Mighty Mite Necks?

[Mike Eskimo]

Thanks vintage clubber for the link !

 

[Don Miller]

I've bought 3 from stew mac over the past few years...two teles and a strat...a good bang for the buck IMHO...they do work better with a new nut...I used stew mac bone nuts.... mine got fret sprout too, but it was manageable...

I like the feel better than the Godin neck that Stew Mac used to sell

 

[xtrajerry]

MF has them as well, plus 15% discount frequently..

 

[JestersTear1]

My white Mexican 2011 Tele has a Mighty Mite neck - I love it. Soft V, 9.5" radius, Tusq XL nut and nitro finished :

image removed

 

[viking]

I have used 3 or 4 and one body.I think they are ok
The nut is only for setup use , IMO.
The frets needed to be leveled, but I guess that is the case with most necks
Don't know if they differ from time to time
They look like the same necks when you see them - for several years ?

 

[Cat MacKinnon]

The main thing I think is important is, MM doesn't have a factory, isn't like Warmoth or USACG or such in that it isn't vertically integrated. A little like buying a neck from Stew Mac. You might get a nice one last year; maybe by this year everything has changed.

So, if you find a nice one, enjoy it. But I just think you gotta take them case by case.

Are Mighty Mite necks and bodies still made at the Cort factory in Indonesia that produces the Squier VM and Standard series?

As far as I know, they're still identical to the Squier necks. I have a 2013 large-headstock Squier neck and a MM large-headstock Strat neck, and they're identical (including the inlay material, skunk stripe wood, 50/50 side dots, and that weird wood plug over the steel truss rod anchor.) If they didn't have markings on them, you'd never be able to tell which was which.

IIRC, Cort and MM have long had some kind of business connection, so MM goes wherever Cort's Squier production seems to go; use to be Korea, now it's Indonesia. Seems logical though: if they're already making the exact same neck, seems like it would be most profitable to just buy the exact same ones (minus the logo), stamp a MM brand on the heel and be done with it.

I don't mind the MM necks, but I'm going to upgrade this one soon. It's not bad, per say, it's just kind of...meh. Plus the fretwire seems soft, as I've had to dress them a few times over the past year (of course it could be that I play the thing a good four hours or so per night!) I notice I have to adjust the truss rod a bit more often than some of the other guitars I've owned, but that could just be luck of the draw.

Speaking of the truss rod...one weird thing I've noticed about MM necks is that the first fret always seems to be ever-so-slightly backbowed when the rest of the neck is dead flat. I don't know if this has to do with how they install their rod, how they level the fretboard or what, but I've noticed it on more than one MM neck.

Overall I think the MM necks are (usually) a good deal, but they're pretty much worth exactly what you pay for them. I don't mean that in a necessarily bad way, just that people shouldn't expect them to be some kind of "hidden gem". They're certainly better than most of the highly questionable, no-name Chinese necks on Amazon and eBay though! That's a $50 gamble a lot of people seem to lose. I'd also much rather have a MM neck than a GFS, for whatever that's worth.

And FWIW, this particular neck is sort of in-between as far as thickness goes: I measured it at about 0.860" all the way down, so it's not super-chunky, but not quite what I would consider thin, either (this is the standard "modern C-shape", not the soft V that MM also does on some necks.)

 

[Tony Ounsworth]

I had a really nice maple one. It came with the logo already applied:







It was very reasonably priced as I recall, about £100 without the tuners.

 

[Doug 54]

I 'think' that 9.5" is the flattest radius they offer

.

 

[boris bubbanov]

Are Mighty Mite necks and bodies still made at the Cort factory in Indonesia that produces the Squier VM and Standard series?

Great question.

Waparker's Strat neck shown above is a dead ringer for a Squier Surabaya neck, isn't it? The truss rod detail is exactly on the money and the nut is visually the same as those Squiers, also.

 

[gsh1968]

Yes Mighty Mite necks and bodies are made in the Cort factory in Indonesia.
I actually had one Squier Tele neck come in a shipment by mistake - it had the locating pins drilled for the tuners and the slimmer headstock as found on the Squiers (Mighty Mite own brand have the slightly fatter "modern" Tele headstock).
All (Indonesian) MM Strat and Tele necks are 9.5" or 9.5-12" compound radius.
Last year Mighty Mite announced a USA made line of necks with a few different radii (7.25", 10", 10-14" compound) but a year later I still haven't seen any for sale anywhere (and they are missing from the website) and I couldn't justify ordering any. The MAP was $315-$378.

 

[Jazzerstang]

Don't waste your money

 

[telemnemonics]

I like paying less and getting more, but the MM necks I've had and worked on are just not enough quality to justify the savings.
The jump in quality going to an Allparts neck is IMO bigger than the jump in price.
Some are better, but I've never seen one I really liked, and I have one in the garage with poorly seated frets that really can't be made right for what it would be worth.
If it was all I could afford I'd make sure the return policy was good, and didn't involve a month with no neck or money while waiting for a refund.