WindsurfMaui said:
There is a guitar company whose name is 4 letters that is asking over $3,000 for their guitars. These are basswood Strat or Soloist bodies with roasted maple necks and stainless steel frets. They look to me like Warmoth parts, except for the head stock, that we buy here for under $1,000 finished and the electronics are not that much so how can they ask for so much money for them and why the heck are people paying that much? I'm confused. I could understand people paying a few hundred dollars more for the name because they want to be associated with an exclusive company but $2000 more for a basswood body guitar?
I'm confused you're confused ;-)
You are assuming anyone wants to go through the process of slapping parts together hoping for a good outcome, that's hardly ever the case on the first few builds.
If it's one of your first builds chances are you'll either end up with a terrible nut, skip the fret work, and/or do a poor job setting it up.
You may be happy with the results because you got exactly what you wanted in terms of woods/colors combination.
You'll feel so happy owning a 'custom' guitar for a fraction of the price of Fender CS/Suhr/Anderson/etc... but if you look at it objectively it'll be a worse playing and feeling guitar than a MIM Strat (incredible value by the way).
Sure, you can certainly have a pro tech take care of the fretwork/nut/setup.
I assume that probably runs a good $400-800 in some places.
Now you have a well setup and good playing guitar that won't choke/buzz.
... but you still have those sharp fingerboard edges and sharp fret ends that are such a beautiful feature of budget Squier/MIM guitars.
Damn, you now have $1.5-2k invested in this and still have MIM-like fingerboard edges/frets ends.
If you want the same level of rolled fingerboard edges you find on Fender Custom Shop Masterbuilt instruments that's going to cost you a lot as that's a long process, whether that's something you care about is subjective.
Let's say another $200-300, and that's cheap given the amount of work involved for something higher rolled, assuming you even find someone who wants to bother with that.
Note: taking a quick look at Suhr the edges and frets ends seem very mildly rolled/smoothed (so are Fender basic USA model) so that's simple/inexpensive to get just that.
After all that is done you still end up cheaper than a Suhr and other boutique builders, but the price gap will have closed considerably.
Whether the guitar ends up being better sounding, properly weight-balanced, etc... is unknown as well.
I assume that when you buy a Suhr from a shop you get to return it if there's anything you don't like.
If you've built your own and spent all that money on a tech for setup/fretwork and still don't like the outcome:congrats, you've just lost 30-50% of the value on parts, and all of the tech's labor cost.
At that point you'd have been way better off going for that Suhr that seemed (but wasn't) so much more expensive.
Don't get me wrong, I don't expect to buy a bolt-on guitar from any guitar manufacturer ever again.
But it took me 10-15 years to get to a point where I like the playability and feel as much as a Fender CS Masterbuilt guitar for a fraction of the price. Most of that comes down to the neck by the way.
As such I don't think it's remotely fair to question why anyone would buy a Suhr/Fender/Tom Anderson/etc...
There are plenty of good reasons to do so if you have the money, and more often than not end up with an impeccable playing/feeling guitar.
There's a reason they sell, and I doubt it's just 'brand aura'.
. I was checking out Suhr stuff and was stopped dead in my tracks by the neck joint below. Look at that slop 
