Parting out - cost of components. Necks very expensive now?

[uOpt]

This is puzzling me for a while. When I see people or shops part out Fender style instruments lately I see that the neck is very expensive. Quite a few people split 50/50. 50% for neck+tuners and 50% for body+pickups+pickguard+bridge.

Sounds expensive for the neck to me and it certainly wasn't the case in the elder days.

I wonder why that is. Maybe playability (*) is relatively more important than sound to the buyers right now?



(*) yes I am aware that some think the neck makes at least as much of the sound as the body, in fact I do, but let's not get into another useless "does wood matter" discussion here.

[mongo2]

Originally Posted by uOpt

(*) yes I am aware that some think the neck makes at least as much of the sound as the body, in fact I do, but let's not get into another useless "does wood matter" discussion here.

Actually, I've found the neck makes considerably more contribution to the sound than a solidbody.

My guess is the Fender decal my skew the price in favor of the neck.

[Figjam]

I,too, agree that the neck affects the sound tremendously. It also clearly affects the playability. So to me, it is worth being choosy.

[JIO]

Strictly on a producing/manufacturing level, a neck used to take more luthier skill/labor than a body. Even w/the automated CNC machines of today, more detail/steps inevitably goes into a neck than a body.

[M.R. Ogle]

All of the above. I can chop out and route a solid body myself using Home Depot tools.... a neck requires more skills/ tools/finesse.

[OUT51D3R]

I just ordered a bunch of parts to make a bass myself. I consider the most important parts of a bass to be the neck and the pickups, as they offer the greatest impact on playability and sound respectively. My taste in pickups fortunately isn't too fancy/expensive(I also have a bit of electronics skill, so they are easy to change after the fact), so I spent most of the budget on a good neck.