I have an older Collings MF5 with a meaty pronounced V neck. It's causing me some substantial wrist pain. I've had the action recently lowered but am in too much pain to see if that works. Just curious if anyone else has had this sort of issue and if so how did you remedy it. Thanks!

BAR: sorry to hear this. i recall reading an article on-line about a mandolin workshop at mass street music. a number of mando builders were present, including mr. collings. one of the students complained about a beefy v-neck on his MF-5. mr. collings grabbed the mando and started filing and sanding away on the spot. the student, who was remarkably calm about all this, was told to send the mando to the factory if he wanted the neck re-finished. so, i imagine collings can fix this problem, if you want them to. are you sure you're fatigue isn't caused by poor technique?

I'm not sure about the neck shape, but I had the same experience with wrist pain when I recently started playing mando after decades of playing guitar. I also had pretty sharp pain in various fingertips (that traveled between fingers over the course of a couple of weeks).
It really freaked me out at the time ... I thought it was the onset of arthritis. Thankfully, it turned out my problems were definitely related to posture and grip rather than the mando neck (or degenerative disease!).

None of these symptoms are unheard of, particularly for mando newbies like me, as you will see if you search the mando cafe boards for "wrist pain" or something similar.
They talk about various exercises, ibuprofen, and playing technique as remedies, but to start with it sounds like you have to lay off for a couple of weeks.

Sorry for the long-winded reply. Have you been playing mandolin for a while?

I had wrist pain too from a MF5 so I sold it.

I'm not claiming it was the Collings neck but....could be I suppose. I'm not much of a mando player so probably due more to my bad technique. Although, I didn't/don't have the same pain from an ex-MT2 or current MT.

Most of us here come to the mandolin from a guitar playing background. People keep telling us how this will make it easy for us. The mandolin is (as we now know) a whole different creature. It has higher string tension and a much smaller footprint for us to deal with. I think it takes a long time to get the mandolin muscle memory, and to stop over-gripping and fingering with too much pressure. Watch any of the mando greats from Bill Monroe to John Reischman to Sam Bush and they are holding the instrument and playing it loosely & naturally.
Maybe the best example is Chris Thile who is very relaxed while playing. I think our guitar based problems with the mandolin stem from where we're coming from rather than the particular mandolin neck. I started with an Gibson A2 and went to a Weber varnish F to a Collings MT and to my current Heiden F. Played by a mandolin expert they were all great instruments, but in my memory the Gibson was harder to play and the MT and the Heiden much easier.

Doc - I just sent you a PM.

I agree with Doc, when I started playing mando, I had all kinds of small aches and pains, regardless of the neck. I paid attention to those (took it easy), and also let my hand/arm adjust to the mando (muscles and tendons). Now I play without pain unless I play for long hours.

It is tough going from guitar to mando and changing the force on the neck and pick, and also getting your body used to it.