Shikha

[jalbertochavez]

Hi. K, these are pictures of my first complete Warmoth build. I'm a fan of Buckethead and I've liked his custom Les Paul, but I've ever really been a Les Paul kinda guy. Never liked the layout of the controls or the short scale. (Don't get me wrong though. I love so much of the music that's been made through LPs and I do have plans to build a Warmoth LP.) So I thought I'd make my own Strat version of his Les Paul. Buckethead's Les Paul has a couple other controls & a killswitch. I first built my Strat with 2 tone controls & a killswitch, but I quickly disliked the tone controls & the button of the killswitch was defective so I got rid of them. I named it "Shikha" after an Indian girl I knew in college for a while. It turns out "Shikha" means "powerful". I think that appropriately describes this guitar. There's not much it can't do. It was built in late 2007, but I haven't had a camera until recently. Sorry for the huge pictures. Feel free to love it or hate it, either way it rocks my world.  :headbang1:

So, here's the recipe:

Chrome Gotoh locking tuners.
Quilted Maple Headstock Veneer
CBS headstock shape. (CBS headstocks forever!!!)
Warmoth Pro AAA Flame Maple Neck
Bone nut
Ebony Fretboard w/white binding
6100 Frets
Hollow Alpine White Alder body
Comfort contours & contoured heel
White 1 Ply Vintage 8-hole pickguard
DiMarzio Pickups (I'll let y'all wonder which)
Reverse angle brigde pickup (just to be different)
Standard 5 way switch
500K push/pull volume pot (turns the bridge on in any position when engaged)
D'Addario strings, .009-.042
String-thru bridge routing (can't stand tremolos)
Chrome Gotoh bridge (couldn't find a white bridge anywhere)
Schaller Strap locks.

More pictures.

 

[RLW]

That's perfect.

 

[DocNrock]

Kick ass!  Love the flame in that neck and the binding just sets it off.  I also love ebony boards.  Let me know, though, what models the pups are.  All of DiMarzio's rails single coil sized pups look the same.  I cannot tell what they are:  Tone Zone S, Chopper, Super D S, Fast Track 1 or 2, Air Norton S, etc...???

 

[willyk]

Oozes class...........love it  :headbang:

 

[ByteFrenzy]

I really like that ebony board without dots. Contrasts with the binding and the body in a marvelous way. Exceptionally clean, elegant build.

 

[gnome]

i love white strats and this one looks seriously sweet

 

[kreig]

Hmmmmmmmm .

The jury is still out on this one . . .

my 2 cents ,

1st Congratulations are in order . Was it a fun experience ?
2nd As long as YOU are happy with it , that's ALL that matters !

Now I'll cut to the chase , and I'll do my best to stay constructive . . .

I think that the total guitar is a "flurry of ideas" , meaning that I'm not seeing any uniformity .
Ex. Painted body , Flamed neck , Quilted Maple headstock veneer
[(is "pillowed " as well ) you had no control over this , but could have , by requesting a " tighter " quilt ?] if that is what you would have desired .
because the flaming on the neck is fantastic .
mis-match .
I would have ordered the headstock veneer flamed as well , for the sake uniformity  .

Another thing I notice is the mis-match between old and new ideas .

new - modern pups , reverse angle bridge pup , one knob , bound neck with no inlays , hollow body

old - CBS headstock , vintage looking tuners , I know they're Gotoh . 1 ply white p/g , knob

and the wiring  ? ? ? :icon_scratch:

I wish it was either old school OR uber skool !

Btw - if it was to be uber skool ,
I'd custom cut some gloss white polycarbonite for the p/g , to be different .
paint it a "Washed" white with grain showing thru on ALL the wood . or the Acyrlic swirl applied on the body
and modern black hdwr. to make it POP off the ebony fretboard with white binding idea
I'd start over with the wiring / knob config.

and you should have the strings wrap around the tuner posts at least 3 or 4 times for better tuning stability

I hope this has been worth at least 2 cents ,

Kreig  :hello2:

 

[DocNrock]

You cut on this one and stand up for "cats whiskers."  :icon_scratch:

 

[gnome]

there's nothing wrong with mixing a bit of the new with a bit of the old, especially when you take the best of both worlds

if you just go down one od e.g. old school or 'uber' school then there is no point building your own guitar, may aswell jsut buy a fender, if it's your guitar ou shoud buld it to your exact specs

 

[kreig]

HaHA , I did'nt cut on this one ! just gentle persuasion . I'm trying to convince everybody to convert to lefty , and put their righties down .

and I thought you already left fer fishing or whatever . . .

and would you mind leaving some W goods fer the rest of us . . .
you're already guilty of hoarding !

 

[DocNrock]

HaHA , I did'nt cut on this one ! just gentle persuasion . I'm trying to convince everybody to convert to lefty , and put their righties down .

and I thought you already left fer fishing or whatever . . .

and would you mind leaving some W goods fer the rest of us . . .
you're already guilty of hoarding !

Not a chance, on all counts.  :icon_biggrin:

 

[jalbertochavez]

That's perfect.

Thank you.

:rock-on:

 

[jalbertochavez]

Kick ass!  Love the flame in that neck and the binding just sets it off.  I also love ebony boards.  Let me know, though, what models the pups are.  All of DiMarzio's rails single coil sized pups look the same.  I cannot tell what they are:  Tone Zone S, Chopper, Super D S, Fast Track 1 or 2, Air Norton S, etc...???

Thanks for the compliments on the neck & fretboard. Sorry I'm not givin' up which pickups. Gotta leave something to the imagination. (But it's a pretty narrow group of pickups that they could be.)

:rock-on:

 

[jalbertochavez]

Oozes class...........love it  :headbang:

Thank you.

:rock-on:

 

[jalbertochavez]

I really like that ebony board without dots. Contrasts with the binding and the body in a marvelous way. Exceptionally clean, elegant build.

Thanks ByteFrenzy. I mentioned in the description of my guitar that I modeled it as a Strat version of Buckethead's custom Les Paul and one thing that blew me away was the dot-less fretboard. I don't think I'd ever seen that before. Thanks again for the kind words.

:rock-on:

 

[jalbertochavez]

i love white strats and this one looks seriously sweet

Thank you.

:rock-on:

 

[jalbertochavez]

Hmmmmmmmm .

The jury is still out on this one . . .

my 2 cents ,

1st Congratulations are in order . Was it a fun experience ?
2nd As long as YOU are happy with it , that's ALL that matters !

Now I'll cut to the chase , and I'll do my best to stay constructive . . .

I think that the total guitar is a "flurry of ideas" , meaning that I'm not seeing any uniformity .
Ex. Painted body , Flamed neck , Quilted Maple headstock veneer
[(is "pillowed " as well ) you had no control over this , but could have , by requesting a " tighter " quilt ?] if that is what you would have desired .
because the flaming on the neck is fantastic .
mis-match .
I would have ordered the headstock veneer flamed as well , for the sake uniformity  .

Another thing I notice is the mis-match between old and new ideas .

new - modern pups , reverse angle bridge pup , one knob , bound neck with no inlays , hollow body

old - CBS headstock , vintage looking tuners , I know they're Gotoh . 1 ply white p/g , knob

and the wiring  ? ? ? :icon_scratch:

I wish it was either old school OR uber skool !

Btw - if it was to be uber skool ,
I'd custom cut some gloss white polycarbonite for the p/g , to be different .
paint it a "Washed" white with grain showing thru on ALL the wood . or the Acyrlic swirl applied on the body
and modern black hdwr. to make it POP off the ebony fretboard with white binding idea
I'd start over with the wiring / knob config.

and you should have the strings wrap around the tuner posts at least 3 or 4 times for better tuning stability

I hope this has been worth at least 2 cents ,

Kreig  :hello2:

Thanks for the constructive criticism. No harm, no foul. Nothing like that at all.

I wanted to build a Stratocaster version of Buckethead's custom Les Paul, but I've never liked painted headstocks on Strats. So I figured if I wasn't going to paint it I thought I'd adorn the headstock with a wood that would look good sitting at the top. As for getting a flame maple neck instead of painting it white also, well I didn't know if I'd get another chance to build a 2nd custom guitar (money was tight for a while) and I just wanted to go all out.

As for the mismatch of new & old ideas, well you got me there. However, that was kind of the point of building a custom.

As for wrapping the strings around the tuning post for better tuning stability, no need to. They're locking tuners.

Now with my part being said, I really hope that you'll take a look at my 2nd warmoth build, a Soloist. There is a lot of uniformity going on in that one. I got a feelin' you'll forgive this one after seeing my soloist. I'll be putting up pics of it in the soloist section at the end of the week. Catch you later Kreig.

 

[stubhead]

We have very strict rules for innovation around here - NON-CONFORMITY MUST BE REGULATED!!! :guitaristgif:

If your Soloist meets the approval of our De-Revolution Board, we'll teach you the Secret Warmoth Handshake. :blob7:

 

[ZGOZZ]

That is Sharp looking guitar Nice.. :icon_thumright: :headbang1:

 

[Wana_make_a_guitar]

We have very strict rules for innovation around here - NON-CONFORMITY MUST BE REGULATED!!! :guitaristgif:

Ah, but if we follow that rule, we would still be conforming.

Non-conformity is a choice the customer chooses. Now the rule gets tricky.