Hooray! My Mooncaster body arrived!

[SeattleScotty]

I can't even begin to tell you all how excited I am! It looks absolutely perfect, JUST the way I imagined it when I was putting it together. They did such an incredible job (as usual!) 

The green dye is very vivid and saturated, and it's a perfect shade of foresty green that I was hoping for with the quilting pattern. The walnut back looks really nice, more similar to mahogany than I originally thought, but in different coloring. They go well together, and the strip of tortoiseshell binding acts as the perfect border between the two. The binding appears a good deal brighter on the body than it did on my neck, which I am guessing is beacuse the neck binding is on top of rosewood, whereas this is obviously on maple. That's more how I was expecting it so I am very pleased with that.  :headbang:

I have all the electronics and hardware I need - Hipshot locking tuners and TOM bridge, all hardward in Nickel, and some neat little knobs I found online. I got Fralin Pure PAFs to put it, definitely the nicest pickups I will have in any of my guitars! The only thing I'm missing are humbucker mounting rings - I was hoping to find some in nickel that would work, but I have been unsuccessful, though I did find some in chrome. I am leaning towards going with cream plastic rings, but that would be the only bit of plastic on the guitar so it's not my first choice. Any ideas?

I'm not going to do the assembly myself, since it's my first build and I spent too much on these parts to try and learn on it! I won't have time to take it to the luthier until next week, so it'll probably be a few weeks until she's all up and running!  :icon_thumright: :blob7: Can't wait to fire her up! I have wanted to build a Warmoth for like 20 years, but I've never had the money to do it the way I like it! (fancy lol)

Overall it's just a really beautiful piece of work. Good job Warmoth crew, please let your employees know how much I appreciate their work.  :yourock: ccasion14:

Pictures!:

 

[mayfly]

Woah!  that's some craziness going on there!  I love it! 

 

[Rick]

Shoot … I said the same thing …. that’s crazy

 

[justsomeguy1]

That green is killer

 

[stratamania]

Cream rings I think would fit. You could always swap them out to nickel at a later time. Or even look for tortoiseshell rings to match the binding (which is plastic by the way).

 

[JPOL007]

That is gorgeous, love the flames and green. I might be seeing things…is that a turtle face in the grain between the bridge inserts? That looks like eyes, nose and mouth of something looking back at me. Congrats...that is going to be awesome :icon_thumright:

 

[SeattleScotty]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the kind words! I see the turtle face you're talking about! That is awesome! I would have loved to get those turtle inlays on the neck if it were a regular option. When I chose the top I also considered blue dye as the 'V' in the middle kind of looks like a boat wake!

Also, yea the binding is technically plastic but it doesn't look like plastic haha. I even got a wood truss rod cover and a nickel switch-tip haha. I do think I will go with your idea and start with the cream ones. I looked around for tortoiseshell ones without success, which kind of surprised me tbh.
There aren't as many options as I would expect. Anyways, I think cream will look nice.

 

[rauchman]

Love it!  Great looking setup.

 

[ARCnet78]

Beautiful.

 

[dots]

That green is vibrant, almost otherworldly.

 

[SeattleScotty]

Thanks guys, couldn't be more excited! I've got everything I need now, except the humbucker rings, which arrive tomorrow. I ended up just buying three different sets - brown metal, chrome metal, and cream, so we'll see which one looks best with the green top and the nickel pickups haha! Maybe a little excessive, but I will be able to use them in the future I'm sure.

 

[Re-Pete]

That is some INSANE quilting you have happening on that top! 

 

[Verne Bunsen]

That is gorgeous, love the flames and green. I might be seeing things…is that a turtle face in the grain between the bridge inserts? That looks like eyes, nose and mouth of something looking back at me.

It is definitely hypno-toad!  :toothy12:

What an impressive body, congratulations!

 

[SeattleScotty]

I picked-up my guitar from the luthier today! He did a great job assembling it and wiring it up. It is absolutely perfect - just what I was hoping for when I started this project in January!

Here is an album of pictures with descriptions about the guitar: https://imgur.com/gallery/oUuKTpo

Overall, it's by far the best guitar I have ever played. Even though it's walnut, it's really not very heavy since it's a semi-hollow. It probably weighs about the same as my '97 Deluxe Strat, which is a decent weight strat in ash. The Fralin Pure PAFs sound so excellent, they really crunch up nicely and wails, definitely the nicest pickups I've played with. I have them wired with two volume and one tone knob so I can mix them in the middle position. It sounds great with the Boston covers I've been stumbling through this afternoon!

Let me know what you guys think! I couldn't be happier with the results and can't wait to build another some time in the future.

 

[crosstie]

WOW 

That is killer.