New Aquisition!!

[Casper]

Well, I did it...
I sold my Bora HDT to a good friend and bought a new TA!
I got a Tobacco Fade Alder Classic with VA's and a .50 over 1 5/8 neck. This neck is a wet dream! Feels like a good Louiesville Slugger! (pics to follow soon)

Its amazing to me that I couldn't play the .30 over 11/16 neck, but the .50 over in 5/8 feels like heaven. I'm also amazed that I like the VA's now, I didn't years ago. the pull-add-bridge option is a smoking tone in the neck position! And they seem as powerful as my SD's!

So now I am a 2 classic player! This axe compliments my Swamp Ash Classic with SD's nicely. I will take pics and post later in the week......can't wait to get to the gig tonite!!!

Shaun

[Stan Malinowski]

Early this year I picked up a Classic with the +.050 over 1 5/8 nut. I love the 1 11/16 62 RB but found the +.050 over on the 1 5/8 to be just as you describe "a wet dream".

On the other hand I have always loved the VAs.

Congratulations on the new guitar, now you've got 2 of the 4 possible body wood/neck combinations. Let's see if you are as sick as me and go for all 4 combinations!:D

[Casper]

Thanks buddy!
I guess I'm just a 1 5/8 kinda guy. I love Droptops too, but my classic has been so great and I just felt like 2 would be even better. I am going to get a pearl pickguard for this thing, the mint guards kinda dull out the finish. I doubt I will go your route. (I'm not loaded :) I want a crowdster next.;)

Shaun

[Stan Malinowski]

Shaun,

One big differece between the 1 5/8 +.050 and the 1 11/16 +.030 would be in the amount of "shoulder" on the neck carve. Because of the smaller nut width the 1 5/8 neck would have more shoulder than the 1 11/16 neck you reference. Best way to visualize this is imagine the beack neck carve being extended to make a complete circle. Because of the smaller radius of the 1 5/8 larger neck depths will cause more wood (or shoulder) to be present on the upper and lower areas of the neck as you approach the fretboard from the back of the neck. This extra shoulder gives you that "clubiness" that you refer to.

[Casper]

Thats always been the thing with me, Stan. I've never known enough about details. I've mostly bought all of my Andys "off the rack" The 11/16th felt great for blues and for some rhythm stuff, but became harder to sustain heavy chording toward the nut.
It makes sense about what you told me..thanks!

[CJW]

This is a repost of a thread I started over at Birds and Moons. I tihnk it applies well to this discussion:

So - many of you know I've been unhappy with the feel on my BLE McRosie. My comment had been that the PRS W/F neck is neither wide nor fat.

Well, I learned something REALLY interesting today.

I was talking with Mr. Gretz, and I told him that my Strat feels like a baseball bat compared to the BLE. It's just so much wider.

Well, Jack smiles that "I know something" smile of his, and I said "What?.......WHAT?"

He said, the PRS neck is 1/16" WIDER than the Strat neck.

huh?

He explained something that makes total sense.

Let me show you this quickie graphic:

http://chrisw.echoes.net/neckshape.jpg

Let's also define words: shallow and thick refer to the depth of the neck, as if you drilled front to back through an inlay dot. Wide and thin refer to the width of the neck, across the fretboard.

Now, everyone knows that you can shave a neck along the blue line. Doing that, Jack explained, will make a neck FEEL thinner (across the frets, even though we haven't touched the width) because your palm profile is a wider radius because there is less wood in it..

BUT, if you shave a neck along the RED lines, making the neck a bit thinner (and not touching the depth), you'll also make it feel deeper because the neck will sit deeper in your hand.

He handed me a bass and said "Tell me what you think". I said "It feels really shallow - even though I know its not" He explained that it was because my hand was spread out wider, making my palm shallower, and giving the impression of thin, even though it was a chunky bass neck.

ESSENTIALLY, the wider a neck is, the shallower it feels. A thinner neck will feel deeper because your palm is in a deeper V to fit it.

To my issue: his suggestion was to shave the rosewood a few thousandths of a millimeter at a time - bringing the neck into more of the Strat profile I like, and feeling like a deeper neck.

As a plus, it will also give the neck more shoulder and bring it into the Santana profile I REALLY like.

The difference of a few thousandths can make a world of difference. The first time I picked up a RW neck, I asked Jack if it was a smaller neck. He said I was feeling the difference that the finish on a mahogany neck makes. The finish is only (I believe) 13/1000 of an inch, and yet the difference was completely obvious to me. So little changes can make a huge difference.

VERY interesting. I hope it made sense to you.

[dannopelli]

HEY MAN! Congrats on your new aquisition! That is a killer guitar! hope to see you Sunday.

[slowburn]

so because the maple neck on my retroclassic has like a laquer finish, is this thicker than a satin finish on the back of an anderson?

[Stan Malinowski]

CJW,

A GREAT post. You visually explained pretty much what my (sort of) confusing post was driving at. Thanks for the very understandable explanation of a topic which is very hard to verbalize.

[tom]

that is why our 1 11/16" 62 roundback is deeper than our 1 5/8" roundback. it would feel like a flat back if we didn't make it deeper.

[Dave M.]

Originally posted by tom
that is why our 1 11/16" 62 roundback is deeper than our 1 5/8" roundback. it would feel like a flat back if we didn't make it deeper.

Tom, how does the 1-11/16" 62 roundback differ from the 1-11/16" TA Std. and the 1-11/16" TA Std + .050" (or +.070") profiles, both dimensionally and in terms of profile (shoulder, V shaped, C shaped, U shaped, etc.)?
If this has been discussed before sorry for the redundancy. ;)

-Dave

Hope vacation is good! :)

[tom]

We have three basic neck profiles:

Tom Anderson Standard: our most popular neck profile is a slim, sleek silhouette with not a lot of depth change from the nut to the 12th fret. they start off .810" thick at the first fret, and have about .06" worth of taper. It is offered in two nut widths, 1 5/8" and 1 11/16". And if you prefer the feel of a bigger neck, we offer this same silhouette increased in depth by +.030, +.050, +.070 or +.100 of an inch.

62 Round Back: Slightly deeper than the Tom Anderson Standard at the nut, it starts at .830" thick at the first fret, it has quite a bit of depth change (taper) from nut to 12th fret, about .125". It is offered in two nut widths—1 5/8" and 1 11/16". The 1 11/16" also has a +.020 of-an-inch deeper backshape than the 1 5/8" version.
50’s V: is a "V" backshape. It is offered in two depths, small and large and one nut width—1 5/8". The small V is .850 at the first fret and goes up to .910" at the body joint, and is a soft V. the large V is .900" at the first fret, and about .970" at the joint, and is a sharper V.

Cobra Necks: We have 3 neck backshapes for our shorter, 24 ¾-inch scale length, Cobra.

Cobra Standard: Our most popular Cobra neck backshape is a medium depth backshape for just the perfect "not too big and not too small but just right" neck. It measures about .825 at the first fret, and has .09" taper.

TA CO: T/A Standard for Cobra. Same dimensions as our TA standard long scale neck.

62 Cobra: Our 62 Roundback, 1 11/16" silhouette for Cobra. same size as the 1 11/16" long scale neck.