Re-shaping a guitar neck & refretting with Evo Gold fretwire

A customer recently asked me to reshape the neck of one of his guitars. The guitar was a Stratocaster type guitar, a well put together guitar, made up using various components. But compared with another Strat that he owns he found the neck to be a little too thick and chunky. As this work was a little unusual I decided to use this this opportunity to make a video about re-shaping a guitar neck.

We looked at the Strat and I took measurement of the thickness of the neck at the 1st and 12th fret. We also compared the shape of his Strat neck to a couple of other Strats that I had in the workshop at the time. In the end it was agreed that the reshaped neck should measure 20mm at the 1st fret and 22.5mm at the 12th fret.

We also talked about refretting the guitar. The existing frets were quite narrow and low, what are often referred to as vintage style frets. I showed him one of my custom guitars that is fretted using Evo Gold fretwire. He decided to go with that type of fretwire.

Rather than re-spray the neck with lacquer, the neck was finished with a few coats of wipe-on poly. This has a similar feel to a neck that has been given an oil finish.

For me this was an interesting project that presented a number of challenges. The main challenge was not re-shaping a guitar neck but meeting customer expectations. Would the re-shaped neck feel like the customers’ other Strat? Your hands can detect all those subtle differences in neck profile.

So I decided to make a video which shows most of the key stages of this project. You can watch the video by clicking on the video link in this page.

The customer, Rob, kindly agreed to be filmed in my workshop when he came to collect his guitar. Fortunately he was very happy with the final shape and feel of the neck. He also has an interesting reaction to playing Evo Gold fretwire for the first time.

If you would like to know more about fretwork and refretting at Flame Guitars please visit my fretwork page.

And feel free to contact me should you want to discuss having any type of work done on your guitar.