How Aluminum Neck Guitars Are Made

[@Stringjoy]

We know we had a little trouble with Ryan's lav mic at a few points in the video, we did our best to make it tolerable, but apologies about that.

[@steezkitchen]

i thought my speaker went bad for a second :) apology accepted!

[@offbeatbassgear]

Recently purchased an Aluminati Andromeda bass neck with a graphite fingerboard that I used in a new bass that I had assembled. It went really well, and the blend of the aluminum neck and graphite finger board made a difference in stabilizing the neck's slight expansion due to temperature. It is rock solid and it's also a really exceptionally playable neck. Somewhat unusual is that you need to adjust the nut height to tweak the action. It is pretty easy to do that, as the nut is set up to do that.

[@DwightP980]

I love the concept and the passion this company has it producing a great product. When they mentioned how long the Stringjoy strings were lasting it made me look at my own guitars. I installed Stringjoy's on my Gibson Les Paul, a Partscaster Strat, and a 1976 Ibanez 2846 Acoustic and that was in June of 2021. Bend, bang, play your heart out, and they play as good as the day I installed them.

[@adamburger858]

Really great video you guys! I bet those necks are a blast to play

[@joshuafelsk1699]

Great video! Very impressed with James and his crew at Aluminati! Great work my friend.

[@Stringjoy]

Thanks kindly!

[@LPCustom3]

I owned the first Travis Bean with a serial number/ third guitar Travis & Marc made. Was a great guitar! It was #11. 1 thru 10 were prototypes & hadn’t been made yet.

[@Stringjoy]

WHOAH

[@willb1157]

Proved a great material for necks with the 1980 KRAMER. And they really showed of the materials. That amazing KRAMER headstock!! Posted in case anyone is interested in aluminium fabrication. But these instruments here are amazing too!

[@toddflowers8052]

Messenger were making Aluminum neck guitars in the 1960's

[@thetonemob]

Now I wanna go to Asheville! This is so rad.

[@grubbetuchus]

No maintenance? The frets don't wear down? What happens when they do?

[@brownsparlour9813]

This is such a great video

[@TerraNosOlhos]

Amazing work and skills.

[@andyt5559]

I remember reading an article where a famous guitarist was shown a Travis Bean guitar in the 60, 70 or 80's and said its heavy, but he started to play it! and found he loved it, he said it sounded amazing, the aluminium added something to the sound, but beside that he loved the sounds the guitar gave him, and loved the look! After playing for some time, he handed it back! asked what he thought he said I love everything about that guitar, apart from 1 thing! how cold it felt on his hand?? why not add something to the back of the neck? you could make plates to alter the neck shape, from a wizard neck to a deep V! either wood or something that would prevent that cold feel! I bought a house many years ago, and it had aluminium doors front and back 4 vertical slats with 3 vertical double glazed windows in between! I loved the looks the security, until it got cold, they were freezing in the winter!

[@buffalomusic57]

I worked at the original Moog plant in Buffalo N.Y.

[@9642SM7]

Please don't discount EGC, Kevin is the reason at the very least inspiration for Aluminati making this happen.

[@jackpidlow]

So cool!

[@terryburke3555]

Wow ! The Guitars they make look awesome and what a wonderful concept for the electric guitar I can just imagine how they would play with a set of Broadway Stringjoy's on them . I'm gonna have to try one out . ( Next Stringjoy Giveaway ??? )

[@Raptorman0909]

Aluminum is not the best choice for a metal neck as Al has a very high coefficient of thermal expansion -- double that of most steels and about 15X that of Invar. Additionally, Al is soft so it is much easier to scratch or wear a divot in. Al could be improved by treating the surface with TiN as that surface is much harder that Al and it has a higher lubricity than Al alone. Frankly, I'd be leaning towards using Invar that is also treated with TiN or similar to increase the hardness.

[@Celticsaint777]

Does aluminum change with heat and humidity or cold? Does the neck stay stable with temperate changes or will it always need set up?

[@ghirk6423]

That’s one of the advantages of the aluminum necks, the don’t suffer the weather changes.

[@sonofboar13]

Aluminum necks move even more than wood necks when temperatures change, however, once they acclimate, they are rock solid.

[@billpiotter8190]

I wonder what the engineering implications would be for a aluminum neck on an acoustic guitar

[@Stringjoy]

Good question!

[@Celticsaint777]

Why doesn’t aluminati make a les psul shaped body?? That guitar would sell like crazy

[@erichartwell6792]

Sure are expensive but I like it💯

[@Raul1971xxx]

It would be a good idea to make one of these guitars with the Brian May's electronics.. Three BURNS TRI SONIC pickups and the six switches (On-off and in phase-out of phase).

[@walkerbrothersmusic]

Taking Veleno guitars to the next level.

[@BurkeBurnett]

And then there's Baguley Guitars (based in Germany), which makes 100% aluminum guitars - including the body. I have one and it's super. Heavy, yes - but it sounds great and sustains all day.

[@22bearboy]

I’m pretty sure fender made an aluminum Strat in the 90’s?

[@GuitarQuackery]

Small company = things get done.

[@Stringjoy]

True dat!

[@buffalomusic57]

No big deal, I have a Kramer 450-B Bass. Nothing new, I bought it in 1977.

[@willb1157]

Yep see my post. The Kramer has that AMAZING double pronged headstock. Looks amazing.

[@Stringjoy]

Yes, people have been making aluminum guitars for some time. But I don't think that negates the value in what these guys are doing. Guitars have been built with wood for hundreds of years, and that doesn't mean "nothing new" has happened with wood guitars since the 1800s

[@vw9659]

The notion implied here that structural resonance of the body and neck is desirable in electric guitars contravenes the Conservation of Energy Law. If the guitar's structure is excited to vibrate by string vibrations, that energy is lost from the strings, so not seen by the pickups. Luckily guitars don't actually break the laws of physics as implied, as such losses have been measured in real guitars to be typically very small (that is, measured structural vibrations are very small). Furthermore there is no good evidence that pickups are affected by those small body vibrations. The fact that companies like these can make electric guitars of such disparate materials as perspex, aluminium, carbon fibre filament and yet they sound similar to wood (with the same pickups, electronics, hardware and setup), shows that the materials are relatively unimportant. The reasons why electric guitars sound different usually lies in the many things other than materials that have been measured to affect the sonic profile of real electric guitars. However, modern materials are the future of electric guitars that don't suffer from all the problems of wood. The challenge is to make them for similar cost as wood.

[@truvvolumetremolo7654]

Tonewood has always seemed to me a bit of a con job on electric guitar

[@kevinconville9258]

Low on information like absolute weights, comparative weights, how do they balance, what are the frets made of, any feedback issues with the hollow guitar body, and so on... The two guys aren't the most dynamic fellows I've ever seen either. I'll look into the product some more somewhere else as this video didn't provide us much.

[@kevinconville9258]

@@martyjones2679 Yes Marty I did watch it. And I missed the part somehow with the interview with the shop tech where the SS frets are mentioned @12:55 and 13:25. I also went to the Aluminati site and found this under the Orion's description: "One of the lightest aluminum guitars on the market weighing in at 9 lbs." That's not light. I'll continue to find out what I can about these guitars for my own edification. I found something after re-watching the video that piqued my interest. If one has one of their guitars with a lucite or carbon deposit body, a carbon fiber fingerboard with frets set into that, why does one need aluminum? Aluminum moves a lot with temperature, carbon does not. In other words, why not just get a carbon fiber guitar with SS frets? Carbon also doesn't conduct heat and cold like aluminum either making it warmer when it's cold and cooler when it's hot.The prices seem similar to all carbon guitars so it's not a price thing.

[@Stringjoy]

I mean, it's not really a tech-specs video, or a sales pitch. We wanted to spotlight the process and the company. For more granular details definitely check out their website our reach out to Aluminati, I'm sure they'd be happy to go as deep on it as you want to.

[@kevinconville9258]

@@Stringjoy Fair enough!

[@grubbetuchus]

It's not a sales pitch? It's 100% fluff, hype, & sales. "The best sounding" is opinion. When it comesfrom yhe mouth of a company spokesperson, it's sales. The guy didn`t define "best", but it sho' 'nuff sounded spiffy.

[@jd-jy8lu]

step 1: rip off Electrical Guitar Company's R&D step 2: go out of your way to act like EGC doesn't even exist in an interview about your ripoff step 3: profit

[@Raul1971xxx]

Aluminum or Aluminium.. 👍👍🇪🇸🇪🇸