I know Fender mainly has rosewood and maple necks. But I've been wondering. The rosewood necks have a rosewood fretboarrd but the head stock and the rest of the neck is maple (i guess). Would that neck be considered a 2 piece neck? Also for maple necks, is the whole neck maple (headstock and all) or just the fretboard?
Almost all guitars have a 'two piece' neck. Having a separate piece of wood for the fingerboard means it's easy to slot the neck for a truss rod.
The exception is maple neck/fingerboard combinations From Fender (and probably at least some of the look-alikes). If you look at the back of a maple Strat, you'll see an inlayed strip of wood that goes from the base of the neck up to a point between the 1st and 2nd frets. Fender cuts a slot, drills the last couple inches up to the peghead, and slides the truss rod in from the back. They fill the hole with another strip of wood.
One of the reasons that Fender has sold so many guitars is that Leo Fender came up with a bunch of manufacturing innovations. The peghead shape, and the method of getting strings to 'break' over the nut is one of them - it means the peghead doesn't have to angle back like the pegheads on other guitars.... which means it doesn't need to be jointed. Strat style necks are almost always one piece of wood, top to bottom. The fretboard can be another piece - with the truss rod installed from the front - or part of the neck, with the truss rod from the back.
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I was confused becuase3 while I was looking at my neck, it feels like one solid piece of wood, so i tohught it was cut from one slab of maple
it will feel like one piece of wood typically because the finish on it will mask the seams between two pieces of wood.
You should be able to see if it is an added fingerboard or the strip in the back of the neck. Just look.
aka Izabella
Leo tried about every reasonable combo of skunk stripe (back of neck insert) and add-on fingerboard. My early G&L has a maple neck, curved back ebony fingerboard and walnut insert skunk stripe. The only thing one probably won't find among the models of Fender/MM/G&L guitars is a one-piece maple neck/fingerboard with NO skunk stripe, as it was a manufacturing nightmare to insert a truss into this. Someone did eventually develop a process for blind drilling a curved hole down the length of the neck, but I don't believe it was Leo.
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