first time-strat style

[gtrplr92]

I am planning on making a strat style warmoth guitar with floyd rose, h-h-h pickups, the middle humbucker will be single coil sized, 3 on-or-coil tap toggle switches for each pickup, 1 vol, 1 tone, buckethead style killswitch, recessed floyd rose rout, alder body, original floyd rose, gotoh tuners. The neck will be a Pro strat neck, abalone face dots, right hand, standard thin, gotoh tuner holes, floyd rose locking nut, stainless steel ss6105 frets, maple with ebony fingerboard. I'm not sure on the nut width I know my jackson had a 1 11/16" nut width but I don't know what nut width a regular strat is does anyone know I think I'd rather have it closer to a regular strat. I might make the body myself but I'm not sure yet I have done it before and it turned out good so I probably will. I'm going to pain the body black with lacquer on top and I will finish the neck with a satin spray. I've made/assembled a few guitars before and worked on a bunch so this shouldn't be to hard but I want it to be my main guitar. I'm really low on money nos so I'm probably going to start making the body to save money and give me something to do, does the warmoth pro neck use the standard strat neck pocket? Also how much work would I need to do on the frets of the neck becuse I never did any work on frets before and there going to be stainless steel so that makes it harder and I like my action low I might have to get someone to do it for me. Any suggestions/comments would be nice.
Also how long does a custom neck like I described usually take to get shipped?
thanks for any help

 

[tfarny]

Whew. I think these are all the answers:

1. 1 11/16 is the standard size. 1 5/8 is more associated with vintage telecasters, etc.
2. Check out Warmoth's pre-routed body blanks, they might make it a lot easier to carve your own body.
3. Most people including me haven't needed ANY fretwork done - they come from the factory pretty nice. Some people have taken it in to a shop. Fret leveling and crowning seems like it would be easy to screw up and I wouldn't try it myself.
4. All Warmoth bodies and necks use the standard pocket.
5. Shipping time depends on how busy they are, call them and ask.
Welcome!

 

[vegababy]

1. 1 11/16 is the standard size. 1 5/8 is more associated with vintage telecasters, etc.

Are you sure about that ? From '62 to '69, Fender marked their necks with an "official" neck width letter and about 99% were 'B', which meant 1 5/8". Also all pre 62s had a 1-5/8" nut width. All other ones were only available on special order. I think 1-5/8" is still the 'normal' Fender size (I don't even know if they offered 1-11/16" but I could be wrong).

 

[tfarny]

Easy enough to check, and I should have been more clear to the OP anyhow.
American deluxe and standard strats and teles all have 1 11/16, I just looked it up. The years you are talking about are all 'vintage', like I originally said - basically the older way is 1 5/8 and the new ones are 1 11/16.

 

[vegababy]

Oh yeah, sorry, I was only talking about the vintage specs. Just had a quick look through the Fender website and it seems that these days they go for an 'in between' with 42mm (1.650") on most of their models. Isn't the Floyd Rose when you buy it in a shop shipping standard with the R2 Nut (1-5/8") ?

Funny, one might think that there's almost no difference but I think it's actually quite 'feelable' ...

 

[gtrplr92]

Thanks for the replies, I measured my dad's American strat and it's 1 11/16, I love that strat  and this is going to have all of my favorite features the things I'm changing witch this ebony fingerboard, thinner neck, floyd rose, and humbuckers hopefully it will play as good. I've made a strat body before but out of mahogany it sounds really good but weighs a lot so I'm going with alder for this, when I made my other strat the body came out really good and close to my dad's strat and if I run into any problems my dad can help me since he's a cabinetmaker. HOpefully I'll be getting a job soon and will be able to buy the rest of the parts.
this is what it will look like except with abalone inlays

 

[vegababy]

Looks very cool !

Is that a Tele headstock ??? I'd probably go with matching black headstock but that's just my taste ...

 

[gtrplr92]

No it's a strat style headstock it just came out weird on the thing, I've been thinking bout finishing the neck in black but I havent decided yet I'm starting to like the chrome on blank maple.

 

[tfarny]

That picture is from the USACG version of kisekae, they apparently have an arrangement and that's their headstock shape. It's a tad more user-friendly than going to the main kisekae site.
Good luck on the build.

 

[gtrplr92]

I've decided to make the neck now, I'm goiong to buy a pre slotted, 10-16" radius ebony fingerboard off of stewmac. My dad agreed to help me with the parts that I wern't too sure about like the truss rod and floyd rose routing. So the only thing I'm getting from warmoth is a custom pickguard and floyd rose (if they get a chrome in stock by the time I have saved up the money for it), I wanted to try the necks because I heard so many good things about them but I just can't afford to now and it would be nice knowing how to make a neck. Hopefully it comes out as good as the last body did it's exactly like the american fender one. Here's some pics of a mahogany strat I made with my dad 3 years ago when I was 12.
Also could anyone that has bought a custom pickguard from warmoth tell me how long it took to receive it because I don't want to be all ready to wire it up then have to wait 6 weeks for a pickguard so I'll buy it now if it takes long.
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q258/guitarfrazier420freak/l_65fadbf1c38ba67603516cc906010eb8.jpg
<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q258/guitarfrazier420freak/l_81f177a049c7792aea7be9e6dcbe5119.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q258/guitarfrazier420freak/l_4ea96ae57625002dee8f093946640397.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

 

[tfarny]

You're 15 and making a neck? Woah that's impressive. Good luck, that's well beyond most people on this board's knowledge. Let us know how it turns out!