My birthday guitar: Blue quilt maple Gilmour Strat

Frank67

Junior Member
Messages
54
Dear fellow Warmoth enthusiasts,

This guitar is a birthday present from my wonderful wife - it was one of those guitars that I have been dreaming of and now that it has materialized it turned out to be even better I imagined it.

I always liked the tones that Gilmour and Knopfler got when they were playing with EMG single coil pickups. I am obviously neither Gilmour or Knopfler or ever will be, but I wanted to have this option in my arsenal. I just don't like the way Fender made guitars are finished, their color choices, the fretboard radius etc. etc. ... and of course the EMG DG20 preassembled Gilmour kit takes the cake for being but ugly. Hence going the Warmoth routine again seemed to be the best choice, again.

The wood choices are all standard - Alder body and maple neck. I did not want to toy around with proven and established choices here.

I have discussed the aesthetics of the guitar with my wife and we settled on a quilt maple top with blue dye finish and black back. The quilt maple is of very high grade and was a unique choice. In my opinion it looks truly stunning and the guys at Warmoth did such a wonderful job with that finish! I also love the way it blends into the black back. For the neck - I am a die hard ebony fretboard fan and hence black ebony was the choice. The radius is 10-16 compound and the profile 59' roundback, which I have on all three of my Warmoth guitars. My wife suggested black MOP dot inlays. When I launcehd the order I got a reply from the people at Warmoth telling me that this was a bit odd as the effect will be rather subtle - but this is what was intended and a day later they sent me another email saying that it will look great. The headstock was finished in the same quilt maple blue dye and I think that it looks really nice together with the neck and body.

In terms of hardware, the the GraphTech Earvana black TUSQ nut seems to be of high quality and the Schaller mini-locking tuners are also a proven good choice. Although I am not really a tremolo user, I figured that a Strat is only a Strat with a tremolo (even if I may eventually leave it bloacked) and went with a recessed Wilkinson VS100. The Gilmour type pickguard was assembled from a black Warmoth guard (much nicer than Fender ones imho), the EMG SA single coil set, the EMG EXG and SPC Hi/Lo and mid boost kits. I am a complete moron with a soldering iron but putting together the EMG electronics was a piece of cake. The only think I had to tinker with a bit was to connect the battery cable with the battery box (I did not want to disassemble the pickguard everytime I chance the battery).

The assembly of the guitar went really smooth and easy -  I guess for somebody who is experienced it would not have take much more than an hour. It took me 3 or 4 hours, also because I was celebrating it. I have made a rough setup and tuning stability and intonation were not a problem. I put d'Addario 11's on it. It will see a professional luthier for a full setup soon.

Well, it already looks great and I am really happy with the outcome. Warmoth guitars are simply the best! ... now I hope that the regal's are coming online again to build the final Les Paul'ish guitar that I want to have.

Have a nice weekend everybody and enjoy music and guitars!

IMG_1200_zps46fdbe41.jpg

IMG_1202_zps2f0caaf9.jpg

IMG_1204_zps56e3158c.jpg

IMG_1206_zpsad63cef2.jpg

IMG_1208_zpsfef217a5.jpg

IMG_1209_zpsd5950b45.jpg
 
I actually had tried both - i had a glossy Fender andthis one from Warmoth - I liked this one better. The Fender one looked like a cheap piece of plastic and somehow felt out of place on an otherwise rather classy looking guitar. But I see your point of course. One nice thing with Strats is that these things are so easy to change.
 
11s, ouch!

Gilmour uses 10, 12, 16, 28, 38, 48. Bit of a weird set. I bet you'll get a lovely full sound out of those.
 
I play a lot of Jazz guitar too and hence I am used to pretty heavy string gauges (like 13's or 14's). It is true that for rock playing the 11's are bit harder to bend. On my Les Paul with the shorter scale it really wasn't a problem and now 9's or 10's feel too "wobbly" to me. On the 25.5 Strat/Tele scale bending the 11ths was a bit challenging initially - but it is a good workout for the fingers and one is rewarded with big, fat tone (I'm not the fastest anyways and somehow I feel that I am more in control with the heavier strings - besides many people can play superfast also on heavier strings).

... I guess Stevie Ray Vaughn was known for playing 13's on his Strat .... wow, that must have been hard with all the crazy bends that he did ... .I guess 11 is as much as I can handle on a rock guitar.
 
Beautiful build!!! Where'd you get the EMG's and how are they sounding for you? I've always wanted to do a Gilmour Strat myself. The body and neck look amazing and I bet the figuring of that wood grain is just popping!

I just got a Line 6 JT Variax off of eBay and am just waiting for it to arrive! Can't wait to plug it in and hear all of the Strat sounds coming out among all of the other stuff it has and can do.
 
Raunline said:
Beautiful build!!! Where'd you get the EMG's and how are they sounding for you? I've always wanted to do a Gilmour Strat myself. The body and neck look amazing and I bet the figuring of that wood grain is just popping!

I just got a Line 6 JT Variax off of eBay and am just waiting for it to arrive! Can't wait to plug it in and hear all of the Strat sounds coming out among all of the other stuff it has and can do.

Thank you!

It is indeed a very pretty guitar and it turned out to be everything I wanted it to be. I haven't played it with the band yet (which always is a very different thing soundwise) but just in my music room I thought the EMGs sound really good. No hum and plenty of volume on tap too. This is pretty much the first guitar where I feel that backing down the volume knob does not sound anemic. As we discussed above, the pickups sound stratty, as they are supposed to, as long asthe exg and spc are fully down. The spc boosts the mids and cuts the highs, thus making it warmer and fatter, the exg boosts the highs and lows. Hence many different sounds are available and I have to explore a bit more.

Hope you have fun with your variax!
 
Back
Top