New Member/Former Lurker/First Build

[prancer]

Hey everybody,

New to the forum after I've been lurking for a bit.  I am about to embark on my first build.  Waiting on my first order to arrive: roasted maple neck and a walnut body tele.  I feel pretty prepared after reading endless threads here.  One question I have is how well dressed the frets are out of the factory.  Do i need to get them dressed right or should they be good to go from the factory?  Besides the frets, I'm planning on burnishing the neck and putting a thin nitro finish on the headstock face for a custom decal.

Anyway, happy to be here and look forward to learning more and more. Hopefully, this is the first of many builds.

 

[Nando Vallart]

Hello!
Welcome aboard, officialy !

The frets are not levelled from factory, though they are well installed... Depending on your strings height you will need a levelling...

Well, using a nitro on headstock it will dark with time only on headstock and will happen the same on some 70's Fenders: The head darker than the rest.
I find it ugly, if I were to apply finish on the neck, I'd apply on it all, so the color will be the same with time or apply a kind of finish that doesn't gets darker with time, like PU.

 

[prancer]

Think erring on the side of thinner would lessen the darkening?  I'm not too worried about a little darkening over time.

 

[Nando Vallart]

The "little" is a bit taste-like... to me is much, to others the same example would be "little", but this is what happens:

I don't like it...

 

[prancer]

Yeah that looks terrible but that fretboard is super light.  The neck I ordered is roasted so its a bit dark to begin with. I think I'll take my chances

 

[stratamania]

Welcome to the forum.

The last Warmoth neck I bought only had one fret the 17th where there was a slight rock only on the bass side. Everything else was level so I had less work to do on that one.

The frets are not dressed at all at the ends but do have a bevel unless you ask for them not to be.

Can you play them out of the box?

A lot of people do. But they may require some level, crown, dressing and polish work dependent on the neck and your personal preferences.

 

[spe111]

I have three necks from Warmoth and I had the frets leveled on all three but they weren't really that bad.