First Warmoth build - thanks to the forum for so much great advice!

[Nuklball]

Howdy unofficial Warmoth forum. Wanted to share a couple pics and some notes from my first build. I read and re-read hundreds of posts from your forum, and wanted to say thank you for all the great advice and ideas. Materials, finishing, grounding, wiring, drill bits, tools, sanding, electronics, tuners, crowing, leveling, soldering, and on and on. Really enjoying your forum and all the friendly chatter. Thank you!

It started 2-3 months ago when I met a new neighbor who's a carpenter who started building electrics a 5 years ago. Got me thinking how cool it would be to build my own.

I started by thinking how much do I want to bite off - decent woodworking skills, moderate set of tools, no experience with spraying nitro, haven't soldered anything in forever.. I decided I WOULD NOT start with a block of hardwood and my three files and two router bits!

I went to work "research mode" and quickly came across Warmoth's site. Well that pretty much did me in, their site and products are amazing! I quickly decided to let Warmoth do what they do best and went with a Tele style DIY paint ready body and Tele replacement neck. For the body I went with the Tele replacement top load, dual humbucker routs, belly cut, two piece Swamp Ash, with a roasted Swamp Ash cap. For the neck, Tele replacement 10"-16" flame maple 43mm. From Warmoth I also added, Schaller tuners, Wilkinson tele half bridge, ferrule's, neck plate, and a cool 3-ply pick guard cut for humbuckers. Separately, I went to Lambertone's for a slick Tele control plate, pre-wired with a 3-way switch and 500k pots. For pickups I went with Suhr SSV (neck) and SSH (bridge). For finishing, as mentioned I'm not a sprayer so crossed my fingers and went with a wipe on poly for the body and TruOil for the neck (I know if cxls the warranty, oh well).

My objective: I have been playing for 10 years and come to the conclusion that I love the simplicity and balance of a Telecaster. I have bought and sold others, but always come back to the Tele. I wanted to try one with Humbuckers.

I drew up my plan, hacked together a few mockups and hit the ORDER button.. Then the wait..

Will post a few pictures and a couple more comments in the next entry.

 

[Nuklball]

Mockups. Originally I was thinking using the Gotoh tele humbucker bridge, but felt it was eating up the top with too much chrome. I decided on the Wiklinson tele half bridge with compensated saddles. Always liked the brass saddles. Then debated on pick guard or no pick guard. I decided with the Poly finish, I would be better served putting the pick guard. Went with Mockup 2.

The body and neck from Warmoth were essentially flawless. The DIY paint ready body was grain filled and sealed, so I figured I needed to spray it (Nitro) or use a wipe on Ploy - rubbing on an oil was from my understanding a no-go. Not tons of great praise in the forum or YT around wipe on poly, but I've used it before on tables and woodworking and it's easy to use and comes out pretty nice.

Won't wear out my welcome with too many posts, so I'll send a few more pics of the build.

 

[teleme01]

You can't post too many pictures of guitars

 

[Nuklball]

Warmoth explains that their bodies prepped with the DIY paint ready setup would take ~6-7 weeks. The neck was on the shelf, so added the 6105 frets and Graphtech nut. The whole kit shipped in 4 weeks and came as expected - neatly packaged and all parts accounted for.

I had spent the last 4+ weeks reading other peoples posts on do's/don't, tricks and tips and suggestions. I was still scratching my head around using Poly and whether I need to ground the cavities (copper foil or conductive paint). Folks say humbuckers alone are quiet and faraday cages aren't critical. I see Fender applies conductive paint to the cavities and screws a ground lug to the control cavity floor. I went with it, have a roll of copper tape with conductive adhesive if anyone needs it!.

So, when the UPS man dropped off the package I went after it. I'm fairly patient, but I found myself wanting to play this thing so bad I spent about 5 days putting it together. The DIY paint ready body didn't require many coats of poly (4), and I went with a gloss on the top and knocked off the back to leave as a silky smooth satin. The neck I left natural and put about 6 coats of TruOil on it, with 0000 Steel wool between coats. I gently scraped the edges and sanded with 400-600 to give it a gentle roll. I know some say the Warmoth necks need plenty of work, but the frets are level, the neck is straight and I really can't find much I need to do with it from here.

Some pics..

 

[Nuklball]

Some more pics

 

[Nuklball]

Pics..

 

[Nuklball]

So in the end, not sure if I built a guitar or just bolted one together but there's something satisfying and fun about the whole process. I have the intonation, action and neck set up nicely and it just feels amazing. The Suhr pickups are outstanding and now I have a Telecaster (my favorite) with beautiful humbuckers and it plays effortlessly. I'd say drilling the first holes were the hardest part, in fear of making mistakes. Applying the Poly was straight forward, but doing the front, sides and back in on shot was a bit of a challenge. I made small mistakes throughout, but nothing major and I think it's a good first pass.

I'm deleting the link to the Warmoth site - I don't need another guitar, I don't need another guitar, I don't need...

Lastly - thanks again to the folks in the forum for great advice.

 

[ragamuffin]

Looks fantastic!

 

[teleme01]

You did an excellent job of bolting pieces together and creating a musical instrument,
and im sure you learned a lot about how the bridge works, setup, etc, which I didn't know until I started building or bolting them together. Nobody needs another guitar except a man without one, but so many options that Nobody can eat just 1

 

[Nuklball]

You did an excellent job of bolting pieces together and creating a musical instrument,
and im sure you learned a lot about how the bridge works, setup, etc, which I didn't know until I started building or bolting them together. Nobody needs another guitar except a man without one, but so many options that Nobody can eat just 1

I think the best part is taking what you like from other guitars and mashing it up to create something just how you want it. I guess that's why they have called it a Partscaster for like 50 years. I'm catching on.

 

[Strat Avenger]

Looks great. What did you use for grain filler?

 

[JohnnyHardtail]

Finished guitar looks great. I like the your neck choice with vintage/modern construction and.. Quartersawn maple!

I bet it sounds good as the guitar probably complements those Suhr pickups.

 

[Nuklball]

Looks great. What did you use for grain filler?

The body was prepped by Warmoth. Their DIY paint ready option ships the body grain filled and sealed. Probably why putting it together was so fast, there was basically nothing I had to do to the body.

 

[Nuklball]

Finished guitar looks great. I like the your neck choice with vintage/modern construction and.. Quartersawn maple!

I bet it sounds good as the guitar probably complements those Suhr pickups.

The pickups are great, I had an Ash Suhr Modern in the past that was probably the best sounding guitar I’ve played. Figured using those pickups with the Ash Tele would get me something similar.

 

[stultzies9]

Man, that guitar looks SO good! You absolutely killed this build. And the Suhr pickups are fantastic. How does the guitar sound versus your old Suhr Modern?

 

[ghostrider25]

Looks great! Nice job with the finish too! I find that's where I struggle the most.

I'll be putting together my own HH Tele in January and I hope mine comes out as well as yours did. It'll be my first Tele.

 

[Strat Avenger]

The body was prepped by Warmoth. Their DIY paint ready option ships the body grain filled and sealed. Probably why putting it together was so fast, there was basically nothing I had to do to the body.

I wish I'd known about that option.

 

[Nuklball]

Man, that guitar looks SO good! You absolutely killed this build. And the Suhr pickups are fantastic. How does the guitar sound versus your old Suhr Modern?

The Suhr pickups are clear and articulate. I love the way they can get gritty with your pick attack or be super crisp with a gentle touch. The SSH pickup in the bridge (no splitting) has me a bit baffled. It almost sounds like a Tele, although I'm probably just expecting that. Overall I think the combination works well, sounds very nice.

 

[Nuklball]

Looks great! Nice job with the finish too! I find that's where I struggle the most.

I'll be putting together my own HH Tele in January and I hope mine comes out as well as yours did. It'll be my first Tele.

Thanks. I definitely have to thank Warmoth for the prep work done in the grain filling and sanding area. The body was practically out of the box ready to put the finish on it. I might have gone over it for 10 minutes with 600/800 and then went to work with the Poly. I imagine spraying it would have been even nicer, but I'm not set up for spraying. Good luck with your project.

 

[ghostrider25]

Thanks. I definitely have to thank Warmoth for the prep work done in the grain filling and sanding area. The body was practically out of the box ready to put the finish on it. I might have gone over it for 10 minutes with 600/800 and then went to work with the Poly. I imagine spraying it would have been even nicer, but I'm not set up for spraying. Good luck with your project.

Thank you!

Thankfully, my new body is a fully finished one so that'll make it waaaaay easier. I've finished only one body myself which came out OK, but it looks like it was finished by someone who wasn't a professional. I've done some headstock faces in poly which look much better, but still not quite pro. I live in a house with a Labrador Retriever so a dustless finish is nigh impossible.

Also, your Lambertones harness caught my eye. I've not seen anyone mention them before. I absolutely love their pickups, especially the Triple Shot singles. I'm slowly putting their pickups in all of my guitars.