Neck purchase advice

Threepwood

Hi all,

I've decided to 'build' my first guitar, a single pickup Strat-shaped partscaster. I plan to get the body from guitarbuild.co.uk, but am undecided on where to source the neck. I've had a look at the necks on Northwest guitars and like what I see, but it's proving tricky to find opinions on them. Alternatively, there are Mighty Mite and All Parts necks on eBay, but some are unfinished and I've read conflicting reviews (as is always the case with everything in life). I don't think I'm feeling brave enough to finish my own neck, so anything supplied unfinished is out of the running. Budget is around £150 max.

Thanks in advance!

TTony

If you read a few of the threads on here, you'll get a view of the general opinion on @GSPBasses' work.

Megii

@JookyChap once told me he'd used a Northwest guitars neck, and found it to be excellent. They do look good to me to - nice close-grained maple, and appear well made. Of course that's just going by the photos, but if I was embarking on another parts build, I think I'd be going for one of theirs. They look to be of similar build and quality to a couple of necks I bought from axesrus.co.uk (who sadly don't sell necks anymore) - those were really great quality, so if Northwest are getting theirs made in the same place...

I have used a Mighty Mite one-piece maple neck on one of my builds - sound enough, but overall I was a bit "meh" really. Can be made reasonable with some work smoothing the finish, and a fret job. The supplied finish is extremely thin - you could easily think it's bare wood. Can be smoothed with fine wire wool, and buffed up a bit though. Overall, I found the MM a bit rough as supplied. They also come with a horrible molded plastic nut fitted as standard - I was able to remove this and fit a bone one though.

Guitarbuild is a brilliant place to get the body (I highly recommend the swamp ash they do) - worth bearing in mind that if you already have the neck, you can send it to them, and they will ensure a perfect fit in the neck pocket. Otherwise, be careful to get a neck that is the standard Fender width at the body end. Good luck with the build!

ThePrettyDamned

+1 for everything above 

jd0272

Just been on StringsDirect, and oddly enough, they've some very competitively priced Chinese made necks, including figured maple! Allparts for me is a win win though. You'd have to finish it yourself/get it finished however.

Sambostar

Get an allparts neck and do a sloppy job on it and call it a relic.  They even do 60's veneer boarded ones.  Bare wood feels better anyway.

Megii

I used some spare Wudtone clear base coat to finish a neck - just 3 or 4 thin coats, wiped on with paper kitchen towel, and smoothed back with 0000 wire wool between coats. Bit of a buff up with some copy paper to finish - came out great. They do a neck finishing kit also, which I presume is excellent. Or a similar approach with Tru Oil should work. So I would not be put off buying an unfinished neck, even for a first build.

Threepwood

Apologies for the delay in replying! Thanks very much for the responses, everyone.

I'll take a look at the All Parts necks - It's good to know that finishing a neck sounds like a straightforward affair, definitely opens up my options.

Thanks again, I'll be sure to post up the finished article once it's complete.