Fender Neck Roasted Maple Strat

This is a really, really nice MIM neck. With just one thing to watch out for.
I'm building a Partscaster at the moment and wanted something a little different than rosewood or Pau Ferro. Naturally, at such a price, I thought I'd give a roasted maple neck a try.

I don't usually like maple necks as the high gloss finish on the rear of the neck is something I don't enjoy. However, this neck has a wonderful satin finish, sanded perfectly. Really nicely done, the jumbo frets are all perfect, can't complain there. Fit was perfect with an aftermarket body.

One thing I would warn potential buyers of is the fact that this neck comes with an uncut nut. The nut is marked (actually barely marked on the top two strings) and far, far too high. This meant I had to scrabble around trying to find a set of nut files. Nut files aren't cheap, and you only use them a few times, so bear this in mind.

The nut was far too high as well. After some fruitless filing - a lot of fruitless filing - I decided to replace the nut with a Tusq one. Of course, when you replace a nut, if you want a good setup, you still need recourse to a set of nut files.

I'm really, really happy with this neck and can recommend it to anyone, but it's not a drop in replacement (hence one star off) - you'll need to be experienced in cutting nuts, and they're never easy to get right. The rest of the setup went perfectly, you'll need a 3/16" Allen key for the neck relief adjustment as this is an MIM neck and not the usual 1/8" US pattern.

There are some out there who claim that roasted maple is more brittle to work with, and can easily ding or dent: my tuners went on fine and fitting twin string trees presented no problem, in fact, it's really nice to work with.

Highly recommended (with the above caveat) and unbeatable at the price. If you want a high quality, well priced, slightly different neck, you'll be very happy with this one.

Fabulous 60’s profile neck with medium jumbo frets. Satin neck is nice to play and has given a new lease of life to my neglected 90’s MIM Fender strat.

The only downside was that the nut is not fully cut, just started which seems to be normal on all Fender after market necks. I was on the verge of returning it as I didn’t want to spend a fortune on fret files or luthier costs. After some googling I tried the home made method of creating fret files by cutting notches in some feeler gauges. Does the job very well. Take your time a little bit at a time, it’s not too difficult. Apparently the hardest part of cutting a nut is the starting, which is done for you here.