Is building a complete Warmoth parts guitar still relevant for many?

[nsurround]

If you are the DIY type and want a very customizable guitar, Warmoth parts are at the top end of quality and price. That being said, you will essentially have a 'partscaster' that in the end may cost you as much or more than a similar branded guitar such as Fender etc. If resale value is important to you I would go now with a brand name of similar qualities. I built a custom Warmoth telecaster during the Covid years which Warmoth I am sure did well in those times. But these days there are so many decent instruments coming from overseas at prices that that are below $1.5K that I think undercuts some of the reasons one might be interested in building a Warmoth parts guitar. Many of these overseas guitars have very good build qualities but cut costs a bit on the electronics etc. These can be replaced if wanted and still the cost may be below that of a complete Warmoth build. It will be interesting going forward to see how Warmoth deals with this. Checking their inventory recently I noticed they had a huge selection of in stock parts available, more than I have seen in the past. IMO Warmoth is a good high quality electric guitar parts vendor that if you need a replacement neck etc for a branded instrument such as Fender it is worth the cost. But if building from the ground up I think Warmoth is becoming questionable.

 

[Spud]

If you are the DIY type and want a very customizable guitar, Warmoth parts are at the top end of quality and price. That being said, you will essentially have a 'partscaster' that in the end may cost you as much or more than a similar branded guitar such as Fender etc. If resale value is important to you I would go now with a brand name of similar qualities. I built a custom Warmoth telecaster during the Covid years which Warmoth I am sure did well in those times. But these days there are so many decent instruments coming from overseas at prices that that are below $1.5K that I think undercuts some of the reasons one might be interested in building a Warmoth parts guitar. Many of these overseas guitars have very good build qualities but cut costs a bit on the electronics etc. These can be replaced if wanted and still the cost may be below that of a complete Warmoth build. It will be interesting going forward to see how Warmoth deals with this. Checking their inventory recently I noticed they had a huge selection of in stock parts available, more than I have seen in the past. IMO Warmoth is a good high quality electric guitar parts vendor that if you need a replacement neck etc for a branded instrument such as Fender it is worth the cost. But if building from the ground up I think Warmoth is becoming questionable.

I never thought it was about the resale. I find it is about building exactly what you want.

 

[JohnnyHardtail]

It will cost too much to buy a Fender with stainless steel frets. I really need SS6100 frets to be happy. Even with strong USD and high shipping cost, I prefer a Warmoth partscaster overall.

 

[aarontunes]

Building a Warmoth isnt about getting something cheap. It is about getting something unique.

None of those decent imports coming from overseas offers 1/100th the amount of options that a Warmoth does. Sometimes that's fine, and you are better off getting that cheap import.

Sometimes that's not fine. That's when you go Warmoth.

 

[ghostrider]

Warmoth is a lot cheaper than Fender Custom Shop which is more the comparison because you’re building something customized to your specs. If your specs are the same as an off the shelf import and cost/resale is important to you, buy the import.

 

[Rick]

I don't think of covid, as the covid years!

If you go back to the 70s, 80s and 90s you don't know what it was like to hunt for a quality playable guitar. Or even repairing a neck or find decent parts. I remember musicians who were also junkies and resale was important to them.

There a lot of good guitars now ... reverend prs etc. Compared to then we now live in an age of wonderment.

You go to warmoth beause you want to have a hand in building it yourself. My cousin did this with motorcycles and cars ... make something that's you, to your specs. (For instance most necks are too small for my hands) Nothing better than getting on stage and playing something of quality you made.

 

[teleme01]

I am pro warmoth, would rather build my own.

and I imagine there is a quantity discount for builders, right? 3?5?10? Me on the other hand could get in serious trouble if warmoth offered lay away.

 

[nsurround]

Great replies and hope this bodes well for Warmoth.

 

[Bassistlaw]

Everything Warmoth except the painted one and the finished maple neck. 5 bodies and 4 necks. All my Warmoth parts are roasted except the lightest color body.

 

[Mincer]

I don't mind spending thousands on a guitar that does everything I need. I do mind spending that money on a guitar that I have to additionally mod to be what I need.

 

[stratamania]

If you started looking at Warmoth during the recent pandemic at that time, the showcase stocks became extremely low. Before that, the stocks were at similar levels to now.

There were just as many parts options on the market pre-Covid as there are now. It was a choice then what someone put together or modded as it is now.

@nsurround it seems to me the premise of your question is based on a period when demand due to lockdowns increased and supply decreased, rather than a more stable baseline. So, we went from relevant to many, then to more and back to many.

The many are not always the same people. A little like furniture, sometimes you buy nothing, other times the odd piece, and then you might need to furnish an entire house. But the furniture manufacturers are still there to cater to those in the market at the times you are not.

 

[mayfly]

Well, your question has been asked many times before over the decades. Warmoth seems to keep on chugging, for a whole bunch of reasons. Quality, uniqueness, individual preference, solving a particular player's problem, and cost are some of the reasons.

Regarding cost try pricing out a custom shop double bound silver sparkle telecaster with custom pickups, special neck shape, and a b-bender. Then price out the equivalent Warmoth and you'll find that it's half the price.

 

[Waraxe]

I echo what everyone else says.

Building a warmoth is not about saving money or "doing it better". It's about a guitar with the right specs for you, and to have something unique.
I see them as functional art. I love the design phase as much as the build, setup, or playing phases.
When I start to miss it, I get the itch for another build.

A custom warmoth is more akin to a boutique builder or fcs. A true one off FCS is in the 7 to 10 grand range, and you may not get everything you want.

I can build that for $2500 or so.

Get a dynamite setup by a pro, and the difference is basically nil.

still very relevant for me. It gets more and more relevant as I build more guitars. I truly enjoy the whole process.

 

[Bassistlaw]

Old retired luthier here. No shop anymore. Poor vision now makes it unsafe to work on customer builds. In my heyday I built over 20,000 guitars in the 1980’s @ Steinberger Sound. Then went on to fix the expensive guitars for both Guitar Center & Sam Ash. Easily a thousand repairs per year. Built many of my own personal basses from scratch too. I order Warmoth simply because it saves me time and energy. So far every part has exceeded my expectations in both wood choice and build quality. I’ve never had to shim a neck pocket or even dress a fret! The last neck I ordered didn’t even need the truss adjusted. I’ll definitely be “assembling” my seventh Warmoth bass in the not too far future. (Probably another baritone guitar strung with four bass strings and tuned EADG like regular bass…it works!)
Here’s one of my early short scale builds… off menu extra P-pickup on this one.

 

[MoreSpaceEcho]

may cost you as much or more than a similar branded guitar such as Fender etc.

Yeah no, sorry. I've built like 10 Warmoths so far. I buy unfinished bodies and DIY. None of them have cost more than ~$1300 tops. Pretty sure I can't buy a Fender for that price that's gonna have stainless steel frets, locking Hipshot tuners, Gotoh bridge, Fralin pickups, etc etc.

Besides that, anyone's who's buying Warmoths and thinking about resale is doing it wrong. You buy these cause you can get exactly what you want AND because putting them together yourself is satisfying work.

 

[teleme01]

Yeah no, sorry. I've built like 10 Warmoths so far. I buy unfinished bodies and DIY. None of them have cost more than ~$1300 tops. Pretty sure I can't buy a Fender for that price that's gonna have stainless steel frets, locking Hipshot tuners, Gotoh bridge, Fralin pickups, etc etc.

Besides that, anyone's who's buying Warmoths and thinking about resale is doing it wrong. You buy these cause you can get exactly what you want AND because putting them together yourself is satisfying work.

I have spent approximately 1300 a piece on all my warmoth builds. If I could find a good luthier to fine tune setups they could all be as good as cs/suhr, I have all great parts but not the expertise of the great builders. Side note, do you think suhr would be upset that we refer to them as the standard of excellence?

 

[MoreSpaceEcho]

Yep I expect John Suhr himself will come barreling in here any minute, demanding we stop saying how great his guitars are!

 

[Rick]

I wanna give a shout out for reverends.

 

[MoreSpaceEcho]

Speaking of Reverends....we were in Chicago visiting friends a few months back, naturally we went to Chicago Music Exchange. Was actually the first thing we did. Anyway I played a bunch of stuff in there, and I'm so spoiled by my Warmoths that pretty much everything I picked up I thought:
1. ugh. HEAVY.
2. this setup sucks, all of mine play way better and that's with me doing the setups (I'm pretty much a beginner).

The one exception was a Reverend Billy Corgan. I'm not a fan of Billy but that guitar played really nice and looked killer. Capri Orange with the brushed aluminum pickguard is a good look. Pretty reasonable price tag too if I remember right.

 

[Bassistlaw]

The most import part of any instrument is “who’s holding (playing) it!”
The price tag has nothing to do with sounding good. Here’s a photo from an upscale fly in gig I did in Las Vegas where I’m using a $130 (back then) SX brand short scale Jazz Bass copy.
Same bass onstage at the Las Vegas House Of Blues…same trip.