So, how did you discover Warmoth?

DocNrock

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I'd be interested to know everyone's story as to how they came to discover Warmoth, and what prompted them to do their own build.

I had heard of Warmoth back in the 80's, but I was a student then and didn't have money.  Besides, I thought my Hondo was a great guitar!   :dontknow:

Fast forward a few years, and a couple of years ago I was thinking about putting a custom together, and was looking at Carvin.  Other things came up and...you know.

I have a Jackson PS-4 (MIJ) that has a great neck and has upgraded pups, but the stock JT-500 trem was crap.  I had found JCFonline (for Jackson and Charvel owners) which led me to www.audiozone.dk, another site for said enthusiasts.  On the audiozone site is the ultimate primer on Jackson trems.  It looked like an OFR would require routing, but a Schaller would drop right in.  Google Schaller, and I found the Warmoth site.  Anyway, I ordered the trem, but found myself searching over the vast array of guitar wood-porn available.  It wasn't long before I ordered the parts for my Strat.  I had ordered the body and neck separately.  The neck I ordered by fax.  I received an e-mail from Spike telling me my order was processed, and at the bottom of the e-mail, it said I might want to check out www.unofficalwarmoth.com. 

So, what led you down this path?
 
I was given an MIM strat with a warped neck... I started searching eBay for a replacement and found several from Warmoth... after checking out the site I bought the neck from them.  I no longer have the MIM but have an almost complete padauk strat and a just started LPS...    :toothy10:
 
I had a Weezer period and had just started to get into guitar stuff. Read their equipment page: Rivers played almost exclusively Warmoth strats at the time so I looked them up. I've been planning builds ever since (this was 6-7 years ago, at least), waiting for the day I can afford them!

/KB
 
I'd been referred to their page for parts a few times, but never really looked around all that much.  I was looking to sell my Gibson Les Paul Studio and then gradually drifted towards looking into kits.  That eventually led me to Warmoth after a few reads through various forums.  When I ran across the LP page in the showcase I was blown away and also put up my Gibson Les Paul Standard (that sale was a difficult decision and sale as the buyer wanted to pick apart my description based on his own subjective opinion of what he has paid for other guitars). Once they both sold, I bought my parts and away I went.  I'm hoping to do another one around Christmas.
 
on a dutch forum, we've got this guy who can make magnificent inlayjobs and paintjobs, and I stated I wanted to have my own version of a prs modern eagle singlecut, and he reffered to warmoth. a year of thinking and wondering about, I ordered on 31 january, 2007. on 12 april 2007, the first guitar arrived, to be finished by this dude. in august, a guitar he had, got into my possesion (trade with a PRS swamp ash special), just so I could wait until november 1st, 2007, to order the third. a month after she arrived (january 12th!), I ordered IV and V. In 3 months, I will order VI, and that one will be the most ultimate les paul ever.


oh well, its not really how I discovered the big W, but its a nice story I guess :D
 
In the early '90s from ads in guitar magazines. I have a catalog from 1995, they offer more neck profiles these days... :icon_smile:
 
I have wanted to put together a guitar from Warmoth parts since I sent them $2.00 in 1989 for a paper catalog.  I was in high school then, and as such couldn't afford to put new strings on my guitar very often, nevermind building one, but the desire was there.  I saw the ad in the november issue of Guitar For The Practicing Musician.  I know this because I still have the magazine right here.  Anyway, I finally got around to getting my Warmoth(s) and am left with an itch in my brain that sounds like One More, One More, One Mooooooooooooooooore! 



 
early - mid 80's one of my best friends was a W employee. he gave me a tour of Ken's "house" and (relatively) small shop out back, and I got to sift thru a pile of bass bodies in the living room.

fast forward about 15 years to a time when I finally had the free time and funds to assemble my first bass from W parts. several basses later I was feeling the need to do more than just assemble somebody else's parts, so I bought a few Alder body blanks and a couple tools.

$20K and many, many tools and basses later I closed my shop to relocate to Charlotte, NC. There I'll build a new shop and introduce multi-axis CNC to my capabilities in an effort to build my own lines of basses with greater efficiency and tolerance. I also plan to include a paint booth and dedicated finishing area so I can maintain closer control on my per unit costs.

all the best,

R
 
I discovered Warmoth years after I sold my 17th birthday present (Sunburst MIA Fender Stratocaster) when my hands grew to their current size and the neck became unplayable for me. I was hoping that I would have ran into the same luck that Stevie Ray Vaughan had when he found his guitar and the neck fit him like a glove. For years, every guitar I have played felt like I was trying to fret an E chord on my dick, especially whenever any of my pals insisted that I try out every Ibanez in sight. This kept me on bass duty for a long time. A pal of mine had a Warmoth SG with a pair of Gibson mini humbuckers on it, and he had a Pro neck with a fatback contour and a 1 3/4" width--easily the biggest you can get with the LP headstock. That thing felt like heaven in my hands, and long-forgotten licks came back to me. So, I did some investigating, and I'm building myself a ballsy Telecaster.

So far, all of the parts that have come in have had an outstanding level of quality built into them, and I couldn't be happier.

:rock-on:
 
I really was tired of the standard junk floating around, so I decided I wanted my own custom guitar. I searched Google for custom guitars and was looking on what type of wood to buy, what type of tools for cutting, etc....

Then as I was getting kinda depressed by the work you'd have to do, I saw Warmoth. Instantly I felt better. They'd do the stuff I was planning to do, and for a lot cheaper, and probably a lot less mistakes.
 
bought an Warmoth unfinished  basswood star body back in 90... that was my first mistake :p
 
I was surfing the internets during a training session for work, and decided to do a search on "custom guitars."  I found a custom builder at Onyx Forge Guitars, and looked around that site for a while, then a small blurb said that the body shape illustrations were borrowed from Ken Warmoth, with a link to the Warmoth site.  The rest is history.  I love the idea of getting exactly what I want in a guitar.  And assembling it myself just makes it that much more fun.
 
I was getting back into electric playing after a very long absence and I quickly tired of the crappy squire, and being a tinkerer by nature, had already replaced the pickups, pickguard, and a bunch of other stuff. Found Warmoth while googling around when I decided that it needed a new neck (though I bought a mighty mite), stuck around this forum pestering Jack and CB about my poor squier, and it wasn't long before I pulled the trigger. Now I'm in deep, buying tools off stew mac and shooting nitro. It all started just a year or so ago.
 
I needed a replacement neck for my cousins MIM Strat after his stack fell on it.  I was going to buy a StewMac neck, as I had been ordering parts from them for a few years.  Thankfully, I decided to read some reviews off Harmony-Central and other sites.  I found nothing but bland and mediocre sentiments....however they were raving about Warmoth.  One (very long) trip to the showcase was all I needed to see.
 
1986 - Had a Schecter strat that I wanted a 22 fret, maple/maple, floyd-nut neck for. Bought a Warmoth 24 3/4" explorer neck unknowingly. The guy assembling (Doug Philips, used to be in Norfolk, gets mentioned by Erlewine) it had a maple/maple Warmoth strat neck that he traded for it. Been a fan ever since.
 
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