USian Pie
Tele-Holic
Ordered on June 9, my new Warmoth Tele-style neck arrived on July 12. It was an in-stock neck but I ordered a finish so this was well within the timeline they provided.
Specs on the old neck:
From 1999, the original neck was maple with maple cap fingerboard, "tall/narrow" 6105 frets, "standard thin" profile, and "Modern" construction with double truss rod.
After a refret somewhere around 2010-2012, I had played the frets down quite a bit. The guitar still sounded good but had become noticeably less fun to play than my other electrics. Not acceptable.
The new neck:
I decided to order a new neck rather than refret the original. Mostly I wanted to take the plunge with stainless steel frets.
I considered roasted maple. I have a Warmoth roasted maple neck on a strat. It feels nice and looks dead sexy but seems slimmer than the tele neck. I'm not sure if this is because of the lack of finish, shrinkage from the roasting process, or just my imagination. I stuck with the satin finish to keep the new neck as close to the original as possible.
I changed to "vintage modern" construction with a single truss rod. I have two other Warmoths with the double rod and side-adjust. I like them fine and they are very stable but it seems like a significant amount of routing and metal machinery is involved. I hoped having more wood and less metal in the neck would help tonally balance out my other change:
Stainless steel 6150s. I considered going with the big boy 6100s but my other guitars have 6150s and I like them.
I stayed with the Sperzel tuners from the old neck, saving myself some money. Those Sperzels are over 20 years old and are still rock solid.
The neck prep:
Since I ordered the neck with a satin finish, the finish was on the frets. Warmoth recommends either removing this during the first fret job or just playing it off.
I bought some #0000 synthetic steel wool. I carefully masked off the frets with blue painter's tape and went to work with the steel wool to remove the finish. It took 1-2 hours.
This turned out to be a complete waste of time. The synthetic steel wool did almost nothing.
Moving on to the tuners, a handy drill jig from Sperzel with an included bit allowed me to drill the holes for the tuner stabilizing pins. After six repeats of this process, the tuners were on.
I applied a little soap to the neck mount screws and bolted it up. It fit nice and snug, just like the original.
I found a quick and clever way to dial in the truss rod initially. I strung a low E, tuned it to pitch, checked relief, then slacked it and torqued the rod. The rod was completely loose at first. It took a few turns before I even encountered any resistance or saw any change in relief. Once I had it between "flat" and "very slight backbow" with no relief on the low E, I added the other strings, checked it again, and found the relief was not bad at all. I'll tweak it over the coming days as it settles.
Now the guitar was playable. And it felt like crap. All that business about stainless steel feeling like glass was total bull. Bending strings felt gritty and there were notches and rough spots.
Well duh, that was the finish coming off the frets. I put on a magnifying visor and saw where the middle strings had flaked off the finish on the frets. Using the handle of a plastic spoon, I scraped off all of the rest. It was a little tedious but the result was fresh shiny frets.
The finish came off the stainless frets looking exactly like dried skin or a sunburn peel.
Specs on the old neck:
From 1999, the original neck was maple with maple cap fingerboard, "tall/narrow" 6105 frets, "standard thin" profile, and "Modern" construction with double truss rod.
After a refret somewhere around 2010-2012, I had played the frets down quite a bit. The guitar still sounded good but had become noticeably less fun to play than my other electrics. Not acceptable.
The new neck:
I decided to order a new neck rather than refret the original. Mostly I wanted to take the plunge with stainless steel frets.
I considered roasted maple. I have a Warmoth roasted maple neck on a strat. It feels nice and looks dead sexy but seems slimmer than the tele neck. I'm not sure if this is because of the lack of finish, shrinkage from the roasting process, or just my imagination. I stuck with the satin finish to keep the new neck as close to the original as possible.
I changed to "vintage modern" construction with a single truss rod. I have two other Warmoths with the double rod and side-adjust. I like them fine and they are very stable but it seems like a significant amount of routing and metal machinery is involved. I hoped having more wood and less metal in the neck would help tonally balance out my other change:
Stainless steel 6150s. I considered going with the big boy 6100s but my other guitars have 6150s and I like them.
I stayed with the Sperzel tuners from the old neck, saving myself some money. Those Sperzels are over 20 years old and are still rock solid.
The neck prep:
Since I ordered the neck with a satin finish, the finish was on the frets. Warmoth recommends either removing this during the first fret job or just playing it off.
I bought some #0000 synthetic steel wool. I carefully masked off the frets with blue painter's tape and went to work with the steel wool to remove the finish. It took 1-2 hours.
This turned out to be a complete waste of time. The synthetic steel wool did almost nothing.
Moving on to the tuners, a handy drill jig from Sperzel with an included bit allowed me to drill the holes for the tuner stabilizing pins. After six repeats of this process, the tuners were on.
I applied a little soap to the neck mount screws and bolted it up. It fit nice and snug, just like the original.
I found a quick and clever way to dial in the truss rod initially. I strung a low E, tuned it to pitch, checked relief, then slacked it and torqued the rod. The rod was completely loose at first. It took a few turns before I even encountered any resistance or saw any change in relief. Once I had it between "flat" and "very slight backbow" with no relief on the low E, I added the other strings, checked it again, and found the relief was not bad at all. I'll tweak it over the coming days as it settles.
Now the guitar was playable. And it felt like crap. All that business about stainless steel feeling like glass was total bull. Bending strings felt gritty and there were notches and rough spots.
Well duh, that was the finish coming off the frets. I put on a magnifying visor and saw where the middle strings had flaked off the finish on the frets. Using the handle of a plastic spoon, I scraped off all of the rest. It was a little tedious but the result was fresh shiny frets.
The finish came off the stainless frets looking exactly like dried skin or a sunburn peel.
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