Building a Strat, any help?

[martinedwards]

www.guitarfetish.com

the pups are 95% as good at 30% of the price..........

the Wilkinson loaking tuners are good too

[wthurman]

My fave ever strat was a Warmoth strat. One thing I would do on the neck, is ignore the compound radius they use as stock and get single radius neck (I like 12" on an electric, myself). The so-called advantages to the compound radius are minimal compared with the difficulty of getting a well-done fret dressing.

Also, although Warmoth says their necks will not need fret dressing, my experience of about 10 Warmoth necks (all great) were hat they needed a light leveling to begin with to get them right.

[DaveO]

I am trying to score a good neck off of ebay but if I can't I guess I will order one from Warmoth. Unless someone has some pieces and parts lying around that they want ot get rid of. My guy doing the body hasn't got back with me yet so I am kind of gathering gear now.
Thanks, Dave

[trpullen]

Maple or Rosewood?

[aschroeder]

Originally Posted by DaveO

Unless someone has some pieces and parts lying around that they want ot get rid of.

DaveO–
I emailed you about the strat neck that I have lying around. I planned to build an electric last fall and it never happened. It has the vintage matte finish, nice birdseye maple, striped ebony fretboard, and abalone dots. It will be going to ebay in the next few weeks.

[DaveO]

trpullen-prefer rosewood

aschroeder- reply sent-What is the width at the nut on that?

martinedwards-thanks for the tip, looks like some nice hardware too

Thanks everybody else too, Dave

[jeffrey]

I highly recommend Warmoth.

I've built a number of Warmoth guitars for friends and still have one I built in 1988. It's one of my favorite guitars still.

[RickC]

I agree with Jeffrey, Warmoth makes killer necks and if you check out the showplace you're bound to find one that fits your needs. I rather like the Compound radius, both neck I've ordered had it, I also went with Stainless Steel frets which feel awesome and are sure to last much longer. Both necks I recieved needed no fretwork at all, the first one I ordered was finished so I did have to scrape the lacquer off of the frets but that's it. The second neck was for a tele it was maple with an ebony fretboard, no markers unfinished. I was pleasantly surprised when I finished it with Tru oil at the amount of flame in the maple, came out real nice.

Rickc

[Johnny5]

Originally Posted by martinedwards

www.guitarfetish.com

the pups are 95% as good at 30% of the price..........

the Wilkinson loaking tuners are good too

I haven't used their hardware, but I have about 4 sets of pickups from GFS and they are smoking, and cheap. My 2 main electric giggers right now have GFS liverpools(Filtertron copies) in them... and I LOVE them. And I got them for 1/4 of the price of a typical booteeker... and less than half of Duncan or DiMarzio. I haven't tried their strat pickups, but I did get a set for the last tele I put together, the neck pickup was decent, but the bridge pickup was really great.

[donkey kong]

i really like warmoths stuff. really nice paintjobs in particular. ive got a warmoth strat that i just love. i still cant believe how much i paid to put it together, but i knew it would be a keeper. and it is. so it was worth it. ive not had any exper. with the other companies listed here.

[dreamsinger]

You can see pics of the Strat I built from Warmoth parts at http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jdb502.../ph//my_photos

I found the overall quality better than you could expect from Fender and I got features Fender would have never gone for like; ebony board with no inlay, bigger frets than Fender (I had Mike Lull do the frets), Joe Barden p/u's (no longer available) and a semi hollow body with a flame maple top. The tobacco burst finish beats *anything* I've seen Fender do. This guitar wasn't exactly cheap to put together ($1400) but I regard it as a steal for the incredible instrument that it is.

[DaveO]

Dreamsinger- Beautiful strat, hope mine turns out as nice. Still trying to get a neck on ebay or from a fellow AGFer.

Johnny5- I decided to go with black hardware on this and you can't beat the price guiterfetish has on Wilkinson trems. Half of what I have seen from Carvin and others. Going to get the Wilkinson locking tuners in black whenever I get the neck.

Thanks, Dave

[Nigel Tufnel]

DaveO,
I just finished a custom strat recently. Here are some of the specs:
1) Warmouth Fender neck, Gibson scale with stainless steel frets, 70's style headstock, pau ferro fret board.
2) Warmouth lacewood body rear routed H/H setup.
3) Black Wilkinson tremelo
4) 2 Dimarzio PAFs Fender spacing in black and creme.
5) 2 volume knobs black and creme with push/push for coil splitting.
6) 3-way selector set at angle like a strat, in black
7) Black Sperzel locking tuners. Staggered to avoid string retainers.
8) Graphtec nut.

Finished the body clear and left the neck unfinished.

[DaveO]

Nigel-Sounds sweet. I have a Epi Les Paul and want this Strat to go with it.

So far I have White basswood body
Black Wilkinson trem
Black pickguard, screws, volume and tone knobs
Black neck plate
Black roller string trees
Will get black Wilkinson locking tuners after I get the neck
Looking for some Texas Specials for pickups-in black
I might have a line on a very unique ebony and maple neck. Can you tell I have a black and white theme going. Nickname already picked out "Oreo"

Thanks, Dave