That Dream Guitar: Finishing The Neck Design

I'm feeling really good about this Tremol-No idea. Ideally, I should be ordering and trying out the Tremol-No with my gear at home before ordering the body of the guitar. I was dead set on ordering the body this month as I've mentioned this window of opportunity where I can swing the cash, but I took a second look and it turns out that the neck itself will cost about $100 more than the body. Seems smarter to order the neck first so I can work with that Tremol-No piece before making hard decisions about the body.

I called Warmoth and got some answers to some of questions in my Neck's Specs blog entry. Warmoth's "Unique Choice" feature allows a person placing an order to pick a specific plank of wood "for those who just can't take their hands off of the remote control". I'm set on ordering the 3A birdseye maple for the neck and fingerboard; I trust that they will do a good job and leave it at that. No need to pay extra to choose the individual wood plank(s).

As for the Floyd Rose prep, R3 definitely seems to be the industry standard to match with the 1 11/16" nut width and 10" radius. Warmoth's site asks for the user to differentiate between the standard neck prep with mounting holes, which means drilling two holes through the neck to mount the R3 nut, or "shelf only", which means that smaller screws are meant to hold the nut down on the top side. It was strongly recommended that I go with the mounting holes for more strength, and I have no problem with going for that since I'll be assembling the guitar myself.

I'm about 99 percent sure I will be ordering the peg holes to fit a black 6-in-line Schaller set. There are more machine head versions of theirs than I care to know about; I just want whatever is considered their standard since I will be locking strings at the nut anyway.

Schaller's "Ruthenium" color choice, but of course I'm going with black. You get the idea.

...That leaves the binding and the dot inlays. I've been scoping out photos of binding for maple-on-maple necks and I'm just not inspired. Black binding works with black block inlays (like on the Geddy Lee Jazz Bass), but I think both would detract from the look of that premium 3A birdseye maple. The inlays aren't that much of a priority that I should want some exotic look for them (although black mother of pearl does look pretty sweet); I simply want to match the look with the rest of the guitar. So that means black dot inlays, with no binding. I'm expecting the birdseye wood grain to be served well by this simplicity.

I should be ordering the neck this week!

These days I'm thinking about adding some additional embellishments to the guitar.

I want to add a couple custom decals for both the front and backside of the headstock. On the back I want the number 15 encircled, because this guitar will commemorate 15 years of playing after I started at age 15 (by my 30th birthday next year, remember).

...A quick Google image search pulled up something very close to what I'm looking for.

Since my first entry, I've really taken a liking to naming the guitar Big Riff, and I'm considering having a label made in whatever original font is featured on the cover of Cave In's Jupiter record. The label would take the place of a traditional Fender logo. Additionally, I want the satellite featured on the same cover to occupy the circular end of the headstock. I need to find someone, preferably local, who can/will do this kind of custom work.