Difference between Warmoth and Mighty Mite Necks?

[sheepdog]

thanks!

I was curious about this as well. Not sure if it was a big enough issue to worry about, but definately curious.

I appreciate you hanging out here at TB and helping us with all of our Warmoth questions...

Certainly, we don't think graphite is a bad idea, and we also aren't closing the door on exploring this option in the future...

Just to be precise about the weight, though, here are some specifics:

Each one of the flat steel bars in our bass necks weighs about 2.8 oz. There is one as a part of the double-expanding truss rod design (we're not changing that), and two as additional reinforcements. That's 8.4 ounces more than a vintage-truss rod neck of the same dimensions... probably more like 8 after you account for the wood removed to add the reinforcements. Now if you accept that we're not going back to a vintage single truss rod design (see our site for the reasons for this), you'll see that there are only 5.6 ounces to be saved by eliminating the two remaining steel reinforcements, and then of course you've got to add back in the weight of the graphite you add instead. I don't have the figures in front of me, but be generous and say each graphite bar weighs just half an ounce. So for us to change over to graphite we'd be adding around $20 to the price of a neck to save 4 1/2 ounces or so (3.6 sticks in my head - I'll check my research at the office on monday). And a set of Ultralites or BML Lite tuners weighs 8 ounces less than a set of vintage full-size tuners...

Believe me, we've thought this through! Having said this, I know people would like to see a graphite-reinforced Warmoth neck, and we'd probably sell a lot of them. We do listen when people ask... this is another one of those "not yet" things.

 

[bwbass]

You're welcome!

And the exact figure of how much weight we'd save by moving to graphite is 4.4 oz.

 

[Johnny Fila]

You're welcome!

And the exact figure of how much weight we'd save by moving to graphite is 4.4 oz.

True, but wouldn't you also be able to slim down the neck profile somewhat more? Isn't the profile slightly larger due to the steel rods which, I assume, need a bit more wood to hold them?
just wondering.
IME, it's not just the steel that's adding to the weight of warmoth's necks, it's also the extra wood needed to accomodate them.

 

[NJL]

Brian, as always, your participation on TB does mean a lot to many here. It makes me extra comfortable on getting a replacement neck for my MIM Fender Lefty...

One day, but I'm still waiting for my USA JO Lefty Lakland to be built...

 

[bwbass]

Uh, no.

The steel rods are actually smaller than what we would use for graphite reinforcements. Theoretically we could make the neck a tiny bit smaller with steel than with graphite.

Our neck shape is a copy of a real '62 Jbass we had in the shop years ago, though of course neck shapes were not terribly consistent back then, and our neck does feel a bit bigger than what Fender's now calling a '62 J profile.