Leaderboard

Last night I decided to check the new neck out. I have had issues with necks sent in the past when they had a new guy working their production line. He recycled a discarded ebony board, basically flipped it over and glued the slotted side to the new neck and reslotted the blank front face then attempted to disguise the fret slots showing on the side with black dye - which I discovered after I cleaned the wood with meths. I didn't actually agree to them using a used ebony board either. It's a bit sneaky. However, using a set square on the frets revealed something more serious. The frets are inline with the square when checked from one edge but not when checked from the other. This basically means the frets are trued to one edge of the fingerboard rather than the centre and this will produce a guitar which can't be intonated accurately. So I got back to them and they've agreed to build a new neck. This could only happen in China but this supplier is honourable so it means mistakes can be corrected. It's the second time this has happened though. Once is a bit of a howler...but twice...? Still, it gives me an opportunity to correct a few other things, like asking for a little more flame on the maple. I also found a supplier of custom glass pieces. Normally he does optical glass but he's got 19mm thick glass which is enough for a sanding block for fret levelling. I use a steel beam already but glass is...well, one better...er, innit? And I'm determined to up my fret levelling game in these builds so I can sort out my other guitars too.

About this time last year, I decided to try and build a strat. And before I had a workshop set up (which is a bit of a challenge in an apartment anyway). I found a few suppliers of after market strat bodies and figured maple necks on aliexpress. On delivery they were unusable crap. The roasted quilted maple necks were stunning but were over cooked and so twisted they rocked on a flat surface. Because I lived in the mainland, I had the option of sending the necks back and recieved a refund. I kept the bodies because they were remarkably lightweight and one piece. I also found a place away from Aliexpress that made necks and they could also accommodate custom requests. They sent a sample strat neck which looked good so I ordered two necks both with 44mm wide nuts. One had a 57mm heel to match one of the bodies the other had a 56mm heel to fit my Chandler Strat. (Because it has a quilted maple body, I had an aspiration to bring it closer to Valley Arts spec.) Cut a long story short there was some issue with the alignment of neck pocket vs bridge rout but I modified the bridge rout to allow for the neck angle and got the build sorted. But as I was finishing it off, I discovered the electronics cavity was out of alignment with the neck pocket. But I finished the build, dressed the neck and plugged it in anyway. Not to flatter myself much but it was simply the best strat I had ever played. A total revelation. OK so it had a rough looking body finish (deliberately) but it was very comfortable, had very low string tension and very low, buzz free action, playing was effortless. The Dimarzios gave it a mellow archtop tone on the neck pickup and a nice, thick overdriven tone on the bridge. It was everything I had been hoping for and then a bit more. All of this made the alignment issue even more irksome than if it had been a dog to play. The amount of faff and the uncertainty over whether re routing the electronics cavity would result in a final solution or make the problem more complicated lead me to trash the body (both bodies actually) and chalk it up to a learning experience. More recently I reconnected with the supplier of the necks to see if they could provide a couple of bodies...which they did and the neck pocket was in alignment with the bridge and control cavities. This was very encouraging. And the neck joint was perfectly tight - it passed the friction test. I also had them do a bit of drilling for anchor posts on the HSH body just to save me the hassle. One issue I've had here is finding drill bits (and drill presses!) which don't wobble! Everything I have bought so far seems like a factory reject. So the body supplier was set up to do the job more quickly (and cheaply) than me. I figured I would document the process of two builds here, maybe give some insight into the trials and tribulations of building using Chinese made parts and it might be a pleasant surprise to learn what might be possible. Build 1 (revision 2): The Mean Machine. (Build objective: Let's just see how many genres we can cover with one instrument and make it look as punk as possible.) HSH strat, sapele body (1.5kg), flame maple neck with 22 fret ebony fingerboard, Wilkinson VS100C trem, Dimarzio custom humbuckers (Mo Joe and PAF Joe plus no name RWRP single coil), super switch for both humbuckers on in position 3 (pull vol to split humbucker coils) hand made Clapton style mid boost (25dB @ 500Hz, push pull tone to activate), Machinehead locking tuners (Sperzel style), Graphtec nut. Everything apart from the bridge and Dimarzio pickups was sourced in China (although the pickups are available here). Build 2: The Scream Machine (Build objective: Tone hunting - let's see how close we can get to Phil Collen). HSS strat, sapele body (1.4kg), flame maple neck with 22 fret ebony fingerboard, Kahler X trem, Fernandes 401K sustainer kit, Dimarzio Dual Sound bridge hhumbucker (+ pull vol for coil split), super switch for neck and bridge pickups together in position 3, Machinehead locking tuners, Graphtec nut. Everything apart from the Dimarzio pickup was sourced in China. The body was a special order because it had a side mounted jack and no bridge rout. I needed to rout a cavity in the back for the sustainer PCB (which would interfere with the standard strat output jack) AND a top rout for the kahler bridge. (NB: I'll edit the above for a link to the build diary for the second build once it's under way.)

It just needs a clique of people to use this site as a meeting place online regularly. Communities like this tend to grow based on what everyone contributes.

Agreed. You can't go wrong with any of the Yamaha's. Consistently good guitars across all the price bands.

An excellent guitar, being sold by a well-respected member of our Forums. A no-brainer, indeed, and at a real bargain price, too. Jump on it; you won't regret it. (Good call, EZ...).

Save yourself a good few £s and go 2nd hand. A T type Yamaha with contours…