[Kyle am I]

Hey friends,

I’ve long thought the thing that makes some of Steve’s (main) guitars superior is the custom neck profiles, so I decided to reprofile some of my own.
WOW! It was easier than I thought, and it’s turned out fantastic! It feels just like I remember EVO & XAVIA feeling. I kept the shapes the same and just taken the mm down. I’m becoming obsessed, haha.. I’ll be working on learning very basic wiring & doing my own fretwork next.

They’re both 7vwh’s, -one I got to 17.6mm at the 1st & 19.7mm at 12th (FLO III reminiscent profile)
-and the other is 17.2mm & 19.2mm (JEM EVO/Xavia neck profile)

Has anybody else done this? I wish I had done this years ago, and I’m tempted to do the rest but for the sake of value I’ll hold off for now (I’m looking at you, JEM 777 30th haha)

Also, I ran into something on the thinner neck that almost made me pass out (I’m serious, and this type of physical reaction has never happened before to me haha)- I noticed as I was cleaning it up to finer grits of sandpaper a 3/4 inch line in the middle of the neck- it almost felt like a crack and at first I thought maybe I had gone too far and into the truss rod. However, I think it was just a defect in the wood that was revealed by the 1.4mm I took off. It was too wide to be a crack and it was just wood in the recessed gap. I filled it with a bit of superglue and sanded down. While fine and unfeelable now, does anyone think this could be a potential issue down the line? I’ve never heard of this before.. you can’t even tell it apart from other grain lines in the wood, I’ve circled it in red in a photo..

 

[Kyle am I]

I have a nice ‘91 777VDY with the old square neck joint, but a fantastic D-shaped 17-19 mm wizard neck. My best sounding guitar was my beloved ebony fretboard ‘98 7VWH, but it had the U-shaped Jem neck profile 19-21 mm. I decided to sand it down to 17-19 mm wizard profile neck and throw some Jescar 6105 SS frets on it. Couldn’t be happier with the result.

Nice! I’m thinking about a typical nickel refret for my first few attempts, then I’ll try the evo gold, then stainless. Did your necks resonate differently after? Mine are far more resonant it feels, it’s hard to explain.. much more lively even at low volume.

 

[Kyle am I]

This thread is giving me anxiety.

I think as long as you go super slow, and be ridiculously careful, it would be hard to screw this up. I would go in increments of 100 with the sandpaper, full length up and down the neck. I think I probably in total did 700-800 ‘rotations’. Plus checking with the gauge every few hundred.

 

[Kyle am I]

Ive found that the bigger necks help train your left hand quicker. When i got my Rocket Roll RR50 my hand was killing me after 15 minutes because the neck is so big, after a few weeks it eased off and when i jumped over to my Wizard neck it was incredibly effortless to use.

Yes! Practicing on the AZ with 11s and going to the jem is a favorite pastime haha 😂

 

[Kyle am I]

Unplugged the 7VWH it is the less resonant and more trebbly guitar I have. Compared to the other Jems it’s the less acoustically sounding guitar. Surprisingly, when plugged it is the better sounding Jem I have. The reasons for this issue I think they are two: SS frets and Ernie Ball Cobalts 9-46 gauge strings. All my other guitars are nickel frets and are D’ Addario 9-42 gauge strings. I want to re-string my 7VWH with D’Addarios to check if Cobalt strings have anything to do with the weaker unplugged sound.

To sum up: If I had to refret that neck again I would give nickel 6100 frets a chance.

I think that the 17-19 mm neck has also something to do with that, but not too much, as the other wizard 777VDY resonates better unplugged and other factors like neck-to-body contact should be considered on this issue too.

It’s interesting you say that- I think the necks resonate so much more now. The resonant frequency of them is different now as well, wonder if that has anything to do with it.
Unplugged and thinner, less noise? Plugged in reacting with speakers, more lively? I feel it reacts more to resonating with the amp, with there being less resistance of material. It’s so obvious now when I’ve got the sustainer on even unplugged, how much more they vibrate/resonate..

also,check this out. The ‘replacement’ for my damaged 2019 serial NOS neck is so much yellower! It’s a 2020 serial.. almost wonder if I was sent a B stock neck. @Rich , any insight into this sort of thing? I wonder if I should just keep both..

 

[Kyle am I]

I’d like to do this to my PIA as it’s a little thick for my taste. My favorite neck out of any Ibanez I have is the RG Genesis and I’d like it to be closer to that.

I’ve learned using a magnet to gauge how far away the truss rod is is a good way to make sure you don’t go too far