Lets see Your Warmoth, USAG, Music Craft and other home assmbled/built guitars

[rob taft]

Frank Learns post about him starting a new tele with Warmoth parts inspired this thread. Lets see your home built or assembled partcasters. Below are two I have assembled using Warmoth parts and other bits.

[ohlcv]

What's up with the frets on that tele?

[rob taft]

What's up with the frets on that tele?

The neck was made by True Temperament. Great for clean chordal work especially the lower part of the neck. But for some styles (to my ears) less so e.g. overdriven double stops (rock) for example.

True Temperament fretting system

[Jim Soloway]

Frank Learns post about him starting a new tele with Warmoth parts inspired this thread. Lets see your home built or assembled partcasters. Below are two I have assembled using Warmoth parts and other bits.

Can you fill in some details on the second one with the wood bridge. At first glance it's just a complete home run.

[Frank67]

Here are my three Warmoth builds cozied up around the fireplace (why is it scary to photograph guitars close to a fireplace :-))

In the middle is my blue Strat. It is chambered alder with a quilt maple top finished in a blue to black burst that I really like. The neck is maple with an ebony fretboard and actually black abalone fret markers and an Earvana nut. That caused some confusion with people at Warmoth. It was actually a suggestion of my wife. After they did it, they agreed that it looks classy. The pick guard and electronics I bought pre-assembled from some internet site. It is a David Gilmour pick guard with his signature pickups. It sounds fantastic. Really smooth and warm. The pickups are perfect and it is pleasure to play. It does stay in tune really well too.

To the left is my first build. A rather modern tele with tummy cut, forearm contour, and shaved heel. The body is solid swamp ash with a flame maple top and tobacco burst finish. The neck is maple with an ebony fretboard. I put the very same ABM tele bridge on it that I am using for the present build. It is great. There are three pickups (two bareknuckle flat 50 broadcaster tele pickups that are wonderful and a Seymour Duncan Strat pickup in the middle), a five switch and an S1 switch. It has 10 different sounds - but honestly, I am not using many of them. The neck is wonderfully jazzy and smooth, the bridge is bright and clear but not shrill. The in between positions sound quite stratty. Overall a great playing and great sounding guitar.

The third (to the left) is a rather unconventional build and an attempt where I went really overboard. The body is a chambered strat body walnut on black Korina and the neck is Macassar ebony on walnut. It is a 25.5 scale. I tried a number of pickups and ended up with three fully size PAF type hum buckers (from Amber, a german boutique builder). There is one mini-switch for each pickup to wire it serial, parallel or split coil. There is a five way switch with S1 electronics as well. The bridge features a graph tech ghost system with an extremely good sounding piezo unit and an onboard preamp. Furthermore, the master tone knob is push pull and puts the bridge pickup out of phase. The guitar has more sounds than I can count (I think I stopped counting at 50 or so). If one brings one guitar to a gig - this is a good choice. but then, if you give me the choice, I'd rather bring a Les Paul and a Tele or a Strat. There are tele'ish, les paul'ish and strat'ish sounds available, but they don't sound like the real thing. They're good in their own right. I play too little with that guitar. I don't know why.

They all have the 59 neck shape from Warmoth that is quite nice and smooth and they all feature a compound radius neck that plays great as well as Schiller mini tuners that are high quality. The double expanding truss rod is another nice feature they all have. The finishes are excellent too.

Really, if one is looking for a nice guitar with one owns specs, Warmoth is a great way to go. Even for fairly traditional Strats or Teles, their parts are top notch and they are reliable and fast. Using the "Screaming deals" it is not even that expensive. I paid just a little over 400$ for a body and a neck and perhaps the same for quality hardware (obviously one could go much lower on a budget), meaning that for the price of a mid-range Fender one gets a very high quality instrument from Warmoth.

[rob taft]

Jim, It turned out great. I ordered a chambered LPS with a mahogany body and spruce top. One pickup route and no tailpiece. That was a small problem for Warmoth as their CNC route guide pin goes where the second pickup would be and they don't get many single neck pickup orders. I paid them at the time to fill the 5/16" hole with a spruce plug. At the time it cost me $15.00 for the plug. The neck pocket was routed for a LP style neck i.e. tapered and I had them do a masked binding around the body when they did the sunburst. The spruce top is pretty thick but I have come to the conclusion after owning many guitars that when it comes to amplification, the size of the box and top thickness matters less. Obviously, un-amplified this guitar sounds like a tele or something similar but amplified it has a nice dark tone, clear tone which can be modified with EQ. I use this now with a Boss Katana 100watt head through a 12" ported speaker with tweeter and it sounds great.

I also had them make me a LP style neck, the nut width was 1 3/4", 25 1/2" scale, maple neck with a fat back profile and with a jet black ebony board. The fatback profile is the only thing I wish I would have done differently. Today I would order their 59" roundback. The tuners were Sperzel gold open back tuners and I ordered it with the Warmoth shaped headstock.

I installed a SD Seth Lover neck in the neck position. The bridge and tailpiece I purchased from Bill Gagnon on Ebay. The tailpiece was a long one that I cut down and attached a cabinet hinge via tapped setscrews. The pickguard I made my self from a piece of maple and dyed it black using StewMac fretboard dye.

Because the bridge sits much higher than the typical T.O.M bridge. I cut a hard maple shim that went from 1/8 to nothing for the full width of the neck pocket and dyed that black as well.

The cabinet hinge has caused me problems as there isn't a lot of options outside of custom made hinges or using a Sacconi style tailpiece. I had Bill Gagnon make me a smaller ebony tailpiece with the Saccon connection but I never installed it. I recently purchased a Eastman El Rey 4 and when I did I asked the dealer if Eastman could provide me with an extra tailpiece. Surprisingly Eastman provided one for free so that base is going on that guitar.

[Frank67]

Nice! I would not have had the skills to get that right - cudos!

[rob taft]

Nice! I would not have had the skills to get that right - cudos!

Thaanks Frank but if you own a bandsaw or scroll saw it was pretty easy. Other than the amount of hand sanding I had to do to get the ebony bridge to be low enough and match the body profile.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

That was a small problem for Warmoth as their CNC route guide pin goes where the second pickup would be and they don't get many single neck pickup orders. I paid them at the time to fill the 5/16" hole with a spruce plug. At the time it cost me $15.00 for the plug.

Now that you mention it, I see the belly button!

[helios]

Warmoth "Mooncaster" (Their homage to the 70's Fender Starcaster):

Lindy Fralin Humbuckers
Fat '59 neck
Jescar Gold EVO Frets

[fws6]

Here is my handicrafts

[citizenk74]

[QUOTE=helios;715669]Warmoth "Mooncaster" (Their homage to the 70's Fender Starcaster):

Lindy Fralin Humbuckers
Fat '59 neck
Jescar Gold EVO Frets







QUOTE]

Nice guitar! Where did you get the compensated nut?

[lammie200]

[QUOTE=citizenk74;715689]

Warmoth "Mooncaster" (Their homage to the 70's Fender Starcaster):

Lindy Fralin Humbuckers
Fat '59 neck
Jescar Gold EVO Frets









QUOTE]

Nice guitar! Where did you get the compensated nut?

Although the offsets look the same as the Earvana nut that I have on my Strat (and one soon the fitted on my Tele) it doesn't look like an Earvana unless maybe it is the one that Warmoth offers. I have never seen what they do, but it is an option when ordering a neck off of them.

[helios]

[QUOTE=lammie200;715699]

Although the offsets look the same as the Earvana nut that I have on my Strat (and one soon the fitted on my Tele) it doesn't look like an Earvana unless maybe it is the one that Warmoth offers. I have never seen what they do, but it is an option when ordering a neck off of them.

Hi,
Here is the nut on the guitar:
Precut & Installed Earvana Nuts



On a traditional guitar, intonation discrepancies will always cause certain chords to be slightly out of tune. Earvana's patented nut technology solves this issue by compensating each string individually for better intonation. Earvana nuts work with standard frets, bridges, and tuners. The guitar is played the same, but sounds more in tune. Warmoth cuts these nuts to Earvana's specs on a bench-top CNC mill, adjusting for the fret height, nut width, string spacing, and fretboard radius of each individual neck.

Please Note: Installation of the Earvana nut requires widening the nut slot from 1/8" (3mm) to 1/4" (6mm). This makes switching back to a traditional nut challenging, so be certain you like the Earvana nut before having a neck set-up for it.

[lammie200]

Thanks for the info and pic. I have been using the shelf version that works in the standard 1/8" slot. I don't think that I will ever go back to a standard nut though. I am not sure how well they work on anything but a 25.5" scale, but they work great for that scale length IMHO.

[john_a]

Here's one I built in the late 1980's, can't pinpoint the year right now..
This Warmoth is from when they did not copy an exact Strat shape but made them about 3/8" narrower at the waist. It is a subtle difference that frankly I did not even notice for many years, but now wish was still available as I like the shape.

Neck options like exotic woods and 22 frets were just becoming available. End of the fretboard overhang is squared instead of the more rounded corners they soon adapted.

It's a basswood body that I dyed blue, then shot lacquer with iridescent pearl and more translucent color.
DiMarzio tremolo with Gibson spacing (much like the Callaham "vintage narrow" trems) and SD pickups. Neck is padauk with ebony, and I did the inlaid logo from white MOP.

This guitar held up well for gigging, and did not get banged up as much as you'd expect from basswood.
The original tortoise pickguard was celluloid that shrunk and warped, and just last year I dismantled the body to buff out the finish and installed this new vinyl pickguard, and took the picture as that's as clean as this guitar had been in a few decades! Pic below is with the old celluloid tort pickguard.

John

[lammie200]

Three here.

Tele: Musikraft maple/ebony neck, Guitar Mill ash body
Strat: Mighty Mite neck (changing to an Allparts soon), Warmoth ash body
Jazzmaster: Warmoth neck, Fender alder body

[john_a]

One more late 1980's Warmoth strat, this is alder with rubbed dye sunburst finish then clear lacquer. I bought the neck from Kubicki (his wife Marilyn ?) and Phil made it to spec. While the Kahler tremolo functions great and stays in tune and has a light touch, I think it just has the wrong mass for the sound I want, so this guitar gets neglected too much. These pics make it look a lot darker and blacker than it really is.

John

[blille]

Here is my handicrafts

And I thought I was the only one to be proud of a neck only tele

What is the difference between the two?

[helios]

[QUOTE=citizenk74;715689]

Warmoth "Mooncaster" (Their homage to the 70's Fender Starcaster):

Lindy Fralin Humbuckers
Fat '59 neck
Jescar Gold EVO Frets









QUOTE]

Nice guitar! Where did you get the compensated nut?

Hi,
You can order the nut installed from Warmoth with the order of a custom neck (there are about 12 different nut choices).

[fws6]

And I thought I was the only one to be proud of a neck only tele

What is the difference between the two?

nothing except I have one set up with rounds and one with flats ;-)

So I have one put up for sale on this forum for about what I have put into it Featherweight Jazz-Tele with single Gibson humbucker

also I have reversed the pickup on one but as expected has no influence on the sound at all purely cosmetic preference. I kind of like the switched around look just like on Keefs Macawber

[Hammertone]

Sure, why not…
Here an old shot of a swell, nitro-finished Capri Orange (got it that way at a guitar show) Warmoth 2-piece swamp ash strat body. Originally paired with a Warmoth SRV neck, it now sports an old Musikraft fatback neck w/1 11/16" nut, and a bunch of decent vintage style hardware. Stratelicious!

[Meggy]

Here's the ones I've done - first up is a tele that I did in I think about 2011. If I remember correctly there is a thread documenting the build process somewhere on this very forum, although I won't bother to find that, as none of the photos will work anymore. It has pickups I had sent to the UK from the US, made by Chris Hernandez - all alnico 3, and the neck one wound IIRC to about 7.6K with 43 gauge wire - that seems to work pretty nicely for a nice jazz tone through my Polytone. If I could do the build again, I'd probably go for a neck humbucker though, and do without the middle pickup also. And I'd have specified an arm and back contour on the body. The body was made to order by guitarbuild.co.uk (single piece swamp ash) and the neck was bought from a UK retailer called Axesrus - don't know where they had them made, somewhere in Asia I guess, but it's actually more than decent.



Then having got the bug, in late 2011/early 2012 I made a strat, again with an Axesrus neck (ebony board) and Guitarbuild body (again one piece swamp ash). Originally this had Chris Hernandez pickups (and they were excellent) but later I fitted a red-silver-blue set of Lace Sensors - I do find these very versatile, and I can get a decent jazz tone from the Lace Blue in the neck position. I also changed the bridge unit to the modern Wilkinson one you see, originally it had a vintage style with bent steel saddles.



And then, still with the building bug - I used the neck from a rather dilapidated 1993 Starfield Altair guitar, and designed my own body shape to use with it - I sent detailed plans (plus the neck) to Phil at Guitarbuild, who made the body to my specs, from an absolutely gorgeous bit of swamp ash. The guitar is super-light, and resonates beautifully. At the moment it has an inexpensive set of Entwistle XS-62N neodymium pickups, which aren't bad at all (again the neck pickup works well for jazz) but I may treat the guitar to some strat-size alnico P90 types one day (possibly the ones Pete Biltoft does). There is push-pull switching to keep the neck pickup on (thus allowing all 7 pickup combinations) and also a phase-reverse for the bridge pickup - gives a nice range of tones. Since that first picture, I've changed the saddles to machined stainless steel ones, which have given it a little zingier-sounding upper frequencies, but otherwise it's the same. The shape won't be for everyone, but it's quite ergonomic, and I'm pleased with it. I believe I completed this one in early 2013.



And at that point I really wasn't going to do any more, but then (on another forum) I saw someone selling an attractive walnut strat body (made by Guitarbuild again as it happens) - only £45 delivered, and I just could not resist. I'd always had an idea I'd like a maple neck strat, so I bought a Mighty Mite neck to suit that requirement. The pickups were again made to order by Chris Hernandez - this time I was after a warm/smooth take on the strat sound, so I had level-profile alnico 2 magnets, and the pickups are pretty hot wound (7.5K ish neck/middle, 8.5K bridge) but also tapped at a more vintage (5.8K to 6.4K) spec, and there is an extra switch to select hot or vintage. Actually I find the hot output works nicely for a stratty version of a jazz tone with the neck pickup. There is a master tone control, and then the 3rd control works as a blend, bringing in the bridge or neck pickup depending on where the 5-way switch is set. Started the build December 2013 and completed March 2014 - there's a build thread on another forum here Walnut strat build - Making & Modding Discussions on theFretBoard if anyone's interested - bit of a long read through probably!



I think that probably was the swansong for my parts-building years, but never say never of course...

[A440]

I really like the 'wave' guitar Meggy, it's a lovely design. The extended horn and double strap studs on the bottom must make for a great balance. Just one problem though; the lack of a scatchplate may look very nice but I just couldn't get away with it!

[Meggy]

I really like the 'wave' guitar Meggy, it's a lovely design. The extended horn and double strap studs on the bottom must make for a great balance. Just one problem though; the lack of a scatchplate may look very nice but I just couldn't get away with it!

I'm assuming your playing style would require the wood being protected by a scratchplate A440? Or is it some other reason? I'm just curious!

Thank you for the kind words about the wave guitar anyhow - I can remember that it took me about a month of careful planning/revisions/detail-resolving to get the design done to my satisfaction. It was a long way from being just a vague shape drawn on a bit of paper. It does balance very well on a strap, although that was something of a lucky guess - I suppose I thought that with the long upper horn, I'd be able to find somewhere to put the strap button that would work. That extended horn was inspired by looking at Ritter bass guitars by the way, although one probably wouldn't realise just from looking at it.