Hello, i was considering making my Fender Strat into a Kurt Cobain one but was disappointed to find out he uses rosewood fingerboard almost exclusively from what ive seen. My 2003 mim has a maple fingerboard but i was wondering where i can get a neck with a rosewood one that fits or if i even should or just trade for a rosewood fingerboard guitar and start from there?

How can i know if a neck or pickup will fit in my guitar? Ive seen pickguards that come with pickups already in them and wondered if that is because they won't fit the standard guitar or just a nice way for people who want a new look to have both?

Kurt Cobain is one of my favorite guitar heroes but i honestly dont know if the Seymour Duncan Hot rails he used in his Strats were easily installed or needed to be bored to fit?

From what else i know about him is that he supposedly used Dean Markley strings and i wanted to try and get as close to his strats as possible.

Pardon my obvious ignorance but i have literally zero experience with guitar modification and if someone knows a good book or website to explain this all i would GREATLY appreciate it, thanks.

ps how can you mod a mim to play like a usa?

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My lot:
2003 white/white Fender Strat mim
2007 natural ibanez af 105 hollow body
1991 ibanez 12 string acoustic
roland micro cube amp

You can buy rosewood strat necks from various online shops. Warmoth, allparts etc. but my favourite has to be reliable fender. Google it and you'll find a good ebay shop.


The easiest way is to take the strings off then remove the scratchplate and have a look. I can tell you though that a MIM is routed for atleast HSS (humbucker,singlecoil,singlecoil. So your all good for a humbucker in the bridge possition.



It takes a lot of work and time. Buy a usa neck off stratosphere/reliable fender. I recommend a highway1 neck. Cheaper than a standards neck and you get the big headstock for cobain mojo.

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No no and no

im having trouble finding a highway one neck, also...who is stratospher/reliable? Are those ebay dealers?

i cant find any highway one necks on ebay

the american ones are quite expensive..and the mims i see on sale dont have any serial numbers on the headstock, what's the deal with that?

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My lot:
2003 white/white Fender Strat mim
2007 natural ibanez af 105 hollow body
1991 ibanez 12 string acoustic
roland micro cube amp

Sometime in the last half of 08 mexico started putting the serial no's on the back of the headstock.
Heres a link to a 07 highway1 neck

[url] http://tinyurl.com/qgfe4c
[/url]

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No no and no

400 bucks for the neck? wow!! for that much i could buy a totally mint condition mim strat with a rosewood fingerboard and just add the duncan hot rails for alot cheaper.

Im torn, part of me wants to sell/trade my white mim for a rosewood fingerboard guitar but my gf tells me i should swap out the white pickups for american ones and keep it.

i would like to someday own both maple and rosewood fretboards but i am on a limited budget atm. The strings on my white mim are dead so if i was to upgrade pickups now would be the time, any suggestions?

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My lot:
2003 white/white Fender Strat mim
2007 natural ibanez af 105 hollow body
1991 ibanez 12 string acoustic
roland micro cube amp

Moddings always going to be expensive. I dont consider $400 too high a price for a american neck. If you were to put the time in on fretwork and side/rear shaping on your mexican neck you'd get quite near $400 in labour costs and still wouldnt have the rosewood board you want.

You should change strings every 36 hours of playtime, roughly. If the pickup;s there then do it now.

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No no and no

nikininja, would these be good for my mim strat?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Fender-Stratocaster ... 286.c0.m14

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My lot:
2003 white/white Fender Strat mim
2007 natural ibanez af 105 hollow body
1991 ibanez 12 string acoustic
roland micro cube amp

I had a MIM strat with a maple neck and wanted a rosewood neck for a project I was doing. I just put an ad on craigslist seeing if anyone wanted to swap necks. Most people would rather have Maple, so I got someone responding right away.

So if you don't mind the years not matching up (now I have a 2006 body and a 2002 neck) might be worth trying.

Yeah 57/62s are great pickups. I dont think your gonna get a decent grunge/kobain sound from em. I'd look for a dimarzio super ditortion humbucker for that, if i was you.

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No no and no

Oh i wasnt expecting too, i had pretty much given up on making a cobain strat but wanted to possibly upgrade the white mim.

the previous poster had a neat idea which was to possibly try and trade my neck for one with a rosewood fingerboard. So, the way i see it i have 2 choices at present.

1. Try and trade my maple fingerboard neck for a rosewood one and build a cobain strat on this guitar.

2. Just upgrade this one with a totally different pickup that will be good but nowhere near the nirvana sound.

That's why i asked about those classic pickups because if i wasnt going to make a cobain one i wanted to upgrade my mim with a totally different tone and then eventually get another strat to create a cobain one.

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My lot:
2003 white/white Fender Strat mim
2007 natural ibanez af 105 hollow body
1991 ibanez 12 string acoustic
roland micro cube amp

In my experience what you need to do is decide what your going for then go for it. Its very easy to get caught up modding and you end up modding for the sake of it. Trust me i been there.
57/62's are great pickups but so are others. What kind of sound do you want? Until you can clearly answer that question with 100% certainty, dont get the screwdriver out. You'll waste money. Theres pickups and parts out there to suit everyone and everything. Cos of that it can be a minefield and needs negotiating carefully.

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No no and no

Ive heard the 57 62 pickups on youtube and thought they sounded pretty sweet on a clean setting. I probably wont decide right away exactly what im going to do but odds are i will try and listen/learn about as many pickups as possible before i select one.

If i dont make this one a cobain strat ive thought about possibly making a highway one hss into a cobain strat for a variety of reasons. I love the big headstock and since it already has a space for a humbucker i would just need to swap it out for the seymour duncan that Kurt used.

Kurt did use an all white strat like my mim but it had 3 single coil duncan hot rails and the rosewood fingerboard.

I could replicate that strat fairly easy if i just acquired a rosewood fingerboard neck and the pickups. Im such an enormous fan i will probably try and create both his white and black strats, (only the all black one).

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My lot:
2003 white/white Fender Strat mim
2007 natural ibanez af 105 hollow body
1991 ibanez 12 string acoustic
roland micro cube amp

I have one more question, how do people who work on guitars charge? By the hour or by the part you want installed?

Let's say i want a different neck, pickups, strings and properly set up does it go by each piece, by the hour or every tech guy is different?

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My lot:
2003 white/white Fender Strat mim
2007 natural ibanez af 105 hollow body
1991 ibanez 12 string acoustic
roland micro cube amp

Don't go with reliable fender, they are way too over priced!

just search around, im sure you can find something good, just don't buy the first one you see, shop around.

thanks for the advice ryan, im prob gonna check CL first and see if i can swing a trade and if no goes maybe consider buying a rosewood fingerboard neck.

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My lot:
2003 white/white Fender Strat mim
2007 natural ibanez af 105 hollow body
1991 ibanez 12 string acoustic
roland micro cube amp