What are the benefits and drawbacks of certain neck builds?

[Brando Clean]

For example:

Fender’s one piece maple
Ibanez’s 3 and 5 piece necks?
Schecter’s 2 piece volute?

[brothersnowgone]

I don't think there are any pros or cons. Besides maybe a slight difference in tone maybe (not that I can hear), they are all pretty much equally reliable and strong. It a personal preference/visual thing. I like laminated necks more, not as boring to me and probably slighty stronger and less prone to warping than a non laminated neck.

[alex10]

The volute adds strength at the head stock so it is less likely to snap.

[rastachild]

purists will argue that one piece necks resonate better since there is no glue binding the joints, but i think that is hogwash (although i my main guitars do have one piece necks, lol). i don't believe that glue disrupts the resonance to any significant degree. i do like the idea of a volute, but since i am mostly a fixed bridge/standard trem man, i don't have to worry about having the drilling of a locking nut weaken that area of my neck.

[Devo]

Stability is one of the main reasons companies moved from one piece to more than one piece necks

A one piece maple neck even if its perfectly quater sawn will bend and warp with age... its one of the down sides to working with a biological material..... the idea of laminating three or five peices is that each piece will warp differently as its ages and any movement of one single piece will be compensated for by the other pieces... so the necks should be more stable... adn if the wood has different properites like maple and rosewood (bubinga coccobolo etc) then they will age and respond differently to moisture aswell

for this reason some builders will swear blind that the centre piece of a three peice should have its grain running in the opposite direction... so that it should warp in the opposite direction to the two outer pieces...

Apart from the odd guitar that has a metal neck... a few builders are now reinforcing necks with graphite to achieve even more stability... I guess we will see in 10 to 20 years how these compare to traditional wood only necks ...

personally I dont mind how many pieces the neck is made of... I havent played a metal neck guitar like a Travis so cant say if the tone is different... if its one piece then it better be quater sawn if not then if it feels good and you like the look go for it!

[jb4674]

Personally, I really don't think it makes that much of a difference. The main reason for the volutes are for Ibanez and Gibson necks because they tilt the headstock to achieve better string tension. Fender's necks are straight for the most part and, so in most cases, severe warpage will occur when people won't take care of their instrument at all. I've had 2 american made strats for over 15 years and the necks on both of them are pretty straight.

Now, if we're talking about neck thickness, that's a whole different subject.

Jimmy

[sniperfrommars1]

Volute are there for neck cracks which can be an issue in alot of guitars particularly older gibsons, or pretty much any instrument with a tilted style headstock, whenever the guitar takes a fall the headstock hits the ground with all the guitars weight and SNAP

[Brando Clean]

Thanks all. I learned womething today.

Hey Jimmy!

"Now, if we're talking about neck thickness, that's a whole different subject."

What do you mean by that?

[David McCarroll]

There is a subtle difference in each style of neck - The traditional '50s style Fender one piece Maple neck has a snap and sparkle to the tone which is not replicable in any other construction (think Eric Johnson clean Strat tones, or Robbie Blunt on the first couple of Robert Plant solo albums) - just the fact that the frets are hammered directly into the neck wood makes a subtle difference to the tone of the guitar (as do small frets, Maple, 40 years of ageing etc etc....) Gibson introduce the volute on the back of their necks in the early Norlin days (mid seventies) as they were sick of people snapping the headstocks off their shiny Les Pauls, so they added the volute to give a bit of extra thickness at the weakest point - makes no difference of course, as the real issue is that Mahogany has a short, brittle grain which runs diagonally through the headstock, so they just crack at the volute in any case.

Ibanez added the volute for pretty much the same reason, however with the newer laminated necks breakage seems less of an issue in any case. What Ibanez were (and still are) experiencing is a certain degree of "creep" in the scarf joint in older RG style necks - the string pull slowly makes the headstock scarf joint creep upwards, which results in a backward bow on the first three or four frets which cannot be adjusted out with the truss rod - technically a failure which I'd imagine they don't want to deal with. What seems to make more of a difference in the Ibanez necks, strength wise, is not drilling two whacking big holes all the way through the thinnest part of the entire neck to bolt the locking nut on - a forum search would quickly reveal how many cracked Ibanez necks this has resulted in!

[Ploki]

the korean models although still have the back drilled wholes without the volute.
i still dont know why would 3pc+scarf joint be better than 5pc without one, why is everyone so grumpy about new ibanez necks?

[Myst and rain]

Is a neckthrough design less prone to warping as a bolt-on?

And if you have a laminated neck, what exactly is the difference? I mean, is it like if you have a laminated neck it warps after, say, 3 years and if you have a one-piece neck it warps after 2 years? Or is it a greater difference?

Alwin

[RavenT]

As a few have mentioned the laminated neck are stronger then a single piece neck. Ok we have the 5-piece neck. The blanks are put together according to the direction of the grain and the small slivers are in between the tree major pieces, the wood well work all together to keep its self straight. The 3-piece laminated neck just a little weaker then the 5-piece, does the same function. The 1-piece neck not as strong over a period of time and the location (around the world) where the temperature can affect wood. And if you think that the little slivers that they put in between to make a differences try this out. Take a piece of MDF ¾” tick say 12” X 12” put on one side a piece of veneer 1/16” tick wait a few weeks and see if your board is still flat or if it is curling with the side that has the veneer. For the board to stay flat you would have to put a piece on both sides.

Bolt on necks and set in necks.
Some believe that there is a better transfer of sound in the set in necks then the bolt on. This I would have to say it comes to personal preference of the individual.