Re: Fender style neck: One piece vs/ two piece
I have always wanted to try a maple-slab-board Strat neck.
The easy way to tell if a neck has a slab board is the absence of a skunk stripe on the back of the neck.
On a rosewood boarded neck, you can tell because of the, uh, rosewood board. :laughing:
Clarification: there is no skunk stripe on slab board necks because the luthier can insert the truss rod before the fretboard is glued down. On a one piece, the luthier must cut a channel to install the truss rod, and, of course, they do this on the back of the neck, then replace the lost material from the route with a "skunk stripe" of darker wood.
I have had both a rosewood slab boarded maple neck, and a one piece all maple (with skunk stripe) neck on my Strat and liked the one piece all-maple better.
It was always fuller, more energetic, despite being a tad thinner / less full bodied than my rosewood slab neck.