Neck through construction

[VitaminG]

Middle one shows wood that would be wasted in shaping down from body to neck thickness.

I think this is key. Look at how much wastage there is in that middle pic if the entire through piece was carved from one piece of wood. It would be time consuming, cause more wear on tools and they'd be paying for a unsellable hunk of wood they would be sweeping up at the end of the day.

[surfreak]

Well, looking at Jackson's concept of "neck through" as shown in the green Kelly pic, it does look like it is purely driven by cost cutting.

The scarf joint may be structurally stronger, but it is really a cheaper way to build an angled headstock neck. There are plenty of high end guitar builders that don't use a scarf joint but instead shape the neck from a single piece of quartersawn wood: according to them this makes for an equally strong neck joint, but with better tone transfer.

Likewise, the Jackson neck through is cheaper to build, it might be structurally stronger than a "true" neck through, but it does affect body resonance.

[mjtripper]

I'm coming in to this thread late but one thing to remember is modern wood glues are actually stronger then the wood they bond - if the joint is glued correctly that is. A well done neck though or set neck is technically stronger then a bolt but a bolt is more then strong enough for the tension put on it. I prefer neck through or shaped set neck guitars for the comfort factor but there are some bolts out there that are really approaching that level of comfort.

[soulquake]

I had a RR1t Korina natural and I think it was a one piece wood in the neck...

[Grim]

I had a RR1t Korina natural and I think it was a one piece wood in the neck...

Bravo. Your amazing deductive powers fail to come to a conclusion, and you resurrect a 7 month old thread.

[86barettaguy]

the hole does not affect structural integrity any more than it would for a bolt-on. but most people here already told you that, didn't they? yes, the rout does result in higher stress levels compared to a fixed-bridge design. As do the pickup routs compared to a guitar with no pickups. You could calculate the stresses and enjoy the days needed to do that, but it would be sort of pointless.