Thanks to some advice/info from member Xhefri, I went out and bought a CIJ 1962 Foto Flame neck for my '89 Strat. In an attempt to replace the original warped neck, I went through a maple Road Worn 50s neck, and then a newer American Standard neck I traded the Road Worn for. Neither felt quite right. I liked the soft V of the 50s neck, but the frets were too big for my style and I really wanted rosewood for this guitar. The American Standard felt exactly the same as the old one, but felt too skinny after the Road Worn. Plus after all my troubles with the original neck, I had sworn off skinny, warp-o-matic, double-action rod-equipped necks.

ANYWAYS, I heard the CIJ necks were the closest in spec to the original '62 necks, so I figured I'd give one a try. Got a great deal on this Foto-flame neck, and for once I think I've found my perfect neck! This thing is super-chunky, especially as you get to the upper frets. Really comfortable feel, and because of the vintage radius it's still easy to do thumb-over stuff. Nice having vintage frets again, too. For any doubters, the Foto-Flame finish looks FANTASTIC in real life. Unless you knew what was going on, it'd be really hard to tell it isn't actually flame maple. Yes, there is a "Hamburgler", lol. Beautifully dark slab of rosewood, too. This thing plays silky smooth, it fit the neck pocket nice and tight, and man, this guitar resonates like crazy now. I swear it's louder acoustically than lots of thin-body cutaway "acoustics" out there. With the Seymour Duncan 60s pickups and this neck, for all practical purposes this beat-up old American Standard sounds and feels like a pre-CBS Strat now. I love it! Next up, vintage string saddles.

Sweet, and there's the Hamburgler right above the string tree!

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Hah, I did not catch that one. Good eyes!

It's on every photo flame, body or neck, at least once. The flame really is a photo overlay, not in the wood. They actually did a good job, but the pattern sample wasn't very big, the pattern repeats,a lot.

I wonder how much that effect gets used by other companies? That looks so good, and there has been a long stretch of time to improve the process.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.