Headstock veneer questions...

ChrisMC

Junior Member
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150
I placed my order on March 6th, so I’m at just over three weeks since placing my order.

Truth be told, I didn’t even know that a headstock veneer was an option, and now that I know it is, I’m considering asking them to add it to my order, but before I consider it further, I thought I’d ask my questions here...

1. I have a Warhead roasted flame maple neck (with an ebony board), NO finish, and shelf prep with mounting holes for a Floyd R3 nut.  Does that spec pose any issues for asking them to add it?

2. They’ll match the body color, right? I was thinking of flame maple with purple dye, just like the body.

3. Does anybody know if they just ADD the veneer ON TOP of the full thickness of the headstock, or if they mill the headstock down thinner so that when the veneer is added it would equal the intended headstock thickness?

4.  Would they need to/can they finish just the veneer in satin finish, or would the entire neck need to also be finished (because if the whole neck needs finished for the headstock veneer request, I might just abandon the idea.)?

5.  And the big question - if/when I call them in the next day or two (depending on how people answer)...at Week 3 (plus a day or two), is it too late/am I going to have just lost three weeks waiting time (aka sent to the back of the queue) or would they just be able to literally add it on?

I was scratching my head about what to put/engrave/what-have-you on the headstock, and this might be the perfect solution, as well as strengthen the roasted maple for my two Floyd string retainer bar screw holes (yes, I’m still a little nervous about those two little holes, but I digress...). 

What say you?
 
Any change you do make will add time to your order. However the earlier you contact Warmoth sales about your order the more chance you have of the changes being possible.

1. No

2. Yes

3. Check with Warmoth sales to be certain.

First 4. Generally when wanting a headstock finish done the whole neck is finished. I have for example one with a gloss headstock face and the rest is satin for this reason. Warmoth sales can confirm.

Second 4. Ask Warmoth Sales - they have the actual current facts to hand.

And finally what I say and just to clarify is contact Warmoth sales.
 
rick2 said:
Actually I'm curious about #3.

Right? My guess is they would need to trim down the headstock thickness to accommodate the veneer, otherwise some machine heads wouldn’t protrude through enough to function properly, but we’ll find out...
 
For anyone reading this thread, I just talked to Warmoth and I found out a couple things. I forgot to ask them if they needed to decrease the headstock thickness to accommodate the veneer, because we didn’t get that far. We didn’t get that far because...

1. As suspected, it would add two more weeks to the build. That’s not bad, but that coupled with point #2...I decided to skip it.

2.  To make the change, it would incur a 25% restart fee (on MY neck build, and where MINE is at in the process; this may not be true for everyone), which for this neck is about $125. So...$125 + the $45 for the veneer, + the cost of the purple dye which I didn’t ask about, + two weeks added on. So...maybe the dye cost is cheaper because it’s a much smaller piece of wood, but figure on at least $200...for a matched headstock.***  Live and learn...I’ll save that for the next build.

3.  They did let me know that with the roasted maple options, you do NOT have to have finish on it if a veneer is added; they could just do the purple (or other color) dye and leave it, which of course would basically be a matte finish, which would probably look great actually, and is much better than having to apply finish to a great feeling neck. Next time.

***I wasn’t complaining with that, I was just passing along the info I was given so others will know.

Now I need to hope that I’ll be blessed with some interesting figuring on the headstock so that it won’t look like it wants something else to be on it. Roasted flame maple neck; it could certainly happen.
 
I didn't realize it was an option either until after I had ordered (new builder will probably fix that) but I don't mind since the neck is walnut so it looks nice by itself.
 
I think if you want to make changes, the window is pretty small before the restock fee comes into play no matter what it is. I got in touch about adding binding to a body after 2 weeks, thinking they might be able to add it if the wood hadn’t been routed yet, but no dice without starting over. I guess once things are in the system it’s too risky having a few hundred tweaked tickets floating around
 
In my imagination I see a big basket, all items are placed in the basket, for instance the uc fretboard, or the neck blank, and once any item is put in the basket it could mess up the entire order if something has to be changed  and as such should  incur a change fee.  I don’t know if that’s how it works, an actual physical basket, just ‘peculatin’.
 
If the production line is like my business, then I expect you start with some paperwork from the office which goes to the wood guy who picks out the wood and sticks the paperwork with it. Then the glue guy does his thing, and passes it to the router operator. There might be a few router folks for various steps it has to pass through for outlines, hole drilling, contours, edge radius etc. Then the wood goes to the binding person, then sanding etc etc. If you want to change anything then someone has to figure out where it is in all this, find it, amend the paperwork if possible, and hope nothing gets forgotten or mixed up in the confusion. This might not be too bad for one little change but if you’ve got 1000 orders in the pipeline with folks wanting to tweak, I can see why it’s much safer to just let that original order pass through to the showcase and restart a new one
 
Most of it is because the work has be restarted from the beginning and the previous work in process has to be finished and then sent to Showcase, where it probably has odd specs and will sit until discounted.

Then there's the people that make 6 different changes to their order during production and the order has to be restarted 6 times, and the change fee helps pay for psychiatric counseling for the poor CSRs.  :doh:
 
ChrisMC said:
rick2 said:
Actually I'm curious about #3.

Right? My guess is they would need to trim down the headstock thickness to accommodate the veneer, otherwise some machine heads wouldn’t protrude through enough to function properly, but we’ll find out...

Can confirm they do trim the peghead down and add the veneer on top, making it back up to a standard thickness headstock. I had it done in Roasted Swamp Ash on my neck with a clear gloss finish to match the body, turned out nice (see my signature badge)
 
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