Fender authentic necks: your favorites

I had a tele (recently donated to another worship player) that I built with a Fender MIM 50's Baja neck. It was excellent.

But after buying a neck from Parklane Guitars (https://parklaneguitars.com), I'm now a sucker for roasted maple, vintage (stainless) frets, 7.25" radius and all that flamey maple goodness.

No affiliation. Just a very happily flabbergasted customer.

 

Depends on the exact neck, and what your preferences are. the primary differences between MIA and MIM are the way the fret ends are dressed and the truss rod plug. Otherwise they are essentially made from the same materials.

Do you like a thin neck or a thick one? Small frets or big frets? C Neck, D Neck, V Neck? Flat or Round radius? Tinted finish? Satin or Glossy? Nitro or Poly? Headstock logo preference?

There are a million variables, and any of them can change what you think of the neck. I sold all my MIA necks.

 

The MIM Strat rosewood from your 2000 time frame is very nice.
In maple the Strat Clapton neck is superb. Wish they made it in rosewood board.
For some reason most MIM I prefer over MIA. There must be a subtle difference.
The necks off the Deluxe model guitars have a 12" radius which is kinda nice.

 

The best fender neck I own and one of the best I've ever played is an MIM classic series 50s Strat neck. Mine is from around 2002 or 2003.

Anything crafted in Japan is going to be top notch as well.

 

Fat 50's is my fave, or anything close to it. It's very personal, and I suspect it depends on the size of one's hands. I have large hands, which feel cramped on skinny necks. All three of my guitars have hefty necks, while not all are the same profile, they fill my palm,

 

MIM Classic 50s
MIM Cabronita
MIM '72 RI Thinline (3 bolt)

 

With rolled edges, MIA or aftermarket is really the only option, but you can finish the edges yourself on an MIM. Vinteras/classic series 50s fit a lot of these, but I think at least the traditional vinteras are 7.25 radius.

 

But really, those MIM Standard necks can be really good. I like them, still have two of them.

 

that's an easy fix. scotchbrite pad or very fine sandpaper can make anything satin without damaging the finish. And it can be polished back up to gloss at any time, as long as a person doesn't sand hard with coarse sandpaper enough to eat entirely through the finish.

 

I'm very tempted to pick up one of those new MIM 51 Nocaster necks I've seen on the market. Looks like the Nocaster neck except finished in poly. They're fairly affordable too.

I'm building a partscaster right now and I went all out on the neck. I picked up a neck that was from one of the Fender Rarities series - the blue flame maple top tele. The neck is gorgeous. Its shaped exactly like the AO60s with the 9.5 radius and vintage tall frets. The action at the nut is high out of the box but once I get the nut adjusted it's going to make for a killer guitar.

 

1 11/16" nut
12° radius
med to med jumbos

 

MiM and MiA can be great or not. Lately I think Fender has been making good necks in Mexico. Which is great since the MiM replacement necks are easy to find.

 

I put a MIM '51 Fat U neck on my Esquire.

It's a nice handful (my biggest neck as I'd previously tended to stick with slimmer ones). With a 9.5" radius, vintage tall frets and finished in poly: I stripped mine down and re-finished it in tinted nitro, but that was just a little lock down project.

I'm putting a Strat together and I couldn't find a Fender neck that was as fat as my MIM one, with a Rosewood fingerboard, so I had to go to Allparts for that: This neck had very sharp fret ends, no nut installed, hard fingerboard edges and unfinished. No problem as all stuff I could deal with, but it does show the differences with a Fender neck verses Allparts, though it was half the price of my MIM neck too. The MIM neck didn't even need a fret level, only the nut slots cutting properly (came with 'guide' marks).

 

Nice work, looks great!