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Now do you think there would be a huge difference in weight between a milled/welded neck and a cast neck?

I welded aluminum for a few years, and being familiar with both cast and billet, it would be tough for me to understand why a smaller manufacturer would cast aluminum for a neck. It will be porous a rough and would require alot of milling to get it to a finished neck....offsetting any cost benefit of casting, especially at those low production numbers. It would be cleaner an faster to simply weld a neck from two pieces.

it would be tough for me to understand why a smaller manufacturer would cast aluminum for a neck

i guess gary kramer had seen the incredibly labour intensive process at TB first-hand ( ie billet spun on a lathe and whittled down on a 70s era manual mill ) ... so had their necks cast by a third party ? anyone know more detail ??

i can't imagine getting small numbers of parts cast cheaply/reliably unless i knew someone in the industry.

welding the component parts sure makes sense to me.

Now do you think there would be a huge difference in weight between a milled/welded neck and a cast neck?

i don't think there's an actual weight difference by the way - though as i understand it, cast metals are more brittle, so their design requires thicker sections ( also to allow for shrinkage in every direction ) which add to the weight in the end and limit the design possibilities.

AP