Tym Ric style aluminium neck

Back in the days before the Munchkin and so much repair work, I used to make guitars. That's how all this started really.

I hand made over 100 guitars in a ten year period between '98 and 2008 but haven't really had the time to do it lately. This was my forth aluminium neck guitar that was based on one of my favorite manufacturers.


The main difference, except for the aluminium neck is, of course, it's a solid body based on the 300 Ric shape. The body is solid pine (one of my favorite solid body timbers) with the "slash" F hole running all the way through. It's a fairly thick body but weight is kept down by it being pine.

This was a mixture of lots of features that I love in a guitar. The light body, the aluminium neck, the wraparound bridge/tailpiece and the "Jr" style one single coil P-90 style pickup.


 


My records show I made this in 2004 and being the forth version of neck it was getting lighter (and thinner) with each progressive make. All my aluminium necks are thin, but this one and number five are very thin. I like thin necks and I didn't see the point in making a metal neck, and then making it thick like my Travis Bean ?

It's very similar to #3 but lighter and better balanced. The neck on #2 was slightly thicker and by this stage I had hollowed out the back of the headstock a little more to save on weight.


  


The fretboard is Jarrah and the scale is 24.75" which is my favorite scale and I think works well with the aluminium neck. The extra "stiffness" of the metal gives this shorter scale a little more "tone"I also use zero frets on most of my guitars as to me,they make so much sense and I like the fact that open strings sound the same as fretted strings as there's a consistency without the nut.

As my necks have a "tongue" that extends under the neck pickup, so I can set them out of the body further (stolen from Mosrite) I used a plate with the Tym logo on it to cover this ala Maton. The neck is threaded and bolted on using hex head machine bolts.


  


The pick up is one of my Wosrite (Mosrite style) single coils wound way too hot with just a volume and output jack. The tone, like most aluminium necked guitars is "slightly" metallic but not as much as most people would think. The timber fretboard probably helps a little to "soften" it up slightly. They sustain better than nearly anything you can think of and the vibration that runs down the neck is .......... odd at first but I think feels GREAT.

As most of you know I'm a huge fan of aluminium necks (and composites of most kinds) for guitars and it's nice to see companies like the Electrical Guitar Company catching up and making metal necks "almost" acceptable in the modern guitar world, at least in the alternative guitar world.

 

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