I'm finally going to play the American Vintage '62 Strat guitar this weekend.

From what I understand - it has a smaller neck. Does this make it easier to "thumb" base notes for Hendrix tunes etc.....

I love this forum and played my 94 Strat for a while last night.

I love the thinner necks and it does help for the thumb over.

I'm so eager to try one of these bad boys!!!!! I cannot wait.

Some guys will tell you thumb over is not "proper" but I am self taught and that's one bad habit I'm glad I picked up.

The neck is not necessarily smaller. I've got two of them. My Olympic White model has a thicker, chunkier neck. My Sunburst model is quite a bit slimmer.

Every neck is different.

No, I think JH just had gigantic hands and fingers.

Well if truth be told, it don't matter what neck you have... My '69 Custom Shop says a 'U' shape, but I couldn't care less if it was C, V, D, U... hell even a B.
Without sounding 'snobbish', yes its a very good neck.. I had a go on one and the sound that came out of it was great.

EDIT: And replying to atolleter - Us self taught players seem to believe in ye' ol' thumb fretting thing and doing everything 'the wrong way'. But if it was good enough for you know who... Its good 'nough for me.

Jimmy - I've heard it said that the U (fat) neck yields better bass response. Would you agree with that?

As much as I'd like to help, I don't really look out for things like that. I really couldn't tell the difference from the 'bass response' from different neck shapes.