Wamorth neck/Musikraft body - Superstrat again.... like always...

[Heavy Rock]

A while ago I got a Musikraft Dinky body which I finished in this flashy 80s style. It's a bit rough but I'll probably redo it in the future. I got the Musikraft Dinky because I wanted the original Charvel Dinky shape from back in the 80s. According to a guy in the Charvel factory from a factory tour video, that original shape was derived from a strat body by shaving off the radiused edges. Later on they made a smaller version of their Soloist body for their Dinky guitars and now they use the exact same Soloist body for all their guitars.

I want to order a Warmoth neck for it which is probably going to be a paddle head and make it like the Hamer Californian like I did in the past. But I'm not sure what inlays to choose. I'm thinking between the new Egyptian ones and the Star inlays. I love both, and the Egyptian ones I definitely want to get at some point. The Star inlays on the other hand are classic 80s inlays and they also match the decal on the guitar body, "Star Traveller". The name on the headstock will probably be the not-so-inspired "STAR-T" lol. Taken from the decal words. It sounds pretty 80s though.

Trying to decide at the moment on the inlays to place the order. What would you choose in this case?

Pics:

 

[Tretgeraet]

Wow! Nice finish!

Have you considered Supernova?



They fit the spacy theme as well and I love them.

 

[Heavy Rock]

Wow! Nice finish!

Have you considered Supernova?

View attachment 66511

They fit the spacy theme as well and I love them.

Thanks!! Yes Supernova is another good idea. I'm currently leaning more towards the Stars but still haven't fully decided.

 

[rockandroller]

Well, the egyptian theme ties into the Sci-fi "Stargate"... so there's that...

that's a beautiful superstrat, by the way

 

[stratamania]

Cool looking body.

On maple with inlays I think less tends to be more. And also consider not overpowering the body which already will catch the eye.

For inlays, out of the two you mentioned, I would go for the Eqyptian Eye only at the 12th fret and not have the ankhs.

Other options, luminlay dots or no inlay at all.

Ebony board with lightning bolts could look good.

 

[Heavy Rock]

Well, the egyptian theme ties into the Sci-fi "Stargate"... so there's that...

that's a beautiful superstrat, by the way

Thanks!! Yeah that's what I was thinking in the first place! And from a low angle the flip flop finish takes that desert sunset color too.

Cool looking body.

On maple with inlays I think less tends to be more. And also consider not overpowering the body which already will catch the eye.

For inlays, out of the two you mentioned, I would go for the Eqyptian Eye only at the 12th fret and not have the ankhs.

Other options, luminlay dots or no inlay at all.

Ebony board with lightning bolts could look good.

View attachment 66516

Thank you!! That's a good point.
Another strong alternative I'm considering is to go full scalloped and have the standard dots, since there are no exotic inlays available for scallops. Dots is the staple in all times anyway, even the 80s. And it's pretty simple too for staying in the background of attention.

I had tried a dark fretboard next to it and while it's still cool, it darkens it a little too much, the maple fretboard is a bit more balanced. Actually what I'm mostly looking at in these cases is the area of the neck pocket. If that area of the body is dark, I put a light fretboard and vice versa. In the future I might make a similar finish with half the body colored and half of it white so a dark fretboard will make a nice contrast with the white.

 

[Heavy Rock]

I downloaded another idea from beyond. To get the Eye of Horus only at the twelfth fret and add my own dots on the rest of the frets. Smaller ones like 4mm ones or smaller. I think this is a nice balanced look. Not too much for the already busy body. Just to compliment it enough.

 

[Spud]

I downloaded another idea from beyond. To get the Eye of Horus only at the twelfth fret and add my own dots on the rest of the frets. Smaller ones like 4mm ones or smaller. I think this is a nice balanced look. Not too much for the already busy body. Just to compliment it enough.

May I recommend reading ""The Golden Dawn" if you are seeking more ideas from beyond?

 

[Heavy Rock]

May I recommend reading ""The Golden Dawn" if you are seeking more ideas from beyond?

Lol, the 2K fumes definitely help too. Or they'll send me beyond instead.

Ok, decided to order the Eye only on the twelfth fret. I found black 4mm dots on anazon, perfect. I tried to order from my phone but the order doesn't go through. I'll try again later from the PC.

I'll update you guys here when the neck arrives.
Thanks to all! Your input helped a lot!

 

[Heavy Rock]

Bad news! Well, kind of... I tried to place my order and it was declined. Same card I had ordered my previous neck. And since the card is a prepaid one with the amount limited to just over the needed amount, it didn't hurt to keep trying.

So I tried from different browsers etc. but still nothing. I talked to the Warmoth guys and they said I need to check with my bank. In the mean time the bank blocked my card due to many retries. I talked to them and they unblocked it, and said now it's ok to order. I tried again and was declined. I tried once more and declined again. I didn't want to risk blocking the card again so I stopped, and since Warmoth doesn't offer other options I had no other way of ordering.

So I started looking for alternatives. Musikraft doesn't offer angled headstocks as far as I know. I found Rocking Replicas but they had no option for angled headstock either. All other sites are full-on strat/tele from top to bottom with nothing else, ffs!

So I went to Halo Guitars who offer paypal. $200 more expensive and with standard dots, but with binding all around (neck and headstock) and they'll make my custom headstock themselves. So at least, I won't have to do any woodwork here, only the finishing.

So no Egyptian Eye for me unfortunately, but at least I'll get the neck ready for finish.

At least I tried... maybe a little too much lol.

Now, since Halo is a custom shop, I must wait 4+ months lol.

 

[Tretgeraet]

I had that problem with the credit card being declined on my very first warmoth order. I ended up having to place the order while talking to a bank employee on the phone, so she could then manually authorize the payment. But neither she nor the guy from their IT she contacted could tell me, why it was declined in the first place.

It remains a mystery...

 

[Heavy Rock]

Hmmm, yeah I think one alternative payment method would help in situations like this.

 

[Heavy Rock]

Also something I learned while finishing the body.

For a flip-flop/chameleon finish you need a black base coat. Some recommend matte black, others gloss black for maximum shine. When I ordered the spray can, I had no idea and tested it on white surface. It was nothing like it should be, very subtle and totally different colors. I thought I had ordered the wrong color or something. Later I learned about the base coat.

Another thing is, make sure the surface of the body is perfect because the slightest imperfection will show, even though it's covered by the clear coat. If you want a rough/asphalt kind of look don't sand the primer, let it stay rough, it looks cool under that paint, very 3D. If you want a smooth level surface, you must sand it flat.

If you want maximum shine etc, you need to spray the paint and the clear the same day, a couple of hours apart so you take advantage of the chemical bonding window. This way you don't have to sand between coats adding matte/light scattering surfaces between. Also use gloss paint and clear for all coats, don't mix matte color or clear coats between.

You can also have matte flip-flop finish but the effect will be less pronounced.

Another cool idea is, play with the coat density, this kind of paint reacts differently to light depending on whether the coat is dense or light, it produces slightly different colors of its color range. And also adds black into the mix from certain angles.

Just a few tips in case anyone considers this kind of finish for their project.

 

[JohnnyHardtail]

Musikraft make some of their Dinky bodies with a 2 1/4" neck pocket. Have you measured the neck pocket to confirm it is the Fender compatible neck pocket that Warmoth use?

Will it fit my Guitar Body?

warmoth.com

 

[Heavy Rock]

Musikraft make some of their Dinky bodies with a 2 1/4" neck pocket. Have you measured the neck pocket to confirm it is the Fender compatible neck pocket that Warmoth use?

Will it fit my Guitar Body?

warmoth.com

Yep, I ordered it with the 2-3/16" strat neck pocket.
They have an option to choose between the two. I also checked it when it arrived with my Warmoth necks and the fit is perfect. Kudos to Fender by the way for this. If you try anything like that with a Kramer or any other brand, you're most likely screwed.

 

[Heavy Rock]

After a super busy period of time at work, due to a fully escalated issue, and involving a month-long business trip to China, it seems the situation comes to an end finally so I'm back to guitars!

I know the builds must have at least one Warmoth part, but I'll be an outlaw for a minute and post the finished project. But... I have a Warmoth project coming up too.I'll post some pics of the parts of that one too.

I received the Halo neck and I refinished the body because I wanted the two parts of paint on either side of the white area to be of slightly different hue. So, I used a slightly different flip flop paint on each side instead of the same one like before. I forgot to buy ink for my printer though so didn't put the decal on.... But anyway, I can do it later, it doesn't look bad like this either.For the name of the guitar I just used the name of a planet, I think Star-T would look too much like the STRAT logo on the HM start, lol. But the font is kind of similar to that.

I felt that the neck was a bit too simple so I bought a piece of luminlay rod (super expensive by the way ) but I think it's worth it. So I replaced the side markers and also drilled in the middle of the main dots and put the luminlay in, I think it looks cooler like that.

Some specs:

Body wood: Swamp Ash
Bridge pickup: EVH Frankenstein
Middle pickup: EMG S4
Neck pickup: Fender Yosemite (soon to be a Fat 50s)
Neck wood: maple neck/maple fretboard
Tuning keys: Graphtech Ratio

The switch on the guitar connects the bridge and the neck pickup together. I'm not 100% sure of the look of it though, probably I'll replace it with just a black one, those are not so easy to find in the correct size though.
The button is a killswitch button.

The guitar is so bright and mid/high mid/treble forward that I had a very hard time taming it down! The EVH pickup helped a bit but I had to do some more alchemy to achieve a good sound. I even used a Floyd Rose special base plate which is not a fully hardened steel (I think they harden only the knife edge area on that one). I'll probably move to the Schaller locking tremolo with the thick zinc baseplate and the replaceable knife edges.
I also put the graph tech saddles with the tasq inserts. Those worked very well here, because they add clarity while taking the very high edge out, I don't know how they do that, but it worked. Also a big brass block etc.
Now it sounds pretty killer though. It has a very aggressive rattling kind of crunch and it's super tight.

The neck came with buffed frets so I assumed they were leveled, but they were not. It was buzzing all over the place. So I leveled the frets and polished them a little. The nut shelf was also a little too high for the R3 Floyd nut. Instead of sanding it down, I just used a R2 nut which is shorter and it fit great.
It also came with the rounded fretboard end like a strat, which I like only on Strats! For every other guitar I prefer the Tele style fretboard end, so I sanded it flatter and I'll re-glue a piece of binding in the future.

So here it is. It's not perfect, it has dings etc, but it's good enough for me. I took the pics from different angles to capture as much of the color shifting as possible:

 

[Heavy Rock]

Here's the Warmoth project.

This is an older neck I have which I scalloped. I also shaped the headstock a little to make it look like closer to the Godin Stadium.
I got this no name body in a good deal on reverb, because of the color. I want to make a guitar similar to those Fender Boxer Strats.

I'm going to post a separate thread on that shortly. Here is a preview:

Edit: Also later in the year I'm going to make a bass, so a Warmoth body will be the base for that.

 

[Heavy Rock]

Short update. I ordered the DiMarzio Tone Zone for this guitar. I thought since the guitar is so bright, this pickup would be a good match for it. And man, that's the last piece of the puzzle that was missing.

This is the result: