It's interesting. I'd asked Mica about having the accent lams stop when they hit the neck -with my new (custom 6-string Balance K Signature Deluxe) bass.
At that time, she said that they COULD do it, but indicated that it would or might be more difficult -at which point I withdrew the request, as I didn't have fundage to offer in connection with the request and any additional time/labor/money.
I wasn't clear on why it was or would be more difficult. It seems to me like it would be easier; but I'm not a woodworker, and am ignorant of the technical issues involved.
I made the request for two reasons: first, as Mica said, I didn't want any more of the neck (and the Ebony neck laminate) shaved down -other than what was necessary for the BTC on each side; and also, I've seen a few rare cases where the pinstripes don't line up perfectly, and this bothers the heck out of me. Interestingly, one of them is the Roman Conqueror featured above... you can see the pinstripes don't quite line up. Another is the Coco Bolo Fantasy.
I think having the pinstripes and/or accent lams stop at the neck looks just as good or better than having them go all the way to the center... and it eliminates the possibility of them not lining up perfectly. Of course, this is obviously a subjective judgement/preference, and we all know beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Anyway, it came as a total surprise when my new 6-string came with this feature, and I like it. The only VERY minor disappointment was that I'd have preferred a thicker Maple accent laminate to the thin one... IF I'd known it was going to come that way... I specified 2 thin pinstrips just to specifically minimize the additional amount of neck that was shaved down. Since this was not applicable, I'd have preferred a wider Maple accent laminate to the thin Maple pinstripe. But this is an exceedingly minor snivel... the bass is way too awesome to whine about this... the fact is it's awesome, and looks awesome.
That said, I am a little curious about the reasoning for the shift/change. Mica had indicated that doing it this way was more difficult... and the fact that it now seems to be standard makes me think that either that was incorrect (no disrespect intended) or that some new technique has been developed that makes it easier to do this way. It seems unlikely Alembic would be shifting to this way of doing things as it's new standard policy if it were actually more difficult.
I'd be interested in knowing the thinking that led to this change in policy/construction.
