[caribbean77]

Hi all!, I have a JEM Body, with the square heel, looking for a neck, only find aanj necks, is this possible to fit a aanj neck into my square heel body?
As far as I know I think a luthier has to do some work in the bottom part of the last 2 frets, am I wrong? somebody tried this?

thanks a lot!

 

[jono]

I didn't have this done but looked into it many years ago. I was told that this is quite a big wood-working job that is also likely to require the body to be repainted to hide the work that needs to be done.

 

[caribbean77]

thanks for your reply, but I dont know why is neccesary to make wood work in the body, suppose to be only in the neck?

 

[jono]

The joint for the old fashioned "square heel" neck joint and the "All Access Neck Joint" are actually quite different!

As such when trying to join them together, the holes for the screws don't line up, the heels don't line up and there is significant overhang on the old square heel compared to the AANJ.

Basically the two are not designed to be compatible and so there's some fairly significant woodwork needed to make them fit together and look at all "finished".

 

[LonePhantom]

You'd be better off buying something like a Warmoth neck, with a 24 fret overhang, and a paddle headstock that you can then cut to the same shape as an Ibanez headstock. Only if you can't find someone to make you an Ibanez replica neck with the square heal.

 

[peromucho7]

If you want to see result, go to Vai site.

His Flo guitar is gone through square to aanj.

https://www.vai.com/all-about-flo-history/

 

[stratoskier]

I've done this modification on a number of guitars, specifically Ibanez RT models which I converted to AANJ style. On the RT mods, both the body and neck were originally square-heels. I've also put AANJ 22-fret necks on regular, square-heel strat bodies and modded the bodies to fit the AANJ contour. However, I haven't done this conversion using an AANJ 24-neck, so take what I describe below with a grain of salt.

This conversion requires that the corner of the body be cut/sanded/refinished into an AANJ-like shape. The most difficult part is getting the refinish to match the rest of the body without fully repainting the whole thing. The conversion also requires that the 4th hole in the body (the one at the corner you will be removing) is lost, so you have to drill at least one new hole in both the body and neck. Actually, because the AANJ pattern doesn't perfectly match any of the 4 holes in a standard body, I have always filled and redrilled all 4 holes in the heel of the neck to match the new pattern.

Is it worth it? As others have said, it can certainly be done, but it's far easier to buy a new neck from Warmoth or elsewhere.

 

[caribbean77]

Ok, thanks a lot! the body I have is already in natural wood, finished with oil, so luckily the process of cut/sanding should be done easier than a painted body.

I will see, because I still dont have the neck!

thanks!!!

 

[stratoskier]

Yes, a natural oiled body will definitely help with the refinishing.

One suggestion -- The first thing you should do before doing any cutting on the body is to plug the 4th hole with a dowel and glue. You'll be cutting very close to that hole and having it filled beforehand will make for easier and smoother work.

Good luck!

 

[brielleluna]

Hi! How did this went?