Vintage Japanese bodies and features

[Max1981]

Recently the father of a friend gave me his old Teisco ET-110 for free, and after cleaning it and putting a new set of strings on, I discovered quickly why people complain so much about Japanese guitars that came out of the factories before the 70s.

I personally would enjoy seeing Warmoth create guitars and components based on the styles and characteristics of vintage Japanese guitars, so that one can build a replica instrument infinitely better than its original, or give a more familiar shape a "60s pawn shop" vibe, or hot-rod/Frankenstein a vintage Japanese shape.

Included in a line of vintage Japanese guitar bodies and parts:

-Body shapes including the Teisco ET series (the "tulip" shape), Teisco K4L ("sharkfin"), Spectrum 5, Conrad Bison, and, although they're newer designs, the Squier Supersonic and Yamaha SG5 (the "flying Samurai")

-Gold foil pickups, which can possibly be provided by GFS

-G&L MFD pickups (they have a sort of vintage aesthetic)

-Mirrored or metal-colored pickguards

-Routing for up to four pickups by default on certain models, or optional on current models for an extra price (singlecoils only)

Yes? No? Thoughts?

 

[line6man]

I'm not sure there would be any market for that.

 

[Fat Pete]

Who doesn't like the vibe of something like a Teisco Spectrum 5?

I'm guessing lots of people! I do though and agree that it would be cool if Warmoth offered bodies based on more 'quirky' designs - not just Japanese stuff; how about Airline, Mosrite, Hagstrom etc etc? But, as line6man points out, the market is probably pretty close to zero so it's not happening.

But, this is the joy of Custom. You want a 60s pawn shop vibe? Nothing stopping you from doing it yourself! How about a metallic sunburst Mustang with those GFS gold foils? I'm shooting for a kind of Yamaha/Teisco feel on my Musiclander project - it probably won't be to everybody's taste but it'll certainly be different...

 

[Gemcutter]

Selfishly, I'd love to have lots more bodies to choose. From a business perspective, maybe not cost effective as it would 1) require more space to store, 2) require new setups to make them, 3) likely reduce the numbers of the old standards going out the door, 4) create another parts stream for necks, pickups, switches...

If someone were so inclined, perhaps it would be a good spin-off business to compliment W's business the same way rows of fast food joints compliment each other.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I think the first thing that I would look into before hitting that rabbit trail would be to research and find out if there are any licensing issues that exist.

If not, then start looking into the "demand" of the used market to determine if a "demand" for a replacement body is perceivable. 

After that, looking at ways to market the body to make it stand out in proprietary features not available elsewhere, like perhaps, offering the Tiesco body as a rear route, and offering up Warmoth's bevy of pickup/bridge routing/drilling options.

I could see that body appealing to the Schecter fans wanting to D.I.Y. their own Synyster Gates build since it does bear some similarites to that body shape.  I think the Warhead would pair up nicely with it.

This is the "R" part of "R&D" that has to be done in order to determine in advance if an offering is business practical, and ultimately, profitable.  If you can't smell money coming in, it's just money going out.