Haywire Custom Guitars-Neck Replacement and Back Contours Haywire Custom Guitars Neck Replacement and Back Contours-You Can Choose from Super Wide and Fat Guitar Necks to Thin and Slim Haywire Custom Shop Guitar Neck Replacement and Back Contours Options  The following three paragraphs are also in the "neck shaving" section as well but bear repeating here. Neck thickness should be chosen for what best fits your hands, not the "tone" it has.  That should be the major consideration in the choice of your new neck.  The timbre of a fat neck is noticeable however, most of the tone comes from your playing technique-not the wood.  On an electric guitar  tones are affected by everything from the pickups and amplification to pedals,  picks, string gauge and speaker enclosures.  In a live playing situation "wood tones" in an electric guitar will become even less noticeable.  The overall sound of your guitar may be noticeably affected by a fatter/ thicker neck but generally only when you are playing without the guitar plugged in to an amp.  So remember high gain electric guitar tone is very much dependent on a players technique, control and comfort with his instrument and not the thickness of a neck. However, comfort affects your playing ability, which is an important factor your in technique.  Neck tone is an issue that no empirical evidence has ever put to rest. Start with finding a guitar you love to play with a neck that makes playing a joy.  Then, either send us the specs or simply send your neck to us at the Haywire Custom Shop and we'll duplicate it for you. Guitar Neck Back Contours Back Contour is the profile or grip shape of the neck.  How much wood does it take to fill up your hand?  Too little equates to quicker hand fatigue. Too much is even worse, you can't reach around it. Do you play thumb over?  Check out your favorite guitar and compare its neck thickness, (fingerboard face to the back of the neck), to the ones below. Standard Back Contours 1st fret 12th fret Similar back contours 0.800" 0.850" Fender® American Standard Strat or Tele 1.0" 1.0" Vintage Tele® (52 Reissue) 1.0" 1.0" Vintage Fender® Deep U Custom Neck Back contours 1st fret 12th fret Similar back contours 0.835" 0.970" Asymmetric contour Early Fender® Stevie Ray Vaughn signature Strat 0.850" 0.940" Early Fender® Eric Clapton signature Strat 0.815" 0.940" Asymmetric contour Peavey® Wolfgang® 0.750" 0.820" Ibanez® Wizard II neck 0.860" 0.960" 1959 Gibson® Les Paul All product names used in this webpage are trademarks of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or affiliated with Haywire Custom Guitars, Inc. These trademarks of other manufacturers are used solely to identify the products of those manufacturers whose dimensions were studied during product development. In other words, credit where credit is due. Thanks to Warmoth Guitar Products for providing this very informative back profile chart. At Haywire, we are experienced builders of custom electric guitar and bass and have a large selection of standard classic and customized replacement parts for whatever your special guitar playing need  may require.  We match modern technology with world class craftsmanship to create great playing and sounding instruments. In some cases, it may be better to replace a guitar neck rather than replacing the entire guitar. Cracking finishes, worn frets and warping fret boards are common ailments of guitar necks and replacing a bolt-on or bolt-in guitar neck is often a considerably less expensive option than repairing the damage or replacing the whole guitar. When the time comes, Haywire Custom Shop can replace your neck for you.  We listen-we hear you! We’ll help you with the following: 1-Help you decide on the best materials, neck profile for your technique, comfortable frets, finish and nut for your style. We can use your existing tuners or replace and upgrade them as necessary. 2- In performing a 4-axis alignment of the guitar neck your new guitar neck will be checked and adjusted to be true and straight to ensure proper alignment on all 4 axis.  This step ensures proper action and allows for more accurate and easier guitar tuning and playing.  A full set-up will then be performed in the following steps. 3- We level and polish the frets to insure that all of the guitar frets are level, eliminating any possibility of fret buzz due to unevenness. 4- Next, we radius the guitar strings.  Most guitar necks have a curved contour over the top of the neck called the radius. We adjust the strings to make sure the height of each string perfectly follows the contour of your guitar neck.  Once we determine the contour and then set the radius of the guitar strings, it’s time to adjust the overall height of the strings from the top of the frets to the bottom of the guitar strings accurately. 5- At this point we can re-check the overall guitar string height and the action all while maintaining the radius just created.  The truss rod adjustment is then able to be made here.  The strings will be parallel all the way down the fret board and neck straight. 6- The last step is to set the guitar intonation.  This step is done twice.  The intonation is set two times with a 24 hour "seat-in" period in between to allow the guitar to properly re-seat and settle in with the new adjustments.  Ordering From Haywire Custom Guitars If you would like to order this or any other custom guitar, pleasecontact usand we will be happy to discuss your guitar needs. The total Neck Replacement Option cost is only $75 plus return shipping and the cost of your neck. ...read more

Haywire Custom Guitars on Flickr   Brace Yourself  For A Look At Lots Of Haywire Custom Guitars on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/haywirecustomguitars/ Ordering From Haywire Custom Guitars If you would like to order this or any other custom guitar, pleasecontact usand we will be happy to discuss your guitar needs. ...read more

Why Is My Acoustic Guitar So Hard to Play? I Just Bought It! I Just Bought This Acoustic  Guitar and It's Un-Playable!   The problem with a NEW guitar especially an acoustic is that it's NEW! A new acoustic leaves the factory with very high action and it is not meant to be played until it's set up correctly. It's stiff, tight, hard to play and makes your fingers hurt. The store is supposed to tell you-but sometimes they don't know because no one told THEM.  The guitar factories typically put out guitars day after day and they never know who it's going to end up with them. They'll say, "Well, we don't set them with low action because we don't know if possibly a slide player, who for the most part like higher action, may purchase it".  Sure we get that. However you really need to relay that kind of info to the stores and players and perhaps give them an option to have a similar model side by side with it to be set up for lower action so customers have a choice-high or low action. We get calls like this all the time from customers indicating-"Hey, it's NEW". "Why is it so hard to play?" So....what does an acoustic player do?  The best way to deal with it is to contact an independent custom guitar shop to have the action set exactly, where they need it to be.  In ourCustom Shop in South Carolinawe typically have the customerdrop it offor ship it with instructions on how he wants it to play, we'll work on it. When he or she comes back to pick it up-we'll ask them to test it out. If it's fine-that's great! If it needs more work to make it comfortable for them then we'll tweak anything that needs to be done to get it where they want it to be while they're right there to test it so they won't have to come back again with the same problem. While a NEW acoustic can look beautiful on the wall in the store it may need lots of work to get it where the players needs it to be. An acoustic guitar should play with ease and sound great.  The player shouldn't need to think about the difficulty of playing but rather about entertaining and getting their musical point across and creating the mood for the gig. There is hope. You don't have to sell your guitar or return it but you need to have it set up properlyfor YOUR style of playing to be happy. We'll do it for you, just bring it in.  Typically a day turnaround time will get you going and playing comfortably and your fingers will thank you.   Haywire Custom Shop 843-347-5742 ...read more