Showcase, your choice tremolo?

[Cagey]

How often do you spill liquids under your pickguard? :dontknow:

You mean, like, per day? Or what?  :laughing7:

Seriously - never happens to me. But, I understand some people play in places like the "Double Deuce" of "Roadhouse" fame, and get subjected to some real personal and equipment abuse as a result. I can't imagine being that hungry, but then perhaps I've lead a charmed life.

 

[Cederick]

I mean when you are playing a show and people are dancing around like morons and throwing beer around the place.
Usually there's beer all over the whole band.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

And you think the only part of your gear that's vulnerable to this zymurgical deluge is a bit of unfinished wood around your trem cavity?

 

[tfarny]

I mean when you are playing a show and people are dancing around like morons and throwing beer around the place.
Usually there's beer all over the whole band.

If this happens to you, you are definitely getting some action that night, so why are you thinking about the impact on your tone of a bit of dried out beer on the inside of your trem cavity? That is not a healthy mindset my friend. And why are you bringing a guitar that you are that particular about to a show like that?
I guess I haven't played a lot of shows that involve a ton of beer throwing. That stuff costs about $8 a pint in New York, you can't be throwing it around on just any old guitarist you know!

 

[Cederick]

Haha yeah but I've been touring several times in Europe/mostly Germany with punk/metal bands and it's usually pretty tight between audience and band, sometimes no stage at all.  arty07:

Of course, I wouldn't bring a Warmoth guitar to a tour or gigs like that, I only bring my decent crap guitars that I don't getting destroyed hehe.

 

[AutoBat]

a mouse pad is just high density, low compression foam with a laminated/molded plastic top and often black. it's perfect.

 

[Cederick]

I have a new question regarding this then!!!

Why are almost all bodies routed for tremolo, when they could be unrouted for tremolo, and simply be asked to rout a trem rout?

I see LOTS of nice bodies I like that I would buy if it was for hardtail! But most of them have been routed so they don't interest me...

I mean the trem rout is a free option, but you can't "unrout" something you see and like.

 

[bagman67]

Whether to rout for a tremolo is a choice that has to be made early in the body-building process.  I think the way the CNC machines work, once the backside of the body is done, you don't get to go back later, since the CNC routing depends on there being an index hole on the front of the body.  So you have to decide before you ever get the whole body cut out.  And since the majority of buyers prefer tremolos on strat-style bodies, the market-savvy thing to do is to make mostly tremolo-cut strat-style bodies for the showcase.  Rationale:  You are in the market for one body at a time, so your needs are idiosyncratic.  You have recourse via a custom build.  Warmoth is in the market for large numbers of buyers, so their incentive is to gratify the majority most of the time, and sprinkle a few goodies around for the picky folks from time to time.


EDIT:


TO further clarify, routing the front of the body destroys the index holes that are used to keep the body in place when the backside is routed - hence the impossibility of going back later.

 

[Cagey]

Excellent explanation. Plus, the rear route doesn't change much, if at all, based on the model/type of vibrato bridge. So, you can route the rear without fear of locking in any particular choice. Only the top gets "customized" to accommodate different mounting schemes.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Whether to rout for a tremolo is a choice that has to be made early in the body-building process.  I think the way the CNC machines work, once the backside of the body is done, you don't get to go back later, since the CNC routing depends on there being an index hole on the front of the body.  So you have to decide before you ever get the whole body cut out.  And since the majority of buyers prefer tremolos on strat-style bodies, the market-savvy thing to do is to make mostly tremolo-cut strat-style bodies for the showcase.  Rationale:  You are in the market for one body at a time, so your needs are idiosyncratic.  You have recourse via a custom build.  Warmoth is in the market for large numbers of buyers, so their incentive is to gratify the majority most of the time, and sprinkle a few goodies around for the picky folks from time to time.

I don't buy that because there have been bodies in the showcase that are neither right handed nor left handed (Teles mainly) where the control cavities and neck pockets haven't been routed.  Not to mention, the off the menu option of having a top routed guitar rear routed after the fact.  The CNC reference points certainly make it easier, but they have done stuff on the back after the fact.

It's been addressed before that most customers ordering Strats get trems.  Plus many customers lack the visual imagining of what it would look like when finished, that if every extra step were already done, i.e. trem claw routing, it's an easier sell.  Bottom line, a tremmed up Strat is an easier sell than a hardtail Strat.  On a finished showcase body that gives one the option of hardtail or trem, you'd end up with an unfinished trem claw cavity, and we've already seen some don't even like an unfinished Floyd recess.  I'd bet too, many showcase customers do not do all of their homework because they've never assembled a guitar from the ground up.  Which trem, which size tuner ream, nut width, fretboard radius, and so on.  All the decisions made before by someone else.  Typically, they know what color and pickups they want.

 

[line6man]

Why are almost all bodies routed for tremolo, when they could be unrouted for tremolo, and simply be asked to rout a trem rout?

Two main reasons.

First off, it should be obvious that routing for a tremolo after the finish department has painted a body will leave you with a big ugly unfinished route on the backside. This does not appeal to many people, unless they are buying unfinished body. Most other types of routing get covered, however.

Second, it's more work to CNC a tremolo. They have to send the bodies back to the shop for routing, and in this industry, time is money.

 

[bagman67]

Why are almost all bodies routed for tremolo, when they could be unrouted for tremolo, and simply be asked to rout a trem rout?

Two main reasons.

First off, it should be obvious that routing for a tremolo after the finish department has painted a body will leave you with a big ugly unfinished route on the backside. This does not appeal to many people, unless they are buying unfinished body. Most other types of routing get covered, however.

Second, it's more work to CNC a tremolo. They have to send the bodies back to the shop for routing, and in this industry, time is money.

I don't think post-finishing CNC is even an option, cost notwithstanding, since the index hole you see in what would be the neck pocket on this body will be routed away and thus unavailable to keep the body steady for CNC routing later in the game:

I think the presence of that index hole explains why the occasional neither-lefty-nor-righty body CAN be routed either way - you have the index hole to keep it steady for either a front-or-rear rout because no neck pocket has been chopped out. 


Whatever late-game backside routing STDC is referring to if it has indeed occurred would likely have been subject to draconian pricing and jaw rubbing with an "I'm not sure, man, that sounds hard..."-type conversations as well, because getting it right without the indexes takes skilled craftsmanship and is more prone to eff-up.

 

[Cederick]

Ok I get it  now

Two main reasons.

First off, it should be obvious that routing for a tremolo after the finish department has painted a body will leave you with a big ugly unfinished route on the backside. This does not appeal to many people, unless they are buying unfinished body. Most other types of routing get covered, however.

Second, it's more work to CNC a tremolo. They have to send the bodies back to the shop for routing, and in this industry, time is money.

But... People usually covers up the backside rout anyway, so it wouldn't be visible anyway.
However it's not as easy to cover up a Floyd recessed rout since you can still look inside

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

People usually don't cover up the trem claw route.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

I always do, but I do see a lot of uncovered ones on this forum.

I would just paint it black though, if it was unfinished and I was going to show it.

 

[Wyliee]

Why are almost all bodies routed for tremolo, when they could be unrouted for tremolo, and simply be asked to rout a trem rout?

Two main reasons.

First off, it should be obvious that routing for a tremolo after the finish department has painted a body will leave you with a big ugly unfinished route on the backside. This does not appeal to many people, unless they are buying unfinished body. Most other types of routing get covered, however.

Second, it's more work to CNC a tremolo. They have to send the bodies back to the shop for routing, and in this industry, time is money.

I don't think post-finishing CNC is even an option, cost notwithstanding, since the index hole you see in what would be the neck pocket on this body will be routed away and thus unavailable to keep the body steady for CNC routing later in the game:

I think the presence of that index hole explains why the occasional neither-lefty-nor-righty body CAN be routed either way - you have the index hole to keep it steady for either a front-or-rear rout because no neck pocket has been chopped out. 


Whatever late-game backside routing STDC is referring to if it has indeed occurred would likely have been subject to draconian pricing and jaw rubbing with an "I'm not sure, man, that sounds hard..."-type conversations as well, because getting it right without the indexes takes skilled craftsmanship and is more prone to eff-up.

Bingo guys!  Indexing on the CNC is, indeed, a key issue here.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Interesting. How does it work when I get, say, a Tele showcase body with the standard neck pickup rout, routed for a humbucker instead? Is that done manually?

 

[Cederick]

And where do the index hole go?! :icon_scratch:

 

[Cagey]

And where do the index hole go?! :icon_scratch:

Gary, Indiana - home of the world's largest index hole depository. You go there, and you'll see a whole lotta nothing surrounded by destruction reminiscent of an apocalyptic war. Makes Detroit look almost viable.

 

[Wyliee]

And where do the index hole go?! :icon_scratch:

If you look in the picture above, you'll see it in the neck pocket area.  Once the neck pocket is routed, the index hole is eliminated.

Think of it this way.... In order to rout something on the back of the body, an index hole on the front is necessary.  In order to rout something on the front of the body, an index on the back is necessary.