Official Luthiers Forum!

[img]I have been looking at some 1960s Fender guitars and neck on ebay and I find their neck and fingerboard construction a bit of a mystery.

The rosewood board has a top radius as well as a bottom radius. That means the maple neck has a top radius. Why would Fender go through the trouble to put a top radius on the neck, scoop out the bottom of the board to fit, and then radius the top of the rosewood. It seems like an awful lot of work when the neck top could be kept flat, the rosewood flat and then just radius the top of the rosewood.

I hope this image links ....
[/img]http://www.auctiva.com/hostedimages/showimage.aspx?gid=1376092&ppid=1122&image=445055950&images=445055769,445055790,445055812,445055826,445055724,445055748,445055838,445055855,445055872,445055891,445055911,445055929,445055950&formats=0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0&format=0

Well for a couple of reasons, 2 of them probably being

a) Leo Fender was an electrical techie not a luthier

b) he copied the neck design from the Rickenbacker Bakalite and just changed the headstock to 6 in line.

So I guess you should ask Adolph Rickenbacker and George D. Beauchamp why they designed the neck that way.

Well thats me understanding of it.


blessings
Padma

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I think the answer is that they didn't radius the rosewood, just bent it onto the radiused maple neck when gluing.
This enabled them to use less rosewood than the previous slab boards.