First Warmoth build : Chambered roasted swamp ash tele with gibson scale neck

[PatrickWD]

Hi!

I'm starting my first Warmoth build.

Just got my parts all the way from Warmoth to Norway today.

The plan is to get a lightweight guitar that is a sort of hybrid between a tele and a 335.

The neck is a 12" radius Gibson scale conversion neck with flame maple and rosewood board. Because of my nickel allergies, I also got gold frets.

The body is a chambered tele body made from roasted swamp ash with an elbow contour. I also had it rear routed.

I'm going to put two humbuckers in it, so I got a Wilkinson half tele bridge.


The body turned out looking great with a black to clear burst satin finish over the roasted swamp ash.

It did, however, turn out to be even lighter than I had expected: only 1450 grams ( 3.2 lbs).

This makes me a bit worried about the guitar being very neck-heavy and having neck dive.

So, I'm going to change my plan of having locking tuners and go for Hipshot open-back non-locking tuners to save some weight, and hope I get it more or less balanced that way. The shorter Gibson scale length might also help.
There's also some extra room in the rear cavity for some lead weights if it's still neck-heavy.

 

[Hagwood]

Very nice ! That finish looks great on the roasted swamp ash. IMHO if you stained the headstock to match the body it would really be the finishing touch !

 

[Spud]

Velkommen!

 

[PatrickWD]

Got my pickups delivered today! Lollar Imperial standard wind with black chrome covers.

 

[Hagwood]

Got my pickups delivered today! Lollar Imperial standard wind with black chrome covers.



View attachment 66692

Great choice ! And the Black chrome will look great with that finish. Would look killer with matching knobs and switch tip.

 

[Scab Pickens]

Got my pickups delivered today! Lollar Imperial standard wind with black chrome covers.

I'm a huge Lollar fanboy! It seems that you have vintage single conductor wiring on one pickup and modern four conductor wiring on the other. Was this intentional? If so, why?

 

[PatrickWD]

I'm a huge Lollar fanboy! It seems that you have vintage single conductor wiring on one pickup and modern four conductor wiring on the other. Was this intentional? If so, why?

Not really intentional, but since i'm not going to do any fancy wiring i would prefer single conductor wiring for both. The problem was that the "F-spaced" humbucker only comes with modern four conductor wiring. I didn't notice this when I was ordering, so i thought both pickups would be single conductor. Not really a problem for me though, since i'm doing a simple three way switch anyway.

 

[Scab Pickens]

The problem was that the "F-spaced" humbucker only comes with modern four conductor wiring.

Got it! You probably didn't need the "F-spaced", though.

 

[PatrickWD]

Got it! You probably didn't need the "F-spaced", though.

I thought any sort of Fender style bridge means I need a wider spaced humbucker in the bridge position. Wouldn't a standard size humbucker cause the strings to not line up with the polepieces with this bridge?

 

[Scab Pickens]

Wouldn't a standard size humbucker cause the strings to not line up with the polepieces with this bridge?

They wouldn't line up quite as well, true. It's not enough to matter, really. I do understand your reasoning, and think you made a good choice!

 

[PatrickWD]

Got the ferrules installed today!

I used the rolled up sandpaper method to remove some finish and wood to get the ferrules in.

Since the body is roasted swamp ash, i made sure the holes were big enough before i hammered the ferrules in.

I'll probably put the neck on tomorrow. I adjusted the truss rod to straighten the neck out a bit today, so i'll let it sit until tomorrow to settle a bit before i try putting the neck on.

 

[PatrickWD]

The neck is on!

Putting the neck went without problems.

After stringing it up i did a few adjustments to the action.

As usual with a new guitar for me, the neck profile felt a bit wrong. So i was a bit afraid that i had chosen the wrong profile. But after just a few minutes of playing it started to feel better. So it will probably end up feeling great after i get used to it. It is very close to my other guitars, but just a few % of variations feels different enough in the beginning.

As I was afraid of it is a bit neck heavy. I have not installed the pickups and switching yet, so that will probably help a bit, but I think there's a good chance i will need to add a couple of weights of some kind inside the cavity.
But since the guitar so far is just 2.3 kg, adding 2-300 g of weight to balance will be no problem. I'm guessing that the finished guitar with electronics will end up around 2.6 kg.