Warmoth Quality Issues?

[CrabCakes7]

I've generally had really good experiences with Warmoth in the past, with my last set of 3 bodies and 3 necks purchased in the mid-2010's all being of excellent quality, but my more recent orders have all had major issues that I'm not used to seeing from the brand.

I recently received a Strat Replacement Body that had several finish imperfections as well as a Strat Replacement Neck with a severe backbow and several frets that weren't fully seated. All straight out of the box. The neck in particular was pretty egregious because the issues were pretty easy to see by eye as soon as I looked at it, so I'm not sure that it went through any sort of QC check or process at all before it was sent out.

Warmoth did agree to take the neck back for warranty work due to the frets not being fully seated, but they seemed disinterested in the backbow issue which has me pretty concerned becuase neck is completely unworkable as-is because of it. So I'm not sure if the neck will even be playable when I get it back. They have not yet agreed to anything on the body.

This all has me pretty disappointed because I have several thousand dollars worth of custom spec parts currently on order from them for a few other builds I'm doing but if this is quality I should expect I'm inclined to just cancel it all and walk away.

Has anyone else had any other similar experiences with recently purchased Warmoth parts? Have there been any quality changes/issues recently that I wasn't aware of?

Honestly, just feeling pretty down about the whole situation.

 

[Hodgo]

I've generally had really good experiences with Warmoth in the past, with my last set of 3 bodies and 3 necks purchased in the mid-2010's all being of excellent quality, but my more recent orders have all had major issues that I'm not used to seeing from the brand.

I recently received a Strat Replacement Body that had several finish imperfections as well as a Strat Replacement Neck with a severe backbow and several frets that weren't fully seated. All straight out of the box. The neck in particular was pretty egregious because the issues were pretty easy to see by eye as soon as I looked at it, so I'm not sure that it went through any sort of QC check or process at all before it was sent out.

Warmoth did agree to take the neck back for warranty work due to the frets not being fully seated, but they seemed disinterested in the backbow issue which has me pretty concerned becuase neck is completely unworkable as-is because of it. So I'm not sure if the neck will even be playable when I get it back. They have not yet agreed to anything on the body.

This all has me pretty disappointed because I have several thousand dollars worth of custom spec parts currently on order from them for a few other builds I'm doing but if this is quality I should expect I'm inclined to just cancel it all and walk away.

Has anyone else had any other similar experiences with recently purchased Warmoth parts? Have there been any quality changes/issues recently that I wasn't aware of?

Honestly, just feeling pretty down about the whole situation.

Nothing that egregious, but my most recent neck had side dots installed seemingly without glue. I used painters tape to mask the frets and the side dots pulled out. Otherwise it was flawless.

 

[NedRyerson]

I get that it can be disappointing. I haven't experienced any such issues, but to be honest, I always get all my components raw. All of the necks I'd bought in the last few years have arrived flawless in terms of construction.

Best thing to do is to just keep working with CS. Don't try any fixes yourself. We could all just sit here comfortably speculating from a distance, but that's not helpful. Sorry you're going through this.

 

[CrabCakes7]

I get that it can be disappointing. I haven't experienced any such issues, but to be honest, I always get all my components raw. All of the necks I'd bought in the last few years have arrived flawless in terms of construction.

Best thing to do is to just keep working with CS. Don't try any fixes yourself. We could all just sit here comfortably speculating from a distance, but that's not helpful. Sorry you're going through this.

Unfortunately, the CS response thus far hasn't been great which is where a good bit of my concern stems from.

When I first contacted Warmoth they requested pictures of the issues before they would issue an RMA, which felt like a reasonable ask on their part. The frets not being fully seated was simple enough to demonstrate as I could slide a piece of paper under several of them. For the backbow, I used my notched straight edge to show the gap underneath it at each end and that I could still slide a 1/32" gauge underneath it despite the truss rod being completely loosened (which is a lot of backbow, very easy to see by eye).

When they got back to me, they agreed to take the neck back for the frets but insisted that "you can't measure the straightness of a compound radius neck with a notched straight edge" which is unequivocally false. So I then had to politely argue with the CS rep and explain why that is untrue and they basically just handwaved it away and sent me a shipping label.

So now I'm worried they are only going to fix the frets and the neck will still be completely unusable when I get it back because they're unwilling to acknowledge the other issue. They did the same with the finish issues on the body, still nothing on that.

I'm not sure if there someone I can escalate this to?

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

Is the back bow while rod is fully loose and under tension?

Is it cold and dry where you are?

There are many questions that are reasonable to ask in order to get an objective perspective.

I get em mounted and up to tension, then let them hang on the wall for thirty days to acclimate before moving along.