Quality of Warmoth factory fret work~ say that 5 times fast

[Tony Ounsworth]

If you're not careful I'll give you some more to do...

 

[Surf n Music]

Wow what a difference!! Nice work! I got my files and polishing pads waiting for the arrival of my neck 

 

[Cagey]

Mr. Jumble is clearly very good at what he does.

That's very, very gratifying coming from you, Kevin. Thank you.

You're more than welcome. It's easy praise. That's some nice work. If I sent a neck out to be done and it came back looking like that, I'd call it money well-spent.

 

[NovasScootYa]

Besides painting...Warmoth necks are about 90% complete which makes it where you can test fire your neck fairly quickly. However if the fret ends and board edges are not addressed the neck remains at 90% complete. The 10% accounts for vertical sides, sharp board edges and bumpy, scratchy fret ends.
I suspect the main reason some people side step the remaining 10% is because to deal with it takes skill, tools and determination.
When I started assembling Strats, etc. long ago I took one of my builds based on a vintage body to a dealer of vintage Fenders. The build had a bolt and go Warmoth neck with very limited fret end work. When the dealer played the instrument he said it sounded good and out of the blue he asked if I had the original neck?  The original neck question wasn't the question I was expecting to hear. What I wanted to hear was some praise for the Warmoth neck.  So after hearing that kind of question the only place I could go was back to the drawing board. To make a long story short the dealer never asked the question again. Now he asks, how much do you want for it?
If you're limited on tools and know-how then start with a Warmoth neck with their Gibson size wire. The board edges are acceptable out of the box and fairly easy to tweak. The higher/taller the wire the harder it is to make the neck feel right along the board. 
The best way I've found to begin dealing with the 10% is by studying a good vintage 50s, 60s Fender neck or any good comfortable neck, it could be a Made in Japan neck, etc. Study what nuances make the neck feel comfortable along the board edges, fret ends, etc. 

 

[john_p_wi]

^^^^^  This

The squared off vertical edge slab of a fret board is what I have noticed the most of the Warmoth necks that I have purchased compared to, in particular, my early 80's USA Charvel which has an oval profile that "just feels right".  Hard to modify a finished neck to roll the whole fret board, but will try to on an unfinished neck that I have.

 

[NovasScootYa]

^^^^^  This

The squared off vertical edge slab of a fret board is what I have noticed the most of the Warmoth necks that I have purchased compared to, in particular, my early 80's USA Charvel which has an oval profile that "just feels right".  Hard to modify a finished neck to roll the whole fret board, but will try to on an unfinished neck that I have.

Study the nuances that makes your Charvel feel right (implies the use of calipers) and apply as much of those nuances as reasonably possible to your Warmoth neck. Obviously you'll have to narrow things up to create a very slight almost invisible bulge along the slab while maintaining necessary board space for the strings. In other words, it's a laundry list of tricks and it's all as close as a hair on cat's behind.
You do not roll the entire board...Using blocks with a radius of your choice you'll roll and taper off the board edges to around the 14th fret and gradually blend the rest as playable fret crown length and board real estate are always paramount especially with vintage string spacing.
When viewed from above 6105 35 - 36 degree finished fret ends/faces should appear between rounded and arched or slightly pitched like a roof. The roof edges and its finicky bottom corners will have a radius so the water rolls off, so to speak. I'm glad you are going to at least try...that moves you to the head of the class.

 

[john_p_wi]

Thank you NovasScootYa,

Yes, I have reviewed the Charvel neck in detail, in fact the Warmoth thin is a very similar profile.  I did order the wider 1.750" nut width allowing me to roll back the slab giving a nut width of 1.700 of the Charvel.  It is amazing what a difference a roll of .025" per side makes as the minutia, almost unseen details, ARE the difference.

I'm stuck in the very cold Wisconsin winter and use my garage as my shop...  Me thinks it will be a few months before it is warm enough to work this out.

Thanks,  John

 

[Surf n Music]

I started this curious and a little worried about dropping money on a neck and I just have to say that my neck is awesome. I did a little fret polishing and sanded the back of the neck to 2000 grit and without a doubt this is the nicest neck I ever played. So with that quality is amazing!! Warmoth does awesome work!  :icon_thumright:

 

[Cederick]

My two necks from Warmoth have been nice out of the box!

One is for a higher action and I guess any neck works for that ; the other where like a millimeter or two in action and worked well too!

 

[Re-Pete]

I've bought 3 necks from Warmoth for 3 projects.
1st & 2nd necks fitted to bodies well, and the repairer (2 different individuals) I took them to for initial set up reported that no fret dressing was needed.
The 3rd one was a Showcase Koa neck, cost a fair bit more but looks fantastic. It's also the one that is in 25.5" scale (the others are 24.75" conversion necks). It did, however, require a fret dressing.
IIRC, all 3 necks have 6105 frets on them, the 6105 profile is my preferred fret profile.

 

[Cagey]

I can't imagine a tech saying a Warmoth neck didn't need dressing. They only bevel the ends - there's no dressing whatsoever. They even say so in their ad copy. Out of the last 50 or so necks I've had here, I've seen two that didn't need levelling, but they always need dressing and polishing.

 

[croquet hoop]

I guess it depends on your level of expectation. I agree with you on the fact that any quality instrument should have its frets planned (or at least checked), dressed and polished, but I'm sure out-of-the-factory Warmoth necks are at least on par with, if not better than the typical guitar you'll play at your guitar store, wich is enough for the majority of people.

Also, I am surprised that fretwork is a recurrent topic around here, but nut slotting is not (at least not to the same extent), while it is known that Warmoth cuts the nuts too high. Which is a good thing, but if you want an optimal setup, it has to be done too.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

If Warmoth made guitars, it would be reasonable to expect that they would perform the additional setup work involved, but the fact is, they are not a guitar manufacturer, but rather a parts manufacturer.

These parts are used and setup individually by very subjective criteria from consumer to consumer, and if you try to satisfy everyone under those terms, someone will be disappointed.

Warmoth services everyone from the corksniffing ("that's the way Leo did it") purist to the modern shredder and all points in between.  Some will play it right out of the box thinking it's the bees knees not knowing any better because they've never had a professional setup done on any guitar, and others will scrutinize down to the thousandth of an inch using their own calipers and find a reason to complain based on explicit measurement details. 

Warmoth does a fine job indeed of finding a happy middle ground while not over boasting what the will do, and by underboasting what they eventually accomplish.

 

[stubhead]

I guess it depends on your level of expectation

There are a lot of people who like to make pretty things, and you can indulge that to the maximum here. But if you're either practicing on a serious level, 4, 6 hours a day with the goal of playing professionally, you simply won't be able to tolerate those sharp fret ends. Or, even better, when you land that dream gig in a stinkly little bar, $40 a night per band member, if you don't drink it all up first at least it will pay for the gas to get there and back. And in a stinkly little bar playing the usual music-to-pick-up-each-other's-wives-by, once you start sweating the soft little pads at the base knuckle of your left hand will actually get soft enough to slice open. Leave the bleeding to Alice Cooper & the fat little KISS guy, I have to do the fret ends immediately.

I'm really picky about fretwork, in fact I prefer to get the fretwire cut straight-up flush so I can put the little hemispherical "hot dog" ends on, as they say. But I also don't like wasted effort or taking off excess metal unnecessarily. And, I  think that even with Warmoth's sturdy double rod, the neck is going to "settle" into place over the course of a few weather seasons. So I just do my ends, and attend to any serious fret height issues, say .003" or more. And then the first full level crown & polish, a year or so in, is like falling in love with the Black Widow all over again.    ccasion14:

I understand why people would Plek a brand-new guitar, but it's not the absolute best use of resources IMO. Without ever having Plek'd or been personally Plek'd, I can still say for sure it'll be a better guitar if you do it AGAIN in a year. One of the great advantages of learning how to do the work yourself, and having way too many guitars, is there's far less pressure to get everything absolutely perfect immediately and

I want it all

and I want it all RIGHT NOW!!!

ROAR!
​

Did you know that if you learned one new song a day for a year, you'd, ummm, know some... ummm, songs. Even two a week = +100.

 

[Tony Ounsworth]

My guitar has just been plekked. Picking it up on Monday so I'll let you guys know how it turned out.

In the meantime though I am trying to do a few more bits and pieces myself. Following the cracking job Jumble did on my fret ends I bought the same file, and had a crack at a £99 Mighty Mite neck.

Before:

After:

I was quite timid and probably could have gone further, but that'll do for now. A pretty easy job really.

Next thing I'd like to learn is how to file a nut, but the files seem quite expensive to me.

 

[croquet hoop]

A set of six gauged files costs ~80 bucks at stewmac. Compare that to what your local tech will charge to have your nut properly adjusted; if you have several guitars, buying proper files will most likely be cheaper than paying someone to do it on each guitar.

 

[Tony Ounsworth]

There's shipping to the UK for me as well, but yes I agree - it'd probably be money well spent.

 

[croquet hoop]

I have pulled the trigger on a set of six last week, so I cannot disagree. Also, make sure to practice on a cheap plastic nut before fiddling with a quality one!

 

[Cagey]

I paid more than that for my set, but I don't care. Some of the best money I ever spent. A good tool will pay you back in more ways than one.

Mr. Hoop is correct in recommending that you practice on some lesser nuts before you get to the good stuff. It's surprisingly easy to "blow" a nut. That is, to file it too deeply or at a bad angle. Although there are some "repair" tricks available, they rate right up there with bandaging your legs after a train's run over them. For all intents and purposes, if you don't do it right the first time, the thing has to come off and be replaced. No fun.

On the plus side, even good blanks (read: Graphtech) are cheap. On the minus side, time is not. So, word to the wise: GO SLOW. Measure frequently to check your progress. And if you're going to blow $100 on a set of files, it's well worth it to go the extra yard and get a mini-vise like this...

Although, there's really nothing special about it. There are lotsa places to get similar things for less money if you do a bit of Googling. You just need something like that.

Also, if you buy blanks, you're going to want some files to shape the thing and set its width. Again, StewMac does them...

...but you can probably do much better someplace else. That's the type of thing you need, though.

Finally, if you start from blanks, always buy more than you think you'll need. I don't care how good you are, you're going to screw some up. I've been doing this for a long time and I still trash nuts that I've got all sorts of time into shaping and fitting. It's contributed heavily to my colorful vocabulary <grin>

 

[Tony Ounsworth]

Great advice, thanks Cagey.