Warwick Necks

[Auctopus]

Hey,
Does anyone know if I can take the neck off of a Corvette and put it on another Corvette?

The reason I ask is because I bought a Custom Shop $$ with a 32" medium scale neck but hate to say I don't like the $$ pickup configuration. I'm just not digging the pups that close together.

I was thinking of buying a Corvette standard and just switching the necks because after playing the 32" medium scale neck I can't go back to the standard 34.

Also, what year did Warwick stop making the Corvette Standards in Germany? Thanks

 

[MaxOnBass]

for the Vette standard series, if I am not mistaken, they were moved this year out of Germany.

 

[Auctopus]

Thanks

 

[Mr Praline]

You can not just switch the necks, as the scale also changes bridge placement etc.

 

[Auctopus]

Didn't think of that. Thought bridge placement would be in the same spot on all Corvette's. Thought scale change was due to the length of the neck lick in this case my neck is shorter than the standard 34". thanks

 

[Auctopus]

LIKE not lick

 

[jester]

The bridge is positioned slightly closer to the pickups for 32" medium scale basses. It is possible that you will run into intonation problems, although it could work fine with the adjustment range of the bridge...

 

[james brunnning]

i have swaped necks before you might have to do a little work to get the neck to fit tight but there shouldn't be any real problems.

 

[Auctopus]

Thanks, I guess the only way to know for sure is to just do it and find out.

 

[Grgzilla]

I dont think this is going to work.
The 32" scale bass has 24 frets,so does the 34" scale.The difference is the length of the neck,rather than fewer frets.

 

[nputtick]

Hi

this looked like a challenge, so having recently designed and built a bass, I just had to think about it.

32" scale length = 813mm ... distance from 24th fret to bridge = 1/4 of that = 203.25mm

34" scale length = 864mm ... distance from 24th fret to bridge = 1/4 of that = 216mm

This ignores compensation, so gives approximately the bridge saddle position for the G string on a 4 string bass

If the distance from the 24th fret to the end of the neck is the same in both cases (I think this is very likely)

Then the bridge is 12.75 mm closer to the neck on the 32" scale instrument

On my Corvette standard, I have only 6mm adjustment left if I wanted to move the G string bridge saddle towards the neck

Therefore your suggestion will not work, and you can save yourself the trouble of actually trying.

The only way would be to plug the bridge rout, re-rout it, and probably paint the body. Or - get luthier to make a matching body with the bridge rout in the correct position, or even build it yourself (this is perfectly possible - with only basic skills but a good teacher and hand power tools I have recently built a neck through bass).

Hope this helps!

Nigel

 

[nputtick]

However looking at the photo of your instrument (I assume that is the 32" $$), the neck joins the body at the 18th fret - a photo of a standard 32" corvette shows the neck to body join at the 19th fret. This raises another possibility - that the bridge is in the same position on the body on both 32" and 34" scale instruments, but that the neck pocket extends further into the body wood on the 32", bringing the 24th fret the necessary 13mm closer to the bridge.

In this case, it may be possible to re-rout the neck pocket to accommodate the 32" neck, but this could in turn cause problems with screw placement, if you used the existing screw holes in the body you would have to have new holes in the neck itself (out of sight though).

You would need to have a 34" corvette to hand to confirm these measurements. And the pickup placement might be slightly different (though TBH it won't make a lot of difference).

Really, though, what don't you like about the $$? I think you could set the coil split switch so that you were using the two outer coils only - that would be similar to having two J single-coil pickups, further apart, as per a standard Corvette. Why not try that and see how you get on? You might save yourself a lot of trouble and expense.

Cheers
Nigel