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i did a 70’s rebuild and we decided to mod a 70’s style reissue neck to suit the original body.
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Vintage neck will be pot luck - could be a good one or it could be dead as a dodo, but you won’t know until you’ve bought it and fitted it. Risky and expensive.
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Edit - here’s the link:
https://shop.fender.com/en-GB/parts/electric-guitar-parts/necks/replacement-necks/classic-series-70s-stratocaster-u-neck-3-bolt-mount-21-vintage-style-frets/product-099700.html#start=1
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1974-Fender-Stratocaster-Neck-maple/183029802158
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1978-Vintage-Fender-USA-Maple-Stratocaster-Neck-Strat-Real-Relic-Condition-78/132428896247
- and bear in mind that's about the *lowest* price you're likely to get a genuine 70s neck for, that hasn't been totally butchered. The neck is generally worth about a third of the value of the complete guitar. 70s Strats are pretty uniformly above £1500 now, unless totally wrecked - and in that case, the seller would be wiser to part it out anyway.
For less, you get something like this, which has had a Floyd nut fitted and removed, none too well...
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1979-Vintage-Fender-USA-Maple-Stratocaster-Neck-Strat-Real-World-Condition-79/132477025985
Or for less than half that, you could have a new one with none of those issues, as richardhomer said.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
By the time I had stripped, refretted and aged it was really nice, and still cheaper than those examples above
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Without any shadow of a doubt the new neck is sooooo much better feeling and playing than the original.
I wouldn’t bother trying to find an original one....
Body, plate, knobs are all original.. Neck was a MIM that started like this
It got stripped, refretted,refinished and reliced with an appropriate logo. We kept the original heel marks in place so it wouldn't fool anyone. I sprayed the headstock with tinted lacquer, the rest with normal clear. Fingerboard wear is not really something you see on 70's necks so is another feature to highlight this is not original. We kept a few features to identify it was a bitsa, like the bridge. This was one of my first proper relic jobs
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The problem with the 3-bolt is not the number of bolts, it’s the fit of the neck in the pocket. If it’s a good fit, three is plenty.
If you don’t want to fit the full tilt plate mechanism to the neck - and it is quite a lot of work - the best thing to do is fit a threaded insert for the third bolt, but a standard screw is fine. If it’s a headstock-end truss rod adjustment the screw should miss the end of the rod, but check first.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
If you get a replacement neck and drill for 3 bolts, you'd effectively be marrying those parts for good. Personally, I'd rather leave options open when playing the parts game. If the body is good and you're unlikely to sell it on, modding it to be more flexible makes more sense than preserving originality, especially if it's gonna be bolted to other parts for the foreseeable.
No it doesn't. Drilling for four bolts permanently destroys the originality value of the body because the holes cannot be plugged invisibly and are outside the area of the 3-bolt plate.
In any case, the original body is worth *far* more than a modern replacement neck, so even if modding the neck for three bolts did make it completely unusable on any other guitar - which it doesn't - that's clearly the better option.
Really, just don't do it. It's totally unnecessary as well as damaging the financial value.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein