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I have a customer who has asked me to re-shape the neck on one of their electric guitars. The neck he loves, and I'm taking templates from, comes off of a custom electric guitar he had built, it's gigantic, and modelled off a Gibson custom shop R8 Les Paul. The other neck is a Warmoth Jazzmaster neck with their "Fatback" profile. Also very big, but slightly smaller. The nut width, radius, and scale is the same on both guitars.

Because the neck I'll be reshaping is slightly thinner and the profile slightly rounder the neck will end up thinner again to bring the profile into a similar universe as the neck he likes.

So I guess my question is this. In your experience is the thickness of a neck or the contour as it sits in the hand a more important factor in a players comfort level. Of course I realize neck shape is a really personal thing, and probably every aspect of a neck plays into whether or not a player falls in love with a particular guitar. But I'd love to bring a little more to this project then let's try and see.

Having no experience myself, I wonder if thinning the neck could cut into the slot for the adjustment bar, or could thin the slot bottom enough to crack.

It seems like the thickness of the neck is one of the first things a player notices about a neck. Since it is a Warmouth neck, is it one he could "rebuy" if he hates it?
I would explain the situation to him and suggest he have you make a whole new neck, or accept the possibility he wouldn't be happy with it.

From what I've seen, I'd never advise to reshape necks lol

I've had at least 2 in my shop where the neck was reshaped and they ended up cutting into the back of the truss rod and ruining the neck. Not saying you'd do that Connor but I've never taken a job like that in my time in full time repair and I never will, just way too much risk.

The only ones where in my opinion it would be acceptable would be if it's a square neck guitar (which is basically just a neck blank) like an old National or a hawaiian guitar conversion. But that's rare since those jobs are few and far between.

The thinner neck will never feel like his ideal neck so he will never be happy with your work. There is almost a guarantee of a dissatisfied client. I wouldn't touch that job with a 3 foot pole.

I think he's okay with the risk of not liking the neck on the other side. He already doesn't like it, so if he's still not happy afterwards he hasn't really lost anything. But I'll suggest a new neck.

I doubt the truss rod channel is a real concern in this instance. But I will be making templates of the neck he likes as well as the neck he doesn't. I'll compare them before doing any cutting, to see how much of the neck needs to be removed to get in the ball park. The neck we'd be re-shaping is quite thick, about an inch. The truss rod has been installed from the fret board side. There's probably about 3/8"s of material to be removed before hitting the channel.

I've owned 70+ guitars both acoustic and electric of many brands and vintages so my left hand has had playing time on a lot of neck profiles. For my hands at least, the most important part of the neck shape is not the thickness or the overall profile. It's the shoulders of the neck profile that make the most difference. Thick shoulders make it harder to reach my fingers around the neck whether the neck is thick or thin, particularly when wrapping my thumb over onto the low E string. For a player who has longer fingers, that may not be as much of an issue I suppose. One of my favorite necks is on a Les Paul I have. It's quite thick but the profile doesn't have chunky shoulders so it fits just as easily in my hand as the thinner necks on other guitars. Even on thin necks, chunky shoulders get in the way for me.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I don’t know how you take a smaller neck and carve it bigger, but as a player I know I prefer a neck that is too “V” than too “D” or “school bus” shaped. You can try knocking the corners down to see if that improves the feel. You say he’s not losing anything, so I assume this is a freebie for a friend. It may help, but he will probably want a new neck.


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