The Headstock: Go Big Or Go Home

I have a window of opportunity in July to purchase the body of the guitar, which will cost me $405 without any hardware.  (I just dropped $555 on a community college math class last week, so for those who may be concerned, please understand where my priorities are.)  Before I do that, though, the plan is to get that Floyd Rose D-tuna piece in as soon as possible and try it out with my floating Jackson setup.  This will help settle my mind on whether or not I will ask Warmoth for that extra custom routing job on the top of the body.

The rest of the pieces will be ordered in increments over the next six to nine months.  The Sustainiac and the Floyd Rose bridge each will cost over $200.  The Duncan Distortion TB-6 will cost about $80.  I'm expecting the pickguard and hardware(s) together to cost me about $60.

The last thing for the design phase, then, is to choose what features I want for the neck.

Oh boy.  I thought this was going to be the easiest part.  Definitely not.

SO.  If I'm going to have a maple body, it only follows that I would have a maple neck with a maple fretboard.  I haven't owned a guitar with a maple neck fretboard and in the past few years I've been interested in trying it out, given my playing style.

Let's take one step back.  I recently acquired this old Charvel Strat from my buddy Andy.  He's had it kicking (and kicked) around his practice space for a long time.  We think it's from the early '90s.  He wanted to sell it, so I agreed to take it home and clean it up for him.  It was DISGUSTING.  Years and layers of dirt, oil, dried sweat, cobwebs, and who-knows-what-else caked on it and in all of the crevices.  I completely dismantled the bridge and got rust off of all of the individual parts with WD-40 and a toothbrush.  Something rotten was all over the neck and fretboard, so I cleaned that up, too.  I put everything back together and while it still could never be sold for more than $50, it turned out to be a somewhat playable and fun guitar.  This would be perfect to put some stickers on and throw it around in a punk band.

Andy agreed to let me have this Charvel.  I still owe him a portion of a nice bottle of Japanese whiskey that I've got.  Fair trade.

I've been banging out some power chords on this thing at home and paying attention to how its maple neck affects the tone.  Bright and...  spanky.  Is spanky a word?  That's the best description I can come up with.  The strings practically jump off of the fretboard.  I like the lively feel of this guitar and would be happy to implement it into a much higher-quality instrument like what I'm expecting with Big Riff.  Not as much sustain as my neck-through Jackson, but that's a given.

Right off the bat, Warmoth's custom build portion of their website forces The Issue:

Traditional Strat headstock style...

or 1970's CBS fat headstock style.

When I was fifteen and learning to play on my Squier Affinity Strat, I was unimpressed at the time with the large headstock and wondered if/when I would own a "real" Fender with the normal headstock.  But then I got away from Fenders altogether, and years later, I now know the story of CBS's ownership of the guitar brand and the change in the Strat headstock design.

My inner Romantic is scratching its head.  Do I move away from my old Squier years and CBS headstock (which I covered up with an American flag sticker) or do I boast it loud and proud?

Enter my next guitar hero: Billy Corgan.

Say what you will about his, erm, eclectic range of interests (pro wrestling, tea, animal shelters, etc.), but this man is carrying the torch for not only the '90s alternative rock we know and love, but '70s big arena rock and prog as well.  With the drama of the first incarnation of the Smashing Pumpkins long over, Corgan is still committed to the passion of the electric guitar.  His main guitar approach is usually based around some combination of a Marshall [or Diezel these days] half-stack, a fuzz box...  and a Stratocaster with that big headstock.  There's just something big and defiant about it.

Strike the power stance, bend a wide note, be as loud as possible.  I'm getting the CBS headstock.

More on the neck design in my next post.  For now, enjoy some of the classic fuzz that helped to define a generation: