Chinese & Counterfeit eBay Necks - Roasted Maple for $60 

Love how this is exactly what we were talking about the other day 😀 The difference between a £200 and £2000 guitar these days is the fine details and finishes, and if you are willing to do those yourself... thanks for another interesting idea mate.

I'm old enough to remember when "Made in Japan" was the most cutting way to insult the quality of most products. Adapt or be rendered obsolete.

wow ! $60 ! You wouldn't even get a smile from Fender for $60

This video was a crazy ASMR experience for me

I bought 4 Chinese necks and bodies this week after buying Allparts stuff for decades. Better than most Fender parts once finished out. It impressed me. 1/4th the price! I think they have discovered that even low prices have to come with quality for musical instruments to sell.

I recently bought a Chinese strat neck for the same price, it was matt black and the paint was really good just a little rough around the top edge along the fret board. Im sanding it back and repainting it now. Also needed leveling and crowning but the neck came dead straight out the box though. Very impressed!

I sure am glad that your channel got recommended to me when it did. I was already looking at these sorts of necks for my first parts build, and your video has convinced me to try it. I have a 60s Kawai body that I want to put a 24" scale neck on, and I think getting one of these types of necks would be good for learning purposes.

I live in the Philippines, there is a hard wood supply store not to far from me, they have the largest supply of hardwood i have ever seen, they buy trees from all over the world, saw them in to lumber kiln dry it, and supply furniture manufacturers

well thats an eye opener - thanks for sharing Mark

i bought the roasted maple strat neck, it is excellent

I just bought one of these for $69.00 and it is beautifully done, the frets are rounded better than Fender custom shop and I had no problems showing off the guitar to friends who asked me if it was a real Fender Player Stratocaster CS in NEON YELLOW!??!?! No, but I slept in a Holiday Inn last night.

Thanks Mark ! Awesome info !

Great video, my man...thanks !

A couple things that weren't mentioned; if you buy a rosewood fretboard on any of these necks, it's probably just stained to look like rosewood. And it's hit or miss as to wether the tuner holes are all the same distance from each other.

I bought this telecaster neck off of eBay and it lowkey was better even then a fender made in Mexico neck in my opinion it was smoother along the tangs and it was so light and thin

Very good video man. Subscribed !

Love your channel…your style is not overhyped, yet not lazy or unprofessional. I ventured into Chinese necks last month. Got a Jazz roasted flamed maple neck stainless steel frets… $69 + $25 shipping + $6 sales tax. I offered 60, but they just knocked off 99 cents. Blurred pictures of the headstock, but you could tell from the stacks of necks in the background there were Fender labels and custom shop logos. Mine didn’t have the CS label. 2 weeks later the neck arrived in great packaging, completely wrapped in yellow plastic tape. Smelled of weird chemicals, like Harbor Freight on a shipping day. Visually gorgeous… satin finish, noice flame.Severe from some angles, disappears from other angles. 3 Three flaws that I can see… 2 minor and one to be determined.. small tear out around the front one of the tuner holes. I think will be covered by the tuner grommet. Then there is the skunk stripe… the far end towards the headstock is slightly depressed. I’ll probably fill that with some CA glue or satin clear and sand it down. The more potentially serious is the bottom 2 inches of the neck toward the headstock dips down slightly as measured by my straight edge. We”ll see if that straightens out when mounted and strung. This could potentially produced buzzing when playing the first 2 frets. The frets are pretty low, which means there isn’t a lot of room when sanding them down. I haven’t built a body for this yet, so I may mount it on my Squier 54 Paranormal Jazz bass to test. Who knows, it might just live there! I’ll keep you posted, , because the more reports on this stuff , the better. Not sure if I’ll sand down the logo yet. Not planning on selling it.

You get extra points for using Brian Eno as your background music

I have 2 of these necks on 2 x partcaster.......one of them has become my fav taking precedence over an actual 1980s strat, ultimately, guitars and especially strats are ingeniously simplistic, fender are a victim of Leo's brilliance as they are easy to copy well. Like you I spend a lot of time on set up regardless of brand so that aspect is academic really. If I really want to get picky I would like a one peice and not a glued on board but really..........!

Really just a question of if the wood is cured properly. Here's something random though. Any chance you'd be willing to sand down or otherwise murder one of those roasted necks? I'm curious if they're actually roasted or if they're stained lol.

The premium Warmoth absolutely smokes the premium Fender for like 300 less and the decals are 15 bucks. It a no brainer.

I would love to have some recommended sellers? Because some sellers have really good reputations, while the others do not at all

There's nothing quite like the sweet sound of a Strat!

yup....you're right ..as long as the wood is dry we're good. bass necks from china a little tougher but even if i pull the frets , level board they work fine . some USA are just as flawed if not more . My $1500 Carvin bass need complete fix because of the fret board was raised at the end .

The best locking tuners that I've used so far is the 30ish dollar wcs or it might be wsc tuners that came on my Harley Benton Tele. So smooth with no play or backlash in either direction

I posted this elsewhere within a thread, but thought I'd share it 'out' here. I know many of us have an issue with China, but it bears saying that we're not talking about the people of China, we (at least most people I talk to) just have a problem with their government. That's it. No racism, just a recognition of a potential enemy with whom we could be at war. More cheerfully - Indonesia is making great guitars! I have two D'Angelicos, a Mini DC Premier (around $800) that competes directly with the Gibson or Epi es-339. I had an Epi 339. Neck was terrible. Very small vintage frets, and the neck was a big D with very wide shoulders. I'm short and do not have large hands and I like deep necks, even Gibson 50s necks, but that Epi 339 was a bad fit for me. OTOH, the $799 D'Angelico (an upgraded Sweetwater exclusive) has beautifully flamed top, neck, and sides, a SUPERB neck in all respects, Graphtech nut, locking tuners, and best of all, legitimate USA Seymour Duncans. They even use real mother-of-pearl inlays on the headstock. The exclusive comes with the ever-popular Jazz/JB set. That guitar is perfect and it rocks! Don't even get me started on my Brighton Deluxe. Man, what a guitar! It's like an ornate SG. Upper fret access is perfection. Perfectly dressed Jescar frets, abalone & mother-of-pearl fret markers, flamed maple top on a belly carved swamp ash body that's got beautiful grain. Neck is sanded specifically from the first fret to the top of the neck where it has an amazing set-neck joint that flows into the body like a neck-through. Okay, enough gushing (I love talking about gear!). Suffice to say, I have zero qualms about import guitars - especially the non-Chinese ones.

$50-60 chinese necks dominate the results every time I search for necks to use with my next partscaster build. I always wrote them off as either a scam or too good to be true, even if the product and the seller had great reviews. I usually pay twice as much for necks and I always considered that a fair price but I feel like I got gouged after seeing this. Good on ya for not reflexively parroting "China bad."

Bob Ross of Imported guitar necks

Neck sounds great on your strat.

Hi Mark, LOVE, your channel. Do you think these Chinese necks are real flamed maple or are they just wrapping wire around them and charring them with a blow torch to create a faux flame appearance?

Those necks, especially the roasted one looks really nice. IMO, that eliminates one of my concerns and recurring issues with inexpensive import guitars. They use maple that still has lots of drying to do and you end up with the inevitable fret sprout. So I'm definitely interested in the roasted necks.

my first build. like five years ago, the chinese neck was fine. it's still on there, and i need to do a proper fret job on it. it has two problems. the truss rod slot is sloppy making it harder to adjust. and the fret ends are pokey. the latest chinese neck i bought. is way better. fret ends a butter smooth and it looks super professional. its weak point will again be the craftsman, (me) installing it.

I got one that was tinted yellow and i hated that color so i sanded it down and behold the skunk stripe was painted on....

I'm always looking for necks which are wider at the nut than average. Are these available from China or do they stick to regular sizes?

This is true. The longer the Asian companies make guitars they better they are getting at it. With the aid of computer run CNC machines that cut and shape bodies and necks the more consistent the quality is going to get. Companies in the USA are doing the same thing.

I got an amazing strat neck for less than $50. Absolutely blew me away.

Maple necks are alright. But cheap Chinese mahogany necks (e.g. for Gibson style guitars) are usually made from rather weak sap wood mahogany. But in general: yes, there is absolutely some nice stuff being made in China

I built a replica of your pink Relic strat all out of Chinese parts bought on ebay. A few are higher end usa/Japan parts but the bones of it are 100 percent Chinese.

The amount of runout in that first neck is crazy, I would never use that in a million years on any guitar I built @3:43

You said that you do a fret level no matter what but sometimes an import or even one from the states will surprise you and have no high frets or just have one or two that need level. In the case of one or two frets I prefer to try tapping them in first and then if necessary go ahead and just file those frets that need it.

I just built a telecaster and put a blonde hard rock maple neck on it... and I have a bunch of guitars and several Tele’s... but this guitar sounds so good and is the best playing next to my Joe Glaser...! ( The Jeff Galey Channel

Can't go wrong with the Chinese necks but fret levelling still needed... I'll still give it to my Luthier to have a look at.

The counterfeiting sucks, but I bought an unbranded "paddle" headstock roasted maple neck that allowed my to shape the headstock however I wanted. It was very nice after some fretwork, swapping to a Graptec nut, and adding staggered locking tuners. However that was just for a beater. My own builds use woods (always laminated), profiles, radii, and frets I can't get off the shelf. And when it gets down to all those fine details, I doubt I'll ever get exactly what I want off Ebay. That's fine though, I enjoy the building process.

I'm curious Mark, what makes a good neck, the way It looks or the way It plays? Being an absolute guitar aficionado such as yourself I was very surprised you never checked the fretboard radius or even the scale length. All I heard you mention Is fret height and fret jobs. I guaranty all of these necks have problems, there's a ton of videos showing this. The sellers In china love buyers like you that buy these necks cause they look pretty. I do feel bad for the people that watched your video and ran out and bought these necks because you said they said they were so great. Keep up the good work

Great and spot on video. I also love the price and quality on these China made necks. The frets are not an issue in my case, as I replace them with jumbo JD 6000's anyway. The thing to beware of is some "flame maple" necks. They obviously dyed strings are pulled across them, yuck.

Rolled the dice on a simple maple & dark wood fretboard. Was $ 40, no haggling down on listed price. The frets were even pretty good end to end of the fretboard, edge to edge. All I did was roll the fret ends & fretboard. Would I want to do a feet level & crown eventually ? Sure, but out of the box it was extremely playable. The fret sprout was ,more about a trimmed fret wire that needed the sharp clip spot from the fret nippers smoothed. Who knows how long the frets actually hold up, they aren't stainless steel and who knows what mixture of Cupronickel they are ?

I've come across many of the budget Asian necks that are not stable for holding tune. I suspect the woods are not cured properly in some cases.

Such a great video and approach! Love the tone and finish of the first one and the idea of using the stock neck as starting point. You have a new subscriber! I'm building a natural roasted ash sss hardtail ST as my second project. Do you have or can recommend any videos on strat pickups? There are so many options available and the type of clean tone on this video sounds great to me. (Amazing playing btw) Total noob here, hence the ask. Keep up the awesome videos coming!

A good video.

I won't buy these necks for commercial use because of the copy right infringement with the ender sticker on them - this is illegal. The other issue is " how will these necks age " if the wood is not quite Canadian Maple as advertised ?

Wow! Your playing style is perfection. I’m jaded from thirty years of being around the instrument but this blew me away. Very very good my friend.

I'm taking a shot at a 50USD roasted maple one!

Great video. Both of those look really nice, 22 frets too. I'm wondering if UK-dwellers like me can order these from China too?

Would you be able to test the moisture content and verify it is actually low enough?

7:12 CAT! 😁😁

thanks, I wasn't sure the roasted maple was real 👍

People forget back in the day US made stuff was considered trash to the world. Japanese made was considered trash. Times change. I’d argue that with the decline in American work ethic, over regulation, and over taxation American made products aren’t nearly as good as they used to be, much of it being overpriced and inferior.

Neck radius matters to me. I dislike flat fingerboards. I've noticed that most Chinese eBay sellers do not list a radius for their necks, and when it is listed it is usually 14" or flatter. Anyone have any luck finding a seller with 10" or less radius necks?

Elephant in the room: quarter sawn?

Man the sound on the daphne blue guitar, where did you buy the body and electronics for that one? Great video!

I recently purchased a lovely looking roasted maple neck that ended up being garbage. The frets were crooked. Totally unusable.

i don’t know how many more strat or tele builds ive got left in me, im 69 and a hobbiest, but i wish i had these resources when i was heavy into it 30 years ago

Leveling and crowning require tools and skill. Not easy. If you pay a tech you may as well pay for a Fender MX neck.

I used Chinese necks on my first dozen or so builds. If you want a 25.5" C (And now a 30" baritone) you can't really do better then what's on ebay.

I’ve had to send back 3 fender vintera strats all with badly backbowed necks ..no amount of working on them would get them to straighten out and play right ..so it ain’t just Chinese necks that are bad .I’ve had quite a few Chinese squiers and they’ve been a lot better Finish wise than those fenders and played better ..

If time and money is a concern with how you build guitars then just pick a complete guitar off the shelf, or assemble kits.... Im not too worried about a Chinese factory slapping out multi laminate all Australian hardwoods with top tier truss rods and quality frets any time soon. I get what youre trying to say, but for most builders, theyre going to stick with what they can hand on heart back as they made it start to finish...

I wonder if what you get is conistently good? I mean, 80 or 90 percent of the time you get a good neck, as opposed to having a 50/50 shot. I'm also curious how well they stand up over time. Seems like a reasonable risk

No mention of the nut…the spacing looked off to my eye… to be fair could just be camera angle though. Pretty soon you will be able to buy your soul in china it seems!

Hey brotha. How do I go about contacting you to build a custom neck?

I remember seeing jokes on TV shows and generally in culture in the 90s or so about stuff being made in the US being crappy. I think if people have a problem with low quality stuff being produced for cheap, what they really have whether they realize it or not is a problem with crapitalism.

I bought a neck from the same vendor on ebay that you did and it was junk. It looked nice but had a severe back bow that couldn't be corrected. It was $40 shipped . I took a chance and lost. You get what you pay for.

How much is shipping typically to you?

I once got an AliExpress scalloped neck....it was firewood.

The Chinese and American governments have a deal where their people pay nothing or almost nothing to ship stuff to the US. Do you think it works the same for products going the other direction?

I been wanting to get a rosewood replacement neck but Fender prices are ridiculous. I will try a Chinese made 👍🏾

Its no surprise that quality control and lutherie culture has trickled down to even the cheapest necks from china. After all, all the major players have moved a large portion of their manufacturing overseas anyways in the last 3 decades or so, and with that: knowledge and skill. Over the holidays I helped my dad purchase and eastman taylor style acoustic used for $800. That thing is pound for pound as good or better than a taylor at 4-5X the price. Only reason to buy name brand is resale value. Either go cheap and pay or do the setup or go big and work with a local luthier whom you like their style of work.

The wood is always green I guess roasting would fix that.

As always, great content. Roasting is not exactly the same as torrefication. Any of us can roast our woods in a big oven, or fireplace. Torrefication involves a special vacuuming process. Oxygen is removed as well as moisture. This actually strengthens the wood. Ethics are a huge issue here. How can you trust a company willing to steal another company's logo and registered trademark? Stop support counterfeiters. That act, alone, means you are also breaking the law.

I just bought a roasted, flame maple Tele neck for $130 Australian dollars. That’s cheap!

i got a flame maple neck with rose wood felt board from taobao for hk$320 ,around $40 US dollars , not including shipping cost, i dont even have a body to bolt on or any parts to build a guitar, there basically all strat,tele neck around under $40 us dollars ,if not a very fancy one, just normal roasted maple around $30 us dollars , 70s big headstock maple neck with block inlay and binding tin finish $25 dollars. and i want to buy a les paul body for that fender flame maple neck , im not a guitar builder, i dont know how to make it work , bolt on gibson les paul with fender headstock looks funny .

not to mention the tools it would cost contributing to the value

I understand what you're saying, but our dependance on China is out of control. I personally would spend more on an American product just to avoid feeding the Chinese machine.

The problem with Chinese necks and guitars in general isn't the basic cuts or routes... a CNC does the majority of the work... the issue is the handwork involved in laying frets, buffing the finish. wiring shoddy electronics and their interpretation of wood species since there are no regulations over there. An experienced player can level frets, change electronics, do a setup, etc., but the average newbie won't even know how to run a fret rocker over the frets or deal with sharp ends, etc..

My experience hasn’t been the same as yours. Over the past 2 years I bought 3... well technically 4 since one never arrived and took several months to resolve. Anyway the 1st one I received wasn’t bad except for the radius and tuner hole size was not as advertised. 2nd one was a joke. There was no truss rod! They just glued a nut in the heal slot!!! Not only that I was able to just pull the frets out with my fingers. Last one I received had nice wood but needed a lot of fret work and unfortunately I order SS frets. Word of advise... Don’t go with SS unless you plan on spending 2 maybe 3 times longer dressing them. Also be aware you will never know when your neck will arrive. It’s best to say anywhere between 2 weeks to 2 months. The tracking info is a joke. However the price might be worth it if you’re new to building and want a neck to practice fret work. Or you might get lucky and get something really great.

Your roasted neck is not seated correctly it’s treble side heavy look at your centre dots

The quartersawn Canadien Maple neck with Jescar stainless frets on my 2021 Shijie is amazing.

Right. Absolutely. The machines don't care if they are in America or China. And building electric guitars is not really a voodoo thing.

not my experience... the chinese 22 fret neck i got for $60 had the heel cut so far forward that it wouldnt intonate at all

China can make some amazing stuff I have a GOC headless that is great . With that said China can be very shady about way they build stuff an what it’s actually made of

Is this guitar ASMR ?

Chinese "roasted maple" might just be maple with some BROWN DYE rubbed in it. "Maple syrup" lol

I've tried four necks in the past, all of which were duds. The maple I have tried was not Eastern Hard maple, but some kind of softer Maple that constantly flexes out of tune and of course shrinks and produces fret sprout. Aside from that, do we really want to undercut American companies to buy illegal Chinese goods? As an American guitar builder it cuts my own throat. I don't want to be part of the problem.

IMO... buying/playing a Chibson/Chender anything is a musician I don't want to play music with...

Yep. Cnc is a great equaliser.

I just assume the "roasting" process is just a brown stain.

Why are you whispering?

Next time do research as how Chinese factories obtain the woods they use for the necks and what are their environmental and work safety standards.. but I doubt you care about that given your excitement

It's only counterfeit in the sense the decake has fender on it the actual neck is real made from maple so you pay your money and take your chance does a hand made replacement neck made by walmouth or a builder constitute counterfeit if the owner applies a decal ?

The two best guitars that I have ever played were both from China

Yeah it’s inevitable that as a guitar consumer, if I’m able to get a good quality neck for less, that’s a no brainer for me. I think a lot of these boutique builders got used to the guitar boom of 2021 but in reality paying $3000 for a guitar is just ludicrous to me. I got my American strat in the 00s for $550 on sale. If I could still get affordable prices on American stuff, I’d gladly pay that. But the fact that American stuff is no longer superior in quality and is WAY more expensive, for me the affordable import stuff is way better. Not even just Chinese. All of my recent favorite guitars are all Indonesian made including my favorite LTDs I own. Flawless guitars. I played a $5000 American ESP the other day and it made me cringe at how cheap and garbage it felt. It felt like a $200 guitar. Very sad. Until something changes, it’s value over local goods for me