My Warmoth neck is perfect, what's next?

[isabel@cf-1.com]

Well my newly arrived perfect Warmoth neck has turned my “Lucky Find” great sounding Starcaster into a Super Stratocaster,  but for how long?

My widowed father, being a good looking man, would find himself with women claiming to love him, and he would always reply “For how long baby, for how long.”

Well I'm sitting here looking at the love of my life, my Warmoth/Starcaster guitar named Silvester after my cat I just loved to death until he was killed by 6 dogs. (Story for a cat forum, I know. lol)

Now I have heard stories by people that have bought guitars and or necks from Leo's Fender's plant and also from the other guy who makes guitar necks that after a while the necks change, they warp, or shrink due to drying and the fret ends begin to protrude, different things all over the net.

Please tell me that my Warmoth neck is here to stay. Are there things I should be careful of or things I should do to protect my neck as it cures and stabilizes.

Thanks You so much for your help. arty07:

 

[aarontunes]

In my experience, watching a neck go from "a" neck to "your" neck is on of the best things about owning and playing a guitar.

Take care of it, protect it from extremes in humidity and temperature, and play the heck out of it. The rest happens all by itself.

 

[Cagey]

I've gone through and still own a lot of Warmoth necks, and in my experience they're very stable. Unusually so, really. It seems they take great care to be sure the wood is properly dried/seasoned to just the right point, and I suspect whoever buys their wood knows enough about it to not buy chancy stuff to start with. The only species you have to worry about they warn you on up front, such as Maple, Mahogany, and Koa. But, even those are fine if they're hard-finished. Even the bulk guitar manufacturers like Gibson and Fender use those woods without issue for the most part, and they're about as careless as it gets.

 

[isabel@cf-1.com]

Years ago, before the Internet, I spent a time looking for a good low priced guitar via Guitar Center. After returning about 5 guitars I settled on an entry level Ibanez which years later I discovered was untuneable, I thought it was me. Back then you couldn't just hop on the net to learn what needed to be learned. So I gave up on guitars.

But about two years ago while in Mexico I went into this guitar store and tried out this Starcaster and it just had this sound that touched my soul. You know, that one in a thousand that justs rings with a beautiful sound. So I bought it, worked on the neck until it was as good as a MIA Stratocaster, but there was something missing. So I went and tried out a few MIA's strats and found I liked my Starcaster better.

The frets were beginning to wear on my starcaster so I looked into Warmoth's SS freted necks all the time telling myself “This is not going to make me a better player or make the guitar sound better and I might loose that special sound.”

But I can honestly say that that feeling of something being missing is gone and I do play better (checked my max riff speed with a metronome) and my guitar does sound better. I really don't think I need new pups anymore. It is probably a combination of the wood, compound radius, the nut being perfect, and the perfect “out of the box” SS frets AND my cheepo basswood Starcaster body.

With Leo Fender's Stratocaster design and Warmoth's necks and bodies you end up with a top of the line electric guitar.

If Fender the company had a brain in their heads they would pay Warmoth to put the fender logo on the Warmoth head stock, but instead they put their name on the junk coming out of China, and it is junk I just got lucky.  :blob7:

Will a Warmoth neck work with a Starcaster body? :sad1:

When I took off the neck of my Starcaster I almost dropped to the ground  :sad:, the pocket was just chewed out with a blunt tool it looked like and the holes in the neck were way off center. I thought for sure I was going to need a Warmoth body. But with two cents for angle, and repositioning the neck holes in the body and a bit of sanding of the body I got a perfect fit. Lucked out again.  :headbang:

It turns out that the cheep basswood is a better wood for electric guitar sound. So good that for three grand you can get a Superstrat with a basswood body from Fender. :icon_jokercolor:

I'm sorry, I'm rolling on the ground laughing, thinking how Fender puts its name on the Starcaster and would have a tissy fit if some one puts it on a Warmoth neck. How freaking funny.  :laughing3:

Hey Fender, you don't have to worry, I would not lower the value of my guitar by putting your brand on it. Soooooooooooo funny.  arty07:

 

[Cagey]

When I took off the neck of my Starcaster I almost dropped to the ground  :sad:, the pocket was just chewed out with a blunt tool it looked like and the holes in the neck were way off center. I thought for sure I was going to need a Warmoth body. But with two cents for angle, and repositioning the neck holes in the body and a bit of sanding of the body I got a perfect fit. Lucked out again.  :headbang:

Sadly, that's not an unusual finding. I can't tell you how many Fender necks I've removed only to be flabbergasted at what I find inside the joint.

I'm sorry, I'm rolling on the ground laughing, thinking how Fender puts its name on the Starcaster and would have a tissy fit if some one puts it on a Warmoth neck. How freaking funny.  :laughing3:
Hey Fender, you don't have to worry, I would not lower the value of my guitar by putting your brand on it. Soooooooooooo funny.  arty07:

I've been saying that for years. I'd no sooner give Fender credit for Warmoth's work than I would my own, out of fear of devaluing the good stuff. Oddly enough, the motivation for doing so is quite the opposite. If you trick people into thinking they're buying/looking at a Fender, it increases in value. Why do you suppose there are so many counterfeits out there? Not only of newer stuff, but especially the old un-tuneable crap?

 

[isabel@cf-1.com]

I thought of that and it is sad how deceptive marketing and how we are geard to think and react to stimuli keeps us in the dark on so many levels. But it all works out in the end because if not for fender we wouldn't have Warmoth and that's due to a hippy named Jimi. And he played the Strat cause someone gave it to him and he played it upside down and backwards.

The real question is if Jimi didn't play it backwards and upside down would we be having this discussion now. lol  arty07:

 

[Nightclub Dwight]

I thought of that and it is sad how deceptive marketing and how we are geard to think and react to stimuli keeps us in the dark on so many levels. But it all works out in the end because if not for fender we wouldn't have Warmoth and that's due to a hippy named Jimi. And he played the Strat cause someone gave it to him and he played it upside down and backwards.

The real question is if Jimi didn't play it backwards and upside down would we be having this discussion now. lol  arty07:

Are you sure Jimi played his guitar backwards?  I always thought he played a right handed guitar that was flipped over but strung properly for a left handed player.  I have read that Albert King played his guitar backwards, which really blows my mind.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Jimi's string orientation was symmetrically correct.  Bass string on top, treble strings on bottom.  The guitar was the weird part.  Albert King, Dick Dale, Doyle II, etc., they played the guitar upside down.  Treble strings on top, bass string on bottom.