Recent discussion at the S.D, forum

[bbl4ck]

I am not capable of caring...

However, that does not mean I am not a nice person :evil4:

 

[hannaugh]

That dude is smoking crack if he honestly believes he can get a Gibson with the same quality wood as Warmoth for the same price "off the wall at any store".

 

[Wana_make_a_guitar]

I'm just careless?

That could be something else altogether though.  :icon_scratch:

 

[OzziePete]

Is Warmoth (and other partscaster manufacturers for that matter) worth it? Short answer, yes.

I prefer a mixed combo of shorter scale necks and Fender sounding guitars, so automatically, to get what I want - just for comfort's sake, not even considering wood selection, electronics, hardware and aesthetics - means either I submit a Fender Custom job and wait 6 years for them to maybe get around to it, or go the path of the 'partscaster'.

Now, I was very successful in my first build and got exactly the tone I was hoping for and got the guitar I wanted for probably a quarter of what a Fender Custom Shop job would have cost IF they would have done the job.

The second project has not been as successful and I have learnt from this experience that a careful selection of woods and electronics is needed and a lot of consideration about what you want to achieve with a project.

However, I have no beef with the quality of the neck or body, or of the hardware I ordered either. All top quality imho.

Simply it has been a frustrating case of my expectations exceeding the restrictions of the body design and having to engineer ways around it. Having several stops and starts along the way due to external situations occurring hasn't been helpful either.

But that Jazzmonster will probably end up built, and I am guessing I will have it 2/3rds the way I want it to look like and perform. Which will be some sort of achievement for me.

A poster on the SD thread made mention of using garage tools and the like instead of specialised equipment. To me, that smacks of snobbery, the type of which must fill Stew-Mac's coffers each year in sales.

I do like to fancy a garage full of very specialised Stew Mac tooling etc. but the reality is that I may only use the tool or template once and then it won't be used again.

Do I wish to spend US$50 here and there on gear like that, or I do I realise my own projects are perhaps a notch or two down from what the professional repairers needs, and try to find locally sourced, handyman tools that could just as easily do the job I want to do, and can use again for home repairs? :icon_scratch:

I have, for example, bought Stew Mac bits and the router base, as they simply seemed better engineered parts than what Dremel has. But I have bought other parts for the Dremel (a 1/8" bit for example) that did the job just as well as any from Stew Mac..

Coming from Australia, I also have to be conscious of the exchange rate at the time and sometimes when the rate is horribly in favour of the US $ a purchase seems outrageously expensive compared to the parts I could buy in Australia from the local hardware.

 

[-CB-]

Is Warmoth (and other partscaster manufacturers for that matter) worth it? Short answer, yes.

.......... I have learnt from this experience that a careful selection of woods and electronics is needed and a lot of consideration about what you want to achieve with a project.


...........A poster on the SD thread made mention of using garage tools and the like instead of specialised equipment. To me, that smacks of snobbery, the type of which must fill Stew-Mac's coffers each year in sales.

Ditto. 

And I wanna add, that if we wanted snobbery, we'd break out the Grey Poupon.

Seriously, some of those StewMac tools are tools that exist to create a problem that the tool is needed for.  Some are good tools, especially if you do a lot of work, such as in a shop - ESPECIALLY if you dont have the ability to make your own tools.  Making your own tools is a good thing BTW, because they'll do the job the way you're accustomed to working.... like that piston ring compressor I've got, or the ratcheting rocker box wrench I made, or any of the stuff for amp building... making your own tools is part of the journey, if its within your ability and means.  Not trying to be snobbish on that point either, just saying its really personally rewarding.

 

[stubhead]

I agree about the tools thing, especially as it relates to the way you're used to/trained to work. Two of the things that affect my guitar work are the twenty years or so I spent as a cook/chef/kitchen manager, it's hard to train other people to work clean without some of it rubbing off; I have also spent a lot of time working with various abrasive papers ("sand"-paper) so I tend to do most of my fretwork with various grits of the gray wet/dry 3M paper. It's not better, or worse, I just know how it acts. If you've never done any woodworking or dealt with small stuff, thinking in thousandths of an inch, guitars are kind of an expensive place to make your first and inevitable goof-ups.