Received my 7/8s S

EagleTree

Junior Member
Messages
26
I was happy to come home to a Warmoth box. The Monday after they announced the 7/8s, I called them and custom ordered a Swamp Ash S, contoured heel, angled pocket, neck HB route, instrument cavity, deleting trem and bridge routes. I already have it and I think the announcement was just two weekends ago. No pictures, but an unfinished swamp ash body would bore you death anyway, my camera battery is not cooperating any longer.

Anyway, if you were wondering as I was, whether the S could come in such a non-standard config, it does, and they were fast to boot. It arrived a week earlier than I was expecting, and that config could not have come from in-stock.

I laid it over the top of my standard W Strat body and not surprisingly, it's about an inch shorter. If anyone wants precise measurements, let me know.
 
I'm thinking Patrick, along with the rest of us, needs to see pictures. Y'know... evidence. Exhibit A.

Incidentally, what does this little rascal weigh?
 
I would not have posted had I realized that. My camera is dead, the battery won't charge.

It does exist, the Warmoth invoice says STRAT BODY, 7/8, SASH, R/R, HXX(INDEX OK), XXXX, NO BRG, 7/8SJ, LANP. Then contoured heel separately. Note to self: "buy camera BEFORE posting no matter how excited you are".

It shows one tick short of 4.25 on my kitchen scale. Not sure how accurate that is. Heavier than I expected.

Now, even though my son just looked at me as if I was insane for putting a guitar on his scanner... the scanner DOES work. This is probably the stupidest thing I've ever done (but we do stupid things when our honor is at stake ;) ). Now I hope I don't get flamed for wasting 125K of your bandwidth ;).

The scanned 7/8s S body:

scanned_body.jpg



 
I was just messing with the whole "pics or it doesn't exist" thing but scanning the body was pretty freakin creative. is that a one piece body?
 
I should have included a smiley or something so you'd know I was kidding. Nobody questions your honor. Yet! <grin> The scanner trick is really going above and beyond the call of duty. Neat idea, though. Pretty crafty, actually.

I'm surprised at the weight of the thing. I was kinda hoping you'd come back with some unusual number like 2lbs, 14oz or something.
 
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Love the scanner thing!

Looking cool! that dot is a hole on the guitar or something else?
 
that dot is on all of the bodies in the showcase that dont have pickup routes. what it is for, i do not know  :dontknow:
 
Patrick said:
I was just messing with the whole "pics or it doesn't exist" thing but scanning the body was pretty freakin creative. is that a one piece body?

My son just gave me the word, "It's pics or GTFO with the internet nowadays" ;). I thought I was supposed to be teaching HIM about life.

It's two piece, but a good match. I will be painting it though.

The dot is the index hole.
 
Cagey said:
I should have included a smiley or something so you'd know I was kidding. Nobody questions your honor. Yet! <grin> The scanner trick is really going above and beyond the call of duty. Neat idea, though. Pretty crafty, actually.

I'm surprised at the weight of the thing. I was kinda hoping you'd come back with some unusual number like 2lbs, 14oz or something.

In the more rational dawn, I agree. In fact, I checked the FedEx stat and it shows they considered it 2.0 lbs/.9kg as the ship weight which must include the box. I tossed a 1 1/4 pound plate mate on that scale and it showed 1.5 lbs, the scales error is probably non-linear but it's clearly shot. I'll take it in to my sons workplace and weigh it on a real scale. I'll post the actual weight after noon, maybe a real pic too if we get the video camera charged, it's supposed to take stills too. I wanted to get a shot of it overlaying my standard body anyway.
 
Yes. Normally, swamp ash comes in around 3 1/2 to 5 pounds, depending on the section of the trunk it came from. So, I would think a 7/8 body, being roughly 12% smaller, should be roughly 12% lighter. Maybe more than that, considering you're taking out areal vs. lineal dimension.
 
Patrick said:
that dot is on all of the bodies in the showcase that dont have pickup routes. what it is for, i do not know  :dontknow:
That hole is a CNC index hole which secures and aligns the body on the CNC table when we rout the back of the body. It exists in the bridge pickup location and is usually removed when we rout a bridge position pickup.  A similar hole exists on the back of the body that usually becomes one of the neck screw holes.
 
NonsenseTele said:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Love the scanner thing!

+1. I don't think we expected you to go to that extreme to prove your point, but thanx!  :laughing7:

 
On the weight issue. I am surprised myself, the original weight I quoted was very close (the FedEx receipt was from a completely different vendor... DOH, it was pore filler ). Anyway, I weighed the 7/8s on a USPS digital scale and it was 4.3. This is missing the bridge PU route and bridge holes, but still, surprising.  That isn't that big a deal given the weight of the neck I'll be using, but I'm not sure how it could be so far from those in the showcase. The very first S body which appears is shown at 3.1 pounds with no routes except heel, trem and instrument. I'd have to assume that trem route removes a LOT of wood.

Here is the best picture I could get with our movie camera.

7-8s.jpg


Again, poor picture but if you squint, you can see the difference in size between my standard and the 7/8s. The base is lined up as perfectly as I could get it.

strat_compare.jpg

 
So lets hear some fine details of your plans....


Lets see a sweet, vintage bucker in the neck, some midi-equipped piezo's, and enough electronics to bring down an airplane....
 
Paul-less said:
So lets hear some fine details of your plans....


Lets see a sweet, vintage bucker in the neck, some midi-equipped piezo's, and enough electronics to bring down an airplane....

I don't think I'd call them "fine" exactly. I wasn't going to go there given how off-the-wall it will be, it's a bit dull, but.... ;). It's an experiment, both with the neck, scale and pickups. I've been planning it for a long time, bought everything and even had built a similar sized body, but was finding reasons not to route the heel, just busy with other projects and didn't have the right bearing. Warmoth blew my reasons away when they brought out this 7/8s. I like your idea if I were going to play this one myself, because that would make an awesome recording instrument (in fact, after seeing Gregggs, I want one for me, JUST like his, that thing is beautiful, now you've added piezo to that wish list), but that would be 24.75. The target of this experiment is for people with smaller fingers than probably anyone on this forum ;). Kids and smaller women, the scale is 22.71. When it's done, none of us will be able to play it above high E... and it has 26 frets  :tard:. The intent is to get a deeper sound out of a too-short scale.

It is going to have a humbucker in the neck, an EMG 85 if active, a SD PAF 59 if passive, haven't decided yet. That HB route is more where a middle pickup would be given the scale I'm using. So it won't technically have a bridge or neck pickup, just like a middle, but that may be good for the application. It will have a TOM and Bigsby. The bigsby will help balance the visual since the bridge will sit insanely close to the heel, about a 1/4 inch toward the heel from the index hole. The bigsby will sit a little the other direction from the index hole and there will be a little blank body left, just enough to look good. The effect should be just a single pickup guitar with a rather normal look to those not familiar with guitars. The other pickup is further out there than a piezo, so I'll reserve that discussion till I see if it works. It's a type used in other wooden instruments to magnetically capture the vibration of the wood in all manner of ways, I'll be using two in a reverse polarity pair for hum bucking. They will be in a routed cavity in the rear near to where the bridge will be. Electronics will require a preamp and active EQ, if I use a passive HB, that may take some extra electronics. I'm hoping the pickup outputs will be so oddly different, that a balance pot will be used like a tone control.

If you look at the neck there, it's a conventional 25.5 length with a 22.71 fretboard. That is how it will fit the Warmoth 7/8s. It's also why the whole arrangement would look crazy on a normal body.

It will need a very odd set of strings, maybe heavy jazz on top getting light fast on the bottom (er, from bass to treble side).

That's a thumbnail, it will be a few weeks and I'll see if it works. You can see, it's not an exciting build like all of these I see on here and even other things I'm working on. But it is unique and should be a chance to try concepts. I'll still do a nice finish, but the build is really more technical. I think it will need to be painted just because it's two piece. Perhaps white with all it's black hardware and neck.

 
Back
Top