Yes, the graphite neck is a full through-body, past the bridge and covered with wood plates on all sides (ensconced in walnut!). The necks are fabricated out of sheets of epoxy-impregnated graphite fabric in a custom mold, then cooked under heat and pressure in a gigantic autoclave to create the neck structure. You can't change the neck/body shape in any meaningful way after it's fabricated unlike wood. Figuring out how the part of the neck than runs under the pickups and into the body should be shaped so the graphite would show is too complex of a geometry problem, especially when these are being mated with different shapes of bodies, so the body part is built up to fit the instrument.
Some of the early instruments have a graphite plate as the back cover of the shape, so you see graphite weave on the back. A point body like mine is gigantic, so the graphite stops past the bridge but a couple of inches before the battery cavity. On a short scale like Mike's, the graphite may be all the way to the battery compartment if it's not relocated.
If you played this instrument, you would immediately notice that the neck is really narrow. There were different molds for 4-, 5-, and 8-string necks and in different scales. As was the style back in the late 70's or early 80's when the molds were made, then neck is really narrow and thick. Had I known this at the time, I would have had a 4-string built on the 5-string neck blank. The narrow width of the neck is why there are side laminates on the neck - I don't think most of the graphite Alembics have these.
The way that the neck heel was shaped is sort of unbelievable and totally Alembic. A piece of walnut was bonded on to the graphite, and somebody hand shaped this thing with a grinder. The walnut is a soft hardwood; the graphite is like grinding a block of cement. You only get one shot or the whole thing is destroyed and this is perfect.
This was part of why graphite necks went out of production. Graphite is hard to work on because you have to make a lot of final decisions before you fabricate the neck and many different tools and techniques are required. The neck blanks were fabricated at Modulus and sometimes the neck assembly was done at Modulus, other times at Alembic. There's a very high headache quotient here.
I had this one built for me, so it's never been in a store. This bass was finished in 1987, well over a year in construction. By this point in time, the typical Series features were changing a bit, and I had them build this for me in the old style. I think a regular Series bass from that period had a slightly longer upper horn for better balance, but this is the original shape. Also, this instrument has a slightly thinner body than older and newer Series basses which I believe was also typical for that time and wasn't easily changed. Most of the new instruments had a gloss finish, but I went with old school matte on this (handling wear has made it part shiny, part matte today). It seemed like there was some evolution of the body shapes that was reversed back out by the 1990s.
I was given one of the original Modulus through-body neck molds for a different bass (Moonstone). I'll see if I can dig it up and you can see what the graphite in the through-body section looks like.
David Fung
