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Is a Warmoth guitar worth $2k?

Warmoth guitar's are good. the woods are GOOD, and the rest you put on and in it, is as good as you choose it to be (can afford it to be!). The total guitar, the quality of the finished product is not the sum of its parts, though, its more. As someone else said it, its got something to do with 'seting it up', and I agree. it took me 2 years to know what makes a setup good or bad, and even now its trial and error, after having build 8 warmoth guitars, and now owning 10 warmoths in total (the other 2 were already setup andbuild, but not by me, but they are GREAT guitars!).

Warmoth is very handy for what I want. Semi-custom, for the price of well, (for what I want) dirt cheap ;) I don't buy my guitars for resale, I buy them, for me! I want to have a specific guitar, top or neckwood, or I have a specific tone in mind, and I build the guitar accordingly around an idea. Sometimes my idea is an epic fail, and I have to work around my initial mistakes, like I did with my currently favorite guitar, which is a les paul with a walnut top on walnut back, with a bubinga neck. I drilled holes for coiltap and stuff, but it just was not useful! So I pulled out the toggles, filled them up with ziricote, and now its just volume and tone for each pickup, and thats enough! I just needed to get the action right. a set of 011's, tuned to E, tightening the trussrod a bit, and voila, the guitar has an overall action of 2mm. It plays like butter, and she just SINGS, especially with my own pickupset.


My point? warmoth guitars are great. You just need to forget the idea that you want to sell a guitar, one day, eventually. You really dont want to sell it.

I have experienced by the way the same thing with my warmoth's in stores as others here. First, the guy looks weery; whats that guitar? its not stock!!!!! that top looks KILLER, and the tone, WOW! (my guitars go from spanky clean to a throaty, meaty metaltone and from a smooth jazzsound to a creamy, articulate solo-sound, all of them!). The shop owner was amazed; the guitar played and sounded better than the best guitars he had (which were PRS Dragons, by the way).
 
Warmoth makes me feel  :blob7:

It's the whole process, it's not just go out, buy, play. It's plan plan plan plan plan, get so excited you're blowing your budget twice, take the plunge (and watch that 2K go right out the door), have a unique guitar that probably no one else will ever have (statistically). It's a halfway between being unremarkable and buying, and doing it yourself. It's sooooooooo satisfying. And if you're worried about resale, invest in all the equip with stewmac, find some crazy suppliers for exotic lumber, and pray that the body shape you'll pick for your homebrew guitars will pull in enough of a market to make it profitable (likely not going to happen, sorry).
Warmoth is for me. If it's not for you, it's ok. But the fact that you're worried about resale probably means you have to look into sitting on eBay all day, and finding the real deals for resale. I dunno. 'Sup to you.
Warmoth gets my  :icon_thumright:.

 
I'd like to see someone do a top-shelf quality strat from Warmoth and put it on Ebay as a Fender Custom Shop strat and see what kind of price it commands after a week (obviously, ending the auction early or whatnot before an acutal sale) trying to pass off something its not is NOT cool - put I'd like to see what sort of bids it'd get!
 
=CB= said:
In terms of a "player" you can get as good, or even better than, say, Fender Custom Shop quality from getting Warmoth wood.

To be truthful, there are better (and more expensive) metal-work parts than what they offer on "some" things.  The Gotoh stuff, etc is ok, but some folks want special bridges and string hold downs and strap buttons and neck plates and control plates etc etc.   The stuff W has i good, but there is "better" stuff.  You can order lighter, heavier, prettier, plainer wood on bodies and necks.  You can order any kind of neck contour and fretboard radius.  You can order stainless frets in several sizes... and W always offers more and more options, most at very low cost.

Like Burger King, Warmoth lets you have it "your way", and coupled with the pickups of your choice, there is no reason you cannot have your dream guitar (within reason of course).

So, as a player, as a performing or recording instrument... absolute top shelf, best quality, second to none, perhaps equal with some.

As far as an investment and resale... forget it.  Any time you get everything "custom" it means its your way, not necessarily the way other want it.  Don't count on resale.  I dont sell guitars, I give them to deserving folks... so that doesn't bother me.
Click to expand...
Why would you compare warmoth to burger king,their food sucks ass.
 
The way I see it is that you are getting a custom shop quality guitar at a fraction of the price. I'll be honest, on my first build I was scared of what I was getting myself into. I had done enough work on guitars that I knew that I could handle that part of it, but I wasn't so sure about quality of instrument. I only play high end instruments, I guess you could say I'm a snob. Fender USA, Fender Custom Shop, Gibson, Ernie Ball etc...

When I finished my first build and saw how well it turned out, the quality of the parts, the way it felt in my hands etc... I swore off ever buying a brand guitar again.....unless it's something I can't make from Warmoth. My second build is even better than my first. I got a different neck profile, different wood for the body and I gotta tell ya, I have 2 guitars from Warmoth that cost me a total of about 3 thousand that would have easily set me back 3 or 4 thousand apiece if they had a "Fender" decal on the head. And, I've had Fender Custom shop guitars in the past. My home wiring is much cleaner than what those fools at Fender do.

I couldn't recommend Warmoth any higher if I tried.
MULLY
 
I have to second what Mully said, I also went in a completely different direction on my second build, and its even better than my first, and I pulled out all the stops on both guitars, and I still came out way ahead in the finance dept., no doubt Fender would have added a whole lot more to my price tag had they done the work, except they wouldn't have picked out every single part and detail I wanted with the discretion I used.

I tried to convince myself to buy a Fender before I plunged into my last build and I just could not do it, after having built the first I knew I would always be thinking... I coulda got a heck of alot more guitar by building with Warmoth........ I am so much happier now that I have.

I will say though there is a down side......the downside is ....once you build one, you crave and yearn to build another.  I have only finished setting up my second and it is as good as it gets, but I am already itching to start another, so much so, Im trying to find people to build one for, just so I can have the experience again...lol   ...though I think I would be too sad to let it go to the new owner, so I just gotta get some gear and then start my next one...lol   :laughing7:
 
like everyone else said you get a top notch guitar, anyone who sees it will understand why you spent $2000 on it, and would likely love to have it. but even conventional builds don't typically bring in as much as goes into them. if someone falls in love with a prs they don't want to spend prs money on a similar guitar of similar quality if it's not a prs, people like to see branding and reputation, and famous people and friends and random people in the music store and studio who also love the guitar. a one off doesn't have those things. building a warmoth is in a way being a nonconformist, an individual. it's all about what you love. even though these all come from the same factory warmoth will never be like an oem. the reputation for quality is there but there is no standard models to chose, no famous tone to get, no reviews that apply to your guitar. the fit and finnish work is done by the tech not in a factory some where. it's all about deciding "this is what i want" and doing just that. and about resale, to 99% of the paying public it is not worth $2000 as there are no others to compare it too, no supply/demand. economics doesn't really apply here. but if it is tastefull and not too personal it may be just what somebody else wants and if they play it they might have to have it. custom shops (with reputations ofcoarse) often use warmoth parts and will sell for big bucks. it is a hard thing to put a dollar value on and you will have to decide if the oems can give you what you want for the money.
 
Superbeast520 said:
I will say though there is a down side......the downside is ....once you build one, you crave and yearn to build another.  I have only finished setting up my second and it is as good as it gets, but I am already itching to start another, so much so, Im trying to find people to build one for, just so I can have the experience again...lol   ...though I think I would be too sad to let it go to the new owner, so I just gotta get some gear and then start my next one...lol   :laughing7:
Click to expand...

Man, tell me about it. No lie, when I was still working on my second one I was thinking what my next build would be. It really is addictive. And again, to the original poster, you won't find a better guitar out there at the price you'll pay for a Warmoth. Not to mention the satisfaction you get when you feel how good it plays and you KNOW that you are the one that made it. Gotta agree with others about resale value though. You'd probably lose big because it doesn't have a Fender or Gibson logo on the head. Hey, compared to the big names these guitars are definitely right up there with their Custom Shop models. I'm even willing to say they're better. Good luck and hope you join the club. You won't be disappointed.
MULLY
did I tell you about my Superman strap?  :laughing8:
 
Well, I posted mine for sale a couple of weeks ago. I paid about $1500 for all the parts.
I forgot to delete the salespost at the norwegian salespage. Last sunday, a guy called me - offering me 3000 for the guitar, because he had heard so much about warmoth guitars.

I have to admit guitars are expensive in norway, but 3000 for a warmoth that actually costed 1500'ish, is wicked... but I told him it wasn't for sale any longer. It has to much personal value to me!
 
The Norwegian Guy said:
Well, I posted mine for sale a couple of weeks ago. I paid about $1500 for all the parts.
I forgot to delete the salespost at the norwegian salespage. Last sunday, a guy called me - offering me 3000 for the guitar, because he had heard so much about warmoth guitars.

I have to admit guitars are expensive in norway, but 3000 for a warmoth that actually costed 1500'ish, is wicked... but I told him it wasn't for sale any longer. It has to much personal value to me!
Click to expand...

It sounds like a scam that's tried on for size here quite frequently, usually on Craigslist. A prospective "buyer" will contact you either very early or very late in the listing period, and offer more than what you're asking, citing some issue about your item being "perfect! - not to be missed!" or that they're indisposed at the moment and cannot view the piece directly, but are certain they want it. They'll say they understand you may be wary of such offers, but then say they'll send you a check/money order first and let you deposit it before you ship any goods.

It's bogus. Counterfeit checks and money orders are very easily created on color laser printers, and your bank will deposit them for you if presented. It's not until some time later they find out it's a fraud, then they deduct that amount from your account, possibly filing charges against you. You, of course, by that time have already shipped the goods, thinking you've been paid for them.

Don't do it.
 
Everybody should know if it's too good to be true it probably is, yet people seem to always fail to remember this.
btw cagey, if it goes to eleven why is it at ten?
 
GratefullyRedd said:
Everybody should know if it's too good to be true it probably is, yet people seem to always fail to remember this.
btw cagey, if it goes to eleven why is it at ten?
Click to expand...

That's normally an animated .gif file that I've been using for years all over the 'net. The knob rotates from about 7 to 11, then the red LED lights up. This message board doesn't allow animated avatars, so I had to remove some graphics layers and turn it into a .jpg file. You can see what it looks like in action at http://forum.manicgeek.com/index.php?webtag=MG&msg=4416.1 if you'd like.
 
Dunno. Gonna have to look up one of his posts and see what kind of file that is.
 
Having built several since 1981, I can't see the justification in buying an off the shelf traditional guitar when you can get higher quality wood choices & options from Warmoth at fractions of the price.

Having worked there & been afforded the distinct pleasure of witnessing the craftsmanship, and having little sit down sessions with Ken himself as to educational insight into the engineering of these components, I'll never turn back.

I have a hand made neck through instrument that I had built many years ago, my own body shape, etc...  Beyond that, It's Warmoth only for me.

 
Max said:
Externally hosted GIF, already sized to the correct dimensions.
Click to expand...

Mine's externally hosted. What are the proper dimensions? Is there a "limits" type thread somewhere?
 
Let's see how this works. I think it'll work, but be too small to see enough detail.

Edit: As I thought. What do you guys think?
 
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