When slimming a brand neck...

[Kabal]

Hello I have no experience building but I figure this is the place for this kind of question. Of course I could be wrong so if the mods are watching please and thank you for moving it.

I have a 5-string Warwick double $$ neck which is a little thick and I want to take some of the excess off of the neck back. I believe the measurements are 19.5 mm at the 1st and 24 mm at the 12th

How much wood do you think I can take off before the string tension would start to be too much for it? Is there a "safe zone" for all necks like "if you reach X mm you've gone too far"
I'm tuned EADGC, idk if that makes a difference but thinner strings should mean less pull so hopefully more wood to be taken off right?

Thanks for any input

 

[Marton]

The problem is not the thickness of the neck, the problem is if you shave too much of the neck you'll get into the truss rod slot.

Just a buy a bass you like more.

 

[XylemBassGuitar]

The problem is not the thickness of the neck, the problem is if you shave too much of the neck you'll get into the truss rod slot.

Just a buy a bass you like more.

I would tend to agree. You might be able to take off a few millimeters without running into the truss rod channel, but even then you run the risk of thinning it down more in one spot than another which can cause all kinds of relief/truss rod problems. Plus, the neck you have is already pretty thin and probably shouldn't be taken down much more.

Don't get me wrong, it can be done with certain necks, but unless you have a fair bit of building experience I wouldn't recommend doing so.