facilitate playing in a certain way. 
 

Hey I could call it the cacky pants special!

[Bizman62]

1 hour ago, ShatnersBassoon said:

a bit more like this, where it is scooped at each side

Does this answer your question, starting at about 29:30:

 

[ShatnersBassoon]

33 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

Does this answer your question, starting at about 29:30:

 

I suppose so! Looks like he was carving valleys in a similar manner and the thought was that it just felt too weird  

If I have a strange idea there’s always a possibility that Crowe has tackled it at some point

 

[Bizman62]

32 minutes ago, ShatnersBassoon said:

If I have a strange idea there’s always a possibility that Crowe has tackled it at some point

Must be a Brit thing. Something in your cereals, maybe?

[Crusader]

On 11/6/2023 at 10:00 PM, ShatnersBassoon said:

I mean a bit more like this, where it is scooped at each side…’scalloped’ if you will. In theory mean less fiction on that part of the hand. Forgive the messy doodling.

I reckon this is a great idea but I think it would only need to be scalloped on the thumb side

[ShatnersBassoon]

4 hours ago, Crusader said:

I reckon this is a great idea but I think it would only need to be scalloped on the thumb side

I guess it’s partly a question of where people commonly place their thumb on the back of the neck, I suppose that typically it’s either the  middle or slightly below, or occasionally wrapping it over for bends and Hendrixisms. 

[Professor Woozle]

On 11/6/2023 at 4:42 PM, Bizman62 said:

Must be a Brit thing. Something in your cereals, maybe?

We've been doing things with our cereals for a long time...
 

 

[Asdrael]

For a 'less friction' approach, I think I saw somewhere some neck with a kind of alveolar structure at the back of the neck. Obviously, this lower the surface contact between hand and neck.

Now to clean it, it must be fun.

[Bizman62]

11 hours ago, ShatnersBassoon said:

I guess it’s partly a question of where people commonly place their thumb on the back of the neck, I suppose that typically it’s either the  middle or slightly below, or occasionally wrapping it over for bends and Hendrixisms. 

Funny you mentioned Hendrix. This topic has been brewing in my head and when thinking about "optimal" neck shapes Hendrixisms popped up. Ergonomically a V shape is the best shape for wrapping the thumb over the bass strings, that has the least amount of wood around the finger and palm joints. And yes, the proportions are pretty much right, the crosscut of the neck really is that small! A slim D in turns despite potentially being thinner has much more meat against the joints, it definitely wants the thumb to rest on the back. The slanted spine of Strandberg guitars is a good attempt to connect these two worlds.

[ShatnersBassoon]

10 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Funny you mentioned Hendrix. This topic has been brewing in my head and when thinking about "optimal" neck shapes Hendrixisms popped up. Ergonomically a V shape is the best shape for wrapping the thumb over the bass strings, that has the least amount of wood around the finger and palm joints. And yes, the proportions are pretty much right, the crosscut of the neck really is that small! A slim D in turns despite potentially being thinner has much more meat against the joints, it definitely wants the thumb to rest on the back. The slanted spine of Strandberg guitars is a good attempt to connect these two worlds.

Food for thought, thanks! I have thought about experimenting at some point with the Strandberg profile. It kind of looks like a distorted V shape? Maybe a hybrid profile may be worth messing around with too, whereby it’s a v on the bass side and more of a C or D on the treble side.