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Warmoth vs USAGC vs others?


Travis

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I *might* be getting an itch to build another Tele. If y’all know anything about me, or have followed my posts in the past month, you know I love Koa...

So...  I was thinking about building a thin line semi-hollow Tele with a Koa top. Might even do something crazy or unusual like going with P90’s instead of traditional Tele pickups or humbuckers. That part is undecided.

That leads me to either building a parts-caster or going full on custom. Right now, thinking of putting it together myself. May change my mind later. 

Anywho...  what kind of experience do y’all have with parts suppliers?  I grabbed a used warmoth neck for a Tele build years ago and was very happy with it but that’s all I’ve got. 

I’m open to any and all suggestions, even ones considering builders I may have never heard of before. 

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Musikraft kills the competition.

Warmoth is fairly close behind them.  They don’t get body nor neck shapes exactly right, but quality and selection are closer to Musikraft than others.

After that, it falls off a great deal.  I’d never buy a USCG or Guitar Mill after they’ve dropped the ball so much lately...plus, the headstocks are way off and require work. I’ve got ALLPARTS necks that are better than both of those. 

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5 minutes ago, bubs_42 said:

I think the Tele Partscasters are the most addictive guitars on the planet. I'm on my fifth on and i'm already trying to plan out another one. I too need a thin line. ;) 

Agreed.

I've never tried any Musikraft stuff, but I'll have to check them out next time.  And there's always a next time.

These are all Warmoth.

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DSC_1799.jpg

 

 

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1 hour ago, Studio Custom said:

Buy used, the resale on partscasters is terrible.  

I have no problem with used. I’ve only bought a small number of new guitars over the years. However, with the body I’d want I would probably be forced to buy that New at least. The rest of the parts I think I could get what I want on the secondhand market fairly easily. 

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There are some allparts necks that are chunky with a slightly flatter radius but otherwise look kind of vintage.    Forget the name but dug em.    Reasonably priced too.  

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1 hour ago, DaveL said:

There are some allparts necks that are chunky with a slightly flatter radius but otherwise look kind of vintage.    Forget the name but dug em.    Reasonably priced too.  

"SRO"?

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Gotta be careful on buying used Partscasters, there's a reason why using classic designs and classic materials never go out of style, and keep in mind that you're dealing with somebody else's build preferences and/or limitations when buying used.  I've been fairly lucky with that so far, and I like and have kept most of what I've found.   Just look up 'Partscasters' on Reverb...there's some variations on a theme(s) there that do work, depending on your taste; but keep in mind that there's lots more that don't, IMO.  Latest 'sin of omission' that I've noticed with Partscaster listings there, is that some sellers neglect to state what kind of body wood's on the guitar.  I like ash; mahogany and alder is OK, but basswood and Paulownia get an immediate NO from me as they're WAY too soft and dent too easy for my taste.

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2 hours ago, DaveL said:

yes, thanks,  I believe it was called an SRO fat.    nice and full... slightly fuller than vintage frets as well...   

I've got one of those on a build I did with my son - the neck was really nice at the price point!

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I liked the fat SRO-W Allparts neck with the 12" radius and medium jumbo frets:

https://www.allparts.com/products/sro-w-replacement-neck-for-stratocaster

As a predominently Gibson/Hamer-type player, these feel better (to me) than the Warmoth necks I've tried. They're a nice handful without being too big and, done up in Tru-oil, play great.

Check out Rosser Guitars:

https://rosserguitars.com/

He did a reverse Jazzmaster body (routed the way I wanted) for reasonable money. He has limited wood choices (1) but his work was good.

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7 hours ago, hamerhead said:

Check out Rosser Guitars:

https://rosserguitars.com/

He did a reverse Jazzmaster body (routed the way I wanted) for reasonable money. He has limited wood choices (1) but his work was good.

Wth is going on with his site right now? I went there looking for something last week, and none of the links to the product categories seemed to be working. Same result today. 

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21 minutes ago, Biz Prof said:

Wth is going on with his site right now? I went there looking for something last week, and none of the links to the product categories seemed to be working. Same result today. 

Yes.  Never a good sign.  

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I have a Warmoth tele with a USAGC neck, nice guitar but cost me apprx $1,500 once done. I haven"t bonded with the Warmoth standard profile neck but haven't tried to sell it cause I would only get $500 or so. However, I did buy a couple of Musicaster tele necks before the prices went up and paired them with  Spalt King and Mighty Mite bodies, both came in at under $1,000 finished and it was worth the cost to have fun "creating" your own guitar. I tried to source decent used parts; Lollar, Callaham, etc, but won't do it again....my Crackercaster has filled the slot as  my favorite tele style guitar.

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1 hour ago, spanky said:

I have a Warmoth tele with a USAGC neck, nice guitar but cost me apprx $1,500 once done. I haven"t bonded with the Warmoth standard profile neck but haven't tried to sell it cause I would only get $500 or so. However, I did buy a couple of Musicaster tele necks before the prices went up and paired them with  Spalt King and Mighty Mite bodies, both came in at under $1,000 finished and it was worth the cost to have fun "creating" your own guitar. I tried to source decent used parts; Lollar, Callaham, etc, but won't do it again....my Crackercaster has filled the slot as  my favorite tele style guitar.

A cautionary tale to pay attention to, if there ever was one.  If someone has a Partscaster built or 'commissioned', it pays to make choices regarding everything wisely, as if they were gonna keep it forever.

Also, be careful if spec'ing/comissioning one of those 'relic'd' MJT (Mark Jenny) bodies, they really seem to me to go nuts when it comes to relicing.  My P-90 equipped Cabronita-style Tele has a 'lightly' relic'd MJT body, where the most extreme wear is to the paint around the area where a player's arm would rest, and of course it has multiple areas of weather-checking, dings and nicks elsewhere in the finish as well.  I bought mine 'secondhand' (can a 'relic'd' guitar ever actually be called 'used'?), and if I bought one of their relic'd bodies 'new', I definitely wouldn't go any more extreme than that, relic-wise.

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  • 2 weeks later...
25 minutes ago, hamerhead said:

The Rosser site is gone, but apparently he's still going on Facebook:

I'm seeing that more and more lately. "Web sites" have almost become superfluous with Facebook and Instagram providing 99% of what most people have the attention bandwidth for in the first place: photographs.
Of course for someone like me who shuns all social media, this is not helpful.

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2 hours ago, kizanski said:

I'm seeing that more and more lately. "Web sites" have almost become superfluous with Facebook and Instagram providing 99% of what most people have the attention bandwidth for in the first place: photographs.
Of course for someone like me who shuns all social media, this is not helpful.

I'm with you mostly.  We have a FB account for folks we don't see/talk to much, but honestly I'd never do anything resembling a financial transaction on FB.  

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