The cost of a custom neck

[Mbroady]

Originally Posted by grains

I was wondering about how much it would cost to have a custom neck made and have it installed. Is it cheaper to have one installed on a guitar like a taylor because it has a bolt on neck?

It seems a custom neck would still be quite a bit cheaper than a custom guitar.
Custom guitars start at about 2,500 right?

Looks like the OP checked out.
For what its worth. much depends of the guitar and where in the world you are.

I had a custom neck made for a Furch guitar, and with instillation it came to just shy of $500. for a US maker it would probably be 3-4 times that plus instillation cost.

As mentioned the other option would be to work with the neck you have to reshape it (if smaller).

Would love to hear back from the OP about the guitar in question and the issue with the neck

[hermithollow]

Originally Posted by phavriluk

The economics of doing a neck swap, instead of a guitar swap, impress the daylights out of me in a negative sense. It's all lost money, maybe lost in two ways, the direct cost of putting a new neck on a guitar that in itself needs no new neck, and the loss in resale value of a guitar that no longer has the manufacturer's logo on the headstock. Go try and sell a no-name guitar and see the offers that get presented.

The situation seems to me like how to get back your money on a green car with a good factory finish that got repainted aftermarket blue. Originality lost, cost of the job lost, value may well be lost. Answer is, you don't get your money back, you've said goodbye to the cost of the paint job and perhaps a good hunk of the value of the car before the repaint. Go sell the green car and buy a blue one.

I have an old 92 Chevy short bed step side 5 speed manual pickup truck painted a blue green color that was offered on Corvettes but not a color offered on trucks that year. It also had fender skirts and chrome mag wheels. I don't think the person who owned it originally cared a lot about resale, but wanted what he wanted.

[jim1960]

I suspect the costs that are being discussed are 3x-4x what the OP was hoping to hear. He seems to have abandoned this thread.

[BluesKing777]

Hmmmm....easy to say -'change guitars'.

I have a Maton EBG808 and the whole guitar sound/pickup system is sensational, but....the nut is 44.1mm (1.736") - about 5 hairs wider than a standard Gibson acoustic neck (1.725"). I am a 100% fingerpicker and normally prefer nuts of 1 3/4" plus for my porky digits. My CEO7 came in at 45mm on my vernier. My Lowden S35 came in at 46mm.

I zoom around the Lowden neck without a thought, but the Maton is a touch 'cramped' though do-able - still way better than a guitar with 1 11/16".

Currently, the Maton AP5-Pro pickup system is the best I have played, but major surgery is required to put that system in another guitar (with wider neck!). I rang Maton a couple of times to see if they can make a custom wider neck. Nope.

Hmmm - new neck on the Maton, you say?


BluesKing777.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by BluesKing777

Hmmmm....easy to say -'change guitars'.

I have a Maton EBG808 and the whole guitar sound/pickup system is sensational, but.....

Currently, the Maton AP5-Pro pickup system is the best I have played, but major surgery is required to put that system in another guitar (with wider neck!). I rang Maton a couple of times to see if they can make a custom wider neck. Nope.

Hmmm - new neck on the Maton, you say?

No, from my perspective it makes more sense to get another guitar with a nut width and neck profile you like and put the Maton electronics into it. Back when Takamine guitars first hit the US market a lot of players loved their pickup systems. In Nashville the fashion was to put the Tak pickup into a Martin.

Start with the guitar, then put in the electronics. So long as you're not doing the work itself, all you have to do is pay the repair tech to transfer the electronics from one guitar to another.

So long as the string width at the saddle is the same (assuming that the Maton electronics are under the saddle,) it's not going to matter which guitar gets the pickup system. You might as well be comfortable when you play.


whm

[BluesKing777]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

No, from my perspective it makes more sense to get another guitar with a nut width and neck profile you like and put the Maton electronics into it. Back when Takamine guitars first hit the US market a lot of players loved their pickup systems. In Nashville the fashion was to put the Tak pickup into a Martin.

Start with the guitar, then put in the electronics. So long as you're not doing the work itself, all you have to do is pay the repair tech to transfer the electronics from one guitar to another.

So long as the string width at the saddle is the same (assuming that the Maton electronics are under the saddle,) it's not going to matter which guitar gets the pickup system. You might as well be comfortable when you play.


whm

It is unlikely to ever happen - I was just highlighting a few reasons to get a different neck, I suppose. I have thought of it!

The Maton AP5-Pro pickup system needs major surgery to install in your guitar of choice....not totally unheard of but it needs the guitar to get a large slot routed out of the top to fit the 6 piece piezo block and then the (new) bridge is routed to fit over the pickup block. The control panel needs a hole in the side of the upper bout and also the jack plug is drilled separately to the endpin hole.

So that won’t to happen to my custom 00 deep body (with a great neck). A new build with the pickup included has crossed my mind.....

So I have ordered the K&K Trinity upgrade pack to add the mic to my K&K already in my custom 00. I am waiting by the door!

BluesKing777.

[hermithollow]

Originally Posted by BluesKing777

Hmmmm....easy to say -'change guitars'.

I have a Maton EBG808 and the whole guitar sound/pickup system is sensational, but....the nut is 44.1mm (1.736") - about 5 hairs wider than a standard Gibson acoustic neck (1.725"). I am a 100% fingerpicker and normally prefer nuts of 1 3/4" plus for my porky digits. My CEO7 came in at 45mm on my vernier. My Lowden S35 came in at 46mm.

I zoom around the Lowden neck without a thought, but the Maton is a touch 'cramped' though do-able - still way better than a guitar with 1 11/16".

Currently, the Maton AP5-Pro pickup system is the best I have played, but major surgery is required to put that system in another guitar (with wider neck!). I rang Maton a couple of times to see if they can make a custom wider neck. Nope.

Hmmm - new neck on the Maton, you say?


BluesKing777.

It might be possible to bind the fretboard and pick up a mm on either side.

[Wade Hampton]

Well, BK, I have experience not only with other brands of internal microphones paired with piezo pickups but also with that specific rig you have on order. Sad to say, the K&K internal mic caused nothing but eternal feedback whenever I tried to use it at performance volume levels. I ended up keeping the mic completely turned off when I needed to use that guitar onstage.

What has worked much better for me than the internal K&K microphone is the rig that pairs the Pure Mini bridgeplate pickup with an undersaddle piezo element. I have that in my McAlister acoustic baritone guitar, and it was the fifth pickup system that I tried in that guitar. I tried some pretty fancy rigs to get as good a stage sound from that instrument as it sounds acoustically, but never achieved it until I finally got that setup.

By all means try the internal mic - maybe you can make it work without it causing painful shrieking claw-your-eyes-out feedback - but I never could. However, if it doesn’t work as well as you hoped, or if it works okay but doesn’t give you the sound you’re after, then consider pairing the bridgeplate pickups with K&K’s undersaddle unit.

Just a thought...


whm

[BluesKing777]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

Well, BK, I have experience not only with other brands of internal microphones paired with piezo pickups but also with that specific rig you have on order. Sad to say, the K&K internal mic caused nothing but eternal feedback whenever I tried to use it at performance volume levels. I ended up keeping the mic completely turned off when I needed to use that guitar onstage.

What has worked much better for me than the internal K&K microphone is the rig that pairs the Pure Mini bridgeplate pickup with an undersaddle piezo element. I have that in my McAlister acoustic baritone guitar, and it was the fifth pickup system that I tried in that guitar. I tried some pretty fancy rigs to get as good a stage sound from that instrument as it sounds acoustically, but never achieved it until I finally got that setup.

By all means try the internal mic - maybe you can make it work without it causing painful shrieking claw-your-eyes-out feedback - but I never could. However, if it doesn’t work as well as you hoped, or if it works okay but doesn’t give you the sound you’re after, then consider pairing the bridgeplate pickups with K&K’s undersaddle unit.

Just a thought...


whm

Keep the fingernails trimmed and play the Maton?

In lockdown here so I can’t even give the K&K mic a blast when it arrives. In ear monitors are calling so I can use it. The whole thing isn’t cheap!


BluesKing777.

[grains]

I want a neck that is 1 inch thick or more and it's hard to find that on a guitar. I don't have an acoustic that I want to put a new neck on now I was just wondering if that would be a cheaper route than getting a custom guitar.

I just got a Harmony H162 but it doesn't play or sound as good as I hoped.
I think the neck on it is pretty good though. I could even go a little thicker.