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Is the added cost of a specific choice top worth it?

Death by Uberschall said:
You can buy a top wood somewhere else and send it to Warmoth.  :icon_thumright:

You can?  Huh, that's news to me......  I thought they really frowned on sending in your own wood.....
 
BigBeard said:
Death by Uberschall said:
You can buy a top wood somewhere else and send it to Warmoth.  :icon_thumright:

You can?  Huh, that's news to me......  I thought they really frowned on sending in your own wood.....
My understanding is that they will use your top, but there is no discount off the normal base price of you guitar. Meaning that if you send in a flame maple top, you will still get charged the base price for a flame maple top, just your wood gets used. This is because they still have to mill, plane and glue it all together.
 
what DbU said, but the wood you send can be recused if its not into good standards, so buy it from a trustfull seller!
 
Here's a quote from Wyliee (Eric) on the subject:

Wyliee said:
It's still going to be full pop for customer supplied wood.  Invariably, the piece has to be prepared (planed, dried, cut down, etc...) before it can be used.  Setting up equipment to do that for one piece is actually more expensive per piece than batch processing.  FYI, those extra steps also adds time to the production process. 

Honestly, most of the wood I've seen sent in hasn't been that impressive.  I can understand pieces that may have sentimenal value, but it most cases Warmoth's stock is pretty darn nice.

.....and the full thread:

http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=11572.0
 
BigBeard said:
Now keep in mind there is no extra labor involved on their end for the honor of picking out your board, no more labor than a lam top you didn't pick out.  Smart money is on letting them decide........ once the costs of materials comes into play.  Now that I did this math problem, my mind is made up, no more Warmoth's for me.......

BB, this is quite wrong.  Photographing and cataloging all the pieces is an additional labor cost.  Any order with a unique choice piece gets special handling to make darn sure the correct piece is used.  These are additional services to the customer.  How many other custom builders allow you to pick the exact piece used for your build?  Check their prices and I think you'll find Warmoth to be quite the bargain.

In all seriousness, if you can find significant sources of maple at $6-8 a board/ft and yield AAA - AAAAA pieces of figured maple from it, you might want to consider starting a small business.  High grade figured maple, particularly quilt maple, is in short supply.  You may find your yield far less than what you might expect, though.  Also expect to pay more to have a mill/vendor resaw your lumber unless you have the equipment to do it yourself.
 
It was worth it for me because I had a specific guitar that I wanted to duplicate and this piece of wood nailed the look and in fact exceeds it.  That said get ready to pull your wallet out, but think what it would cost to have the same guitar built by the Gibson or Fender custom shop.
TopforTheThinline.jpg

IMG_5886.jpg
 
Tonar8353 said:
It was worth it for me because I had a specific guitar that I wanted to duplicate and this piece of wood nailed the look and in fact exceeds it.  That said get ready to pull your wallet out, but think what it would cost to have the same guitar built by the Gibson or Fender custom shop.
TopforTheThinline.jpg

IMG_5886.jpg

IF that ain't an excellent (non-economic) argument in favor of unique choice, I dunno what WOULD be.

peace
Bagman
 
I'm glad I'm not into fancy-schmancy tops; saves me money and I would go batsh!t crazy with Warmoth's selections.

I prefer the simple understatement *cough* of, say, a Flake Green or the like.   SHINY  :icon_jokercolor:

No but really - don't like the busy look on geetars that quilt/flame provides, and my wallet thanks me.  I find the
classiness of say a Gibson Les Paul Custom in White much more appealing than a highly figured maple top peeking
through a typical burst finish... not only that (and I don't get why people *still* think this), it's been done a beeelllion
freaking times before; it's not "exclusive" anymore (in terms of "hey duuuude whadaya think of my new quiltburstflamey
geetar?).  Sure, in the 80's where every hairmetal/cockrock pointy geetar was painted in some Primary Color with
some cheesy graphic, the flames/quilts stood out.  But seems ever since PRS became popular, quilt/flame tops are a dime a dozen.

Alright to be honest I would be happy with a very subtle flame; s'pose like the original LPs.  But nothing crazy
and distracting.  :icon_jokercolor:
 
Eric I think you are taking my statement out of context.  The original question was: "Is the added cost of a specific choice top worth it?"
My opinion (remember, just my opinion) is that it honestly isn't. I did take for granted the labor involved with the pictures and other stuff associated with the unique choice option, but c'mon you guys are doing pretty ok with this option, which is great, you guys are in business to make money, not break even.  Not too many other builders offer this service, you are right (I don't offer it!!) so that is something you have going for your service.....

I wish I did have a source for figured maple..... We have Silver maple here in PA, which does come up with nice flames sometimes, but it's a shot in the dark when you are out playing lumberjack I know.  I mean how do you tell what trees have figured grains until you make them lumber? 

The bottom line is that the price per board foot of the unique choice woods are $200-900 per board foot, so I'm going to let anyone make the choice of wheather or not it is a good buy.

Wyliee said:
BigBeard said:
Now keep in mind there is no extra labor involved on their end for the honor of picking out your board, no more labor than a lam top you didn't pick out.  Smart money is on letting them decide........ once the costs of materials comes into play.  Now that I did this math problem, my mind is made up, no more Warmoth's for me.......

BB, this is quite wrong.  Photographing and cataloging all the pieces is an additional labor cost.  Any order with a unique choice piece gets special handling to make darn sure the correct piece is used.  These are additional services to the customer.  How many other custom builders allow you to pick the exact piece used for your build?  Check their prices and I think you'll find Warmoth to be quite the bargain.

In all seriousness, if you can find significant sources of maple at $6-8 a board/ft and yield AAA - AAAAA pieces of figured maple from it, you might want to consider starting a small business.  High grade figured maple, particularly quilt maple, is in short supply.  You may find your yield far less than what you might expect, though.  Also expect to pay more to have a mill/vendor resaw your lumber unless you have the equipment to do it yourself.

 
BigBeard said:
I wish I did have a source for figured maple..... We have Silver maple here in PA, which does come up with nice flames sometimes, but it's a shot in the dark when you are out playing lumberjack I know.  I mean how do you tell what trees have figured grains until you make them lumber? 

I did a little research on figured maple not too long ago, and you're absolutely right - there's no qood way to tell what you're going to get until you harvest and machine it. It's not a specific species you can purposely plant, it doesn't appear to have anything to do with climate, insects or soil, and you can't treat it or raise it any particular way to get that result. It seems that you just get about 10% or less of a maple stand that will have figuring in the wood, and even that's inconsistent. Some will be highly figured, and some not so much.

My own theory is it's gotta be a stress reaction of some sort. Too much wind, too much weight... something like that.

Good hardwoods are getting tougher to find, though. Especially larger cuts. Makes sense, I guess, since it can take decades or even centuries for a hardwood tree to get really large. Country has only been here for a little over 200 years, and we've been using the stuff that whole time. If you planted your own personal maple forest, it would be a helluva long time before you could be pulling any appreciable lumber out of it.
 
On the PRS video posted a while back, he had a theory postulated to him by a logger.  That is, a tree with figure has struggled to maturity under a taller tree starving for light.  When that taller, older tree finally dies, the figured tree - now no longer light deprived - grows at a differeing rate than before, causing the burling, figuring, and flaming.  The logger said that they will look for trees growing around an old mound that the previous bigger tree's root ball had displaced.  That yields good results.  So yes, it is an abnormality and not genetic so a tree with figure will not have figured offspring in ideal growing conditions.

 
lafromla1 said:
I was playing around with the body builder and while looking at specific tops, especially on the Rosewood tops, the price can increase as much as $300, shooting a $400 body to over $700.

Would you pay the added cost of a specific top or buy it and hope for the best (assuming that there isn't one you want in the showcase)?
I think JackThe Hack said it best "yes".
 
Super Turbo Deluxe Custom said:
On the PRS video posted a while back, he had a theory postulated to him by a logger.  That is, a tree with figure has struggled to maturity under a taller tree starving for light.  When that taller, older tree finally dies, the figured tree - now no longer light deprived - grows at a differeing rate than before, causing the burling, figuring, and flaming.  The logger said that they will look for trees growing around an old mound that the previous bigger tree's root ball had displaced.  That yields good results.  So yes, it is an abnormality and not genetic so a tree with figure will not have figured offspring in ideal growing conditions.

That does mean that it can be duplicated though. It just takes a while and needs to be very well-structured and maintananced. Maybe we will see an increase in figured wood and reduced prices some time in the future.
 
Maybe it can by introducing stress, but the added cost of maintaining and introducing stress to a tree that size for that long doesn't make it cost effective.  It's not like a Pecan orchard.  Plus it's a long experiment.  If this "theory" were just discovered today, it wouldn't be proved for another 50 years.  Who does or owns anything for 50 years?  Factories move, land is sold, people die.  A lot can happen in 50 years.  So if it could be reproduced, you would have a predictable source, but the manhours involved in making it doesn't make it a cheap alternative.  Then there's the whole cultured pearl and cubic zirconium thing.  For all intents and purposes, they are like the real deal but are worth less because they're not naturally formed.  You already see the flack relic finishes take because they aren't real. 
 
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