Conference napalm::guitar

    
    One thing you lose with a graphite neck is a truss rod, and the ability
    to adjust neck relief.  Basically, what you see is what you get
    forever.  Depending on your playing style and string gauges, you may
    not like the kind of action you can get.  On basses I've tried with
    graphite necks, there are no dead spots like on a wooden neck. 
    
    							Brian

    The appeal of the graphite neck is that it's supposed to provide
    greater consistency as it doesn't change with temperature and humidity
    like a wooden neck does.  It's a much stiffer material, not so subject
    to environmental issues and can also be produced thinner without loss
    of structural integrity while still maintaining fairly light weight. 
    If I remember right, it's also more dense which should increase sustain
    somewhat.

    I didn't realize that there was no truss rod in one.  However, if the
    relief is correctly set to begin with and the neck doesn't flex with
    different gauge strings, there would be no need for it.  The purpose of
    the truss rod is to allow the bend in the neck produced by the string
    tension to be compensated for, if the neck is suitably stiff that the
    string tension does not bend it, then the truss rod is not necessary.

    I've never played with one myself.  The price of a Modulus(sp?) guitar
    is way out of my range, so I never tormented myself (on the chance that
    I'd fall in love with it).  I did play a Washburn electric once that
    had a graphite fretboard (or so I was told).  I hated it!  Felt like
    cheap plastic.

    BTW, where's the ad in the GP issue (I presume you mean the issue with
    Pete Townsend on the cover)?

    Greg

    Thanks for the info.  I kind of suspect that the lack of truss rod is
    probably not a real big issue of the neck is suitably stiff to begin
    with.  My Hagstrom Swede doesn't have a neck adjustment (just a flat
    bar running down a hollow neck), and I've gone from extra lights, to
    lights, to mediums for slide & the neck never budged.  The ad was in
    the August issue of GP (the one with the guy who holds his guitar funny
    on it), toward the back.  Having worked withe graphite fiber at various
    times, I do have confidence in its strength and stiffness, I'm mainly
    wondering about it's feel (I love the feel of the maple neck I have
    now, but one of those black necks would really look cool on my
    black-on-black strat 8^)

    I'd wonder what kind of a fretboard and the shape of the neck.  That 
    determines the feel for me.  I can deal with finished, unfinished,
    whatever on the back of the neck, but I don't like finished fretboards. 
    I also don't like baseball bat thickness necks (Teles drive me nuts).
    
    I tend to like ebony and rosewood fretboards, but not so much maple
    ones (probably because they usually have a sticky gloss finish on them. 
    Like I said before, that Washburn felt like a piece of plastic.  I
    couldn't live with it.
    
    I always thought that the Modulus guitars looked cool though.  I'd
    definately want to play something new like that before I bought it!
    
    Greg

    re [.-1] : From the picture, which means nothing, of course, it looked
    like it was graphite through and through.  Personally, Ebony is my
    favorite, followed by maple and then rosewood, but, I, too, can't stand
    a thick neck.  Funny you should mention teles, though.  I used to have
    a white early '60s strat with a late '50s tele neck on it.  The neck was
    nice and slender, and over the years I always assumed that all teles
    were like that, and that all strats were like rowboat oars, 'cause
    that's what all the other strats I played on felt like.  A couple of
    weeks ago I picked up a Fernandes Strat, with the intention of trying
    to track down a tele neck for it, but found that the Fernandes neck
    felt perfect.  Since it's supposed to be a fairly accurate copy of an
    older strat, and considering your remarks about tele necks, , I 
    assume that not all teles have necks as thin as mine was, and not 
    all strats are as clubby as the ones I've had the misfortune to play.
    							joe

    Hmmm...
    
    That's very interesting.  I always heard that Fender had a lot of
    difference in the necks for the same model.  This certainly
    demonstrates it.
    
    All the Teles I've played recently had necks as thick as a whole tree,
    but I remember playing a Tele several years ago that I loved at the
    time.  I thought that it must have just been before I developed my
    taste for neck preference (it was when I first started playing) and/or
    I didn't remember it right.
    
    I have a Strat that has a nice slender neck that feels real good to me,
    but I did play a Strat with a "club neck" once.  Yuck-o!  
    
    I guess that's why people talk about having to have the necks on their
    Fenders shaved down to make them playable, huh?
    
    Greg

        I did notice that Warmoth offers their necks in a thicker profile.
    so I suppose there ARE some misguided souls out there who actually LIKE
    thick necks ;-)    Andre-the-giant-guitar-player, perhaps.

    I'd like to find an electric guitar with a 2 1/8 wide neck like my
    Ramirez. Medium baseball thickness.