I'm 30. I want to buy my last guitar.
I want to buy a strat, new, used, vintage, I don't care!
You can skip right to the end if you don't want to read my story...



See, I'm a little sentimental. I want to buy a guitar and that will be my guitar for life. I don't mind spending some money, I mean, it's for life. I'm starting to take playing a lot more seriously than I ever have and something that's been bugging me lately is that my fingers hurt in the morning after playing. The pain isn't muscle stiffness, it actually feels like joint pain .. I'm worried I'll be all arthritic with age .. not that a guitar will change that. I just want one that fits!
Fit is really all I care about. That and a maple board because I just like that esthetic more than rosewood.

My confusion lies in all the different neck and fret sizes and styles. Seems my local music shop only has strats with 9.5 radius modern C Shape necks and medium jumbo frets. Well, that's fine, they feel ok .. but i really want to wrap my hand around a 7.25 with a V .. because I don't know what that feels like!

Thumb over is how I roll. My current strat, a early 90's MIM "waynes world" (the fender, not the squire) has a really thin neck and I think I need something thicker. Also, the guitar doesn't stir my gut the way I want it to and I bought it because it was available and cheap. No idea what the neck profile is so it would be hard for me to compare to others.... ?

So yeah .. how long does it take to figure out what style of neck/frets you like to play?