My Warmoth

[whatwasithinkin]

I just relised after being a member of this site for some time I never posted a pic of my Warmoth Strat. I bought and built this back in 2007. Total build time start to finish @ 10 hours. And that was going at a very easy pace and taking care not to mess anything up. Then maybe another hour setting up the neck, innotation, bridge etc.

Shedua on solid mahogony
Rio Grande pups: Muy Grand(B)  Half Breed RWRP(M) Dirty Harry (N) wired to 5 way, nothing fancy, just basic wiring
Wilkonson Trem(floating)
Unfinished Rosewood 59 neck, jet black ebony fretboard with Jumbo SS frets, LSR nut, Schaller locking tuners
Insides all copper sheilded.

This is by far the nicest playing guitar Ive ever had the pleasure to hold. Its heavy and sustains all week long. I could have easily spent 2-3 times the amount I spent on this on an off the rack brand name guitar but I dont think I would have been anyway as happy with what I ended up with after building and playing this. The 59 neck shape only took me a couple hours of playing to get used to. And now no more wimpy thin necks ever again.

Edit:I forgot to add that I originally set this up with EB Hybrid Slinky 09's which didnt quite get the sound I wanted. So I went to 11's and set the tuning to E flat and got the true vintage Strat sound I wanted. The nice chimey bell quality with the volume rolled back and the nice fat sound at full balls to the walls

 

[blue313]

Nice Strat!

Looks like some fairly hot pickup choices.  How do you like that Dirty Harry?

 

[m4rk0]

Nice one!  :icon_thumright:

 

[Return of Guitlouie]

Great Strat, man.  I can see why the 9's didn't work out for you, those magnets look like they have some serious pull!

 

[whatwasithinkin]

Nice Strat!

Looks like some fairly hot pickup choices.  How do you like that Dirty Harry?

I realy like it. I realy like all the pups. This was my first experience with Rio Grande and i am very happy with the combo I use.

Originally using 09 strings was a mistake. Im a bit of a bendoholic and 9's are perfect for that. But the Dirty Harry's realy didnt do well with the thin strings. Got very muddy. And this is with a fairly wide space from pickup to string.  Changing to EB 11's made the world of difference. Definetly most notable difference being on the neck pickup. Now the Dirty Harry realy stands out when I switch to it.

:guitarplayer2:

 

[Nando Vallart]

WOW! Just WOW

 

[Alfang]

Looks mostly good, I like everything except the pickguard.  The only reason I don't like the pickguard, is that I think the wood looks so good and the pickguard distracts from that.

But that's just me, I'm not sure what would look better, White? Black? I don't know Iv'e spent too much time already looking at it and can't figure it out, all the parts look good, i just think the body and pickguard are fighting each other for center stage. Overall I like it  ccasion14:

 

[whatwasithinkin]

Looks mostly good, I like everything except the pickguard.  The only reason I don't like the pickguard, is that I think the wood looks so good and the pickguard distracts from that.

But that's just me, I'm not sure what would look better, White? Black? I don't know Iv'e spent too much time already looking at it and can't figure it out, all the parts look good, i just think the body and pickguard are fighting each other for center stage. Overall I like it  ccasion14:

Alot of that has to do with the craptacular indoor photo quality of my old 5 megapixel camera.  It realy makes the pickgaurd stand out. If you could see this up close and personal it looks like a totaly different rig. The 3D quality of the shudua is amazing and realy stands out. In my hands the gold tones from both the shedua and pickguard blend nicely together.

The Warmoth stock gallery photo of the body showed it with black which I did concider using. But i wanted something a little different. Before I ordered this, I could only envision it with gold hardware to realy give the chocolate overtones of the body and neck an over the top rich look. So i ordered this pickguard with the full intentions that I would wait till it was in my hands before making the final decision if i would use it or order black or some other color. As good as the website pics are, pics are still pics and there are many factors involved that can make internet photo's look different from in your hands. But once I had them both in my hands and under good light, it took me about 2 milliseconds to decide that these looked realy good together.

When i get around to my next build, I'll most likely go with a rear rout. Warmoth offers so many great looking exotic wood choises that its realy a shame to cover up the bulk of them with a pickguard.

Thanks for all the comments from everyone.

arty07: