Restoration of a 1962 Fender Stratocaster
Part 3 - Deconstruction
The Neck
- Full Neck Full Neck Back
- Full length shot. Not the best picture. Good view of the Brazilian board.
- Dots 01, Dots 02 , Dots 03
- Great shots of the dots. Clay dots are made of a paste. When Fender leveled the board they stopped at a fairly rough grit. Lines are left in the dots. Sometimes the dots appear to "rise". The wood has shrunk and the dots have not. This board and dots have all the markings of an original neck.
I recreate these dots by recreating the paste. It was Ivorine. No longer made so I make my own. Its not clay nor is it asbestos floor tiles. These pictures demonstrate an original, beautifully. Picture 3 also shows the Brazilian well.
- Decal 01 Decal 02 Decal 03
- Correct Decal for the date stamp.
- Headstock 01 Headstock 02
- Headstock shape. Necks were finished by hand. The overall shape and contours are pretty consistent within a certain "style". You can really tell these old necks from newer CNC machined pieces. Jig hole by the D tuner present. Template to route the outline was screwed to the wood with 2 screws or pins. One on the back of headstock, one on heel. Some fakers get this wrong. The distance from center to center is obviously ALWAYS the same as the Maple was shaped to the jig its screwed onto.
- Neck Date Heel Tan Line and Side Dots Treble side tan line Heel Transition 12th fret side dots
- The neck date stamp. Right font and ink. Heel shows Jig hole. The two small parallel indents (in the center) are on many heels. I am unsure what this is. Perhaps a defect on the metal template attached to the maple for shaping. Note the clay side dots. 1/3rd into the rosewood. The back of this neck was oversprayed. Long ago but clearly different layers. The 12th Fret side dots; to the best of my knowledge these were drilled by a human in a regular drill press. Some argue about the "spacing" at the 12th etc. There is no such thing in my experience. The spacing varies, closer to the frets, closer together - there is no set spacing.