Considering putting an electric guitar together from components

[freethought]

I haven't had a guitar in a couple of years and I miss it. I was online looking into the possibility of guitar assembled from separate components, body, neck, etc. I could get the color, pick-up configuration, trem bar(or not), I wanted. The guitar would be your basic Stratocaster style. I would, of course, have to find a capable person to set it up, wire it, make tuning, bridge, and neck adjustments and the like. Warmoth, for example, makes the components.
Or am I spinning my wheels here? Should I just go out and look at what's in shops instead?

[Idylle Moon Dancer]

1. I'd definitely see what's available in your area first.

The path you suggest could be more expensive than buying something already put together if you have to find someone else to do that for you. Also I'd think it might be possible to, for example, get a bad neck that doesn't reveal its fault until it's all bolted on and strung up. Seems like more trouble than it's worth, IMHO.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. Warmoth makes nice stuff. But, would you put a car together from parts?

How much more would it cost to do it that way (a LOT)?

Check eBay, local used, and made-in-Mexico Fenders.

[ProfessorGAC]

4. Yep. I Did It. Very Pricey

One of my strats is put together, but it does have an old actual Fender body. The rest of the guitar was a train wreck.

I put a Warmouth/Boogie Bodies neck of bird's eye maple, added Duncan SSL-1 pickups, put a Kahler on it, and had the body painted BMW silver, plus a black pick guard.

This was a long time ago (>20 years), but i spent at least $500 total and did the work myself, except for the routing of the new bridge. (My friend painted it, but i only had to buy the paint.) That was a ton of money for a strat in the early 80's.

This is an expensive way to go, so one better get EXACTLY the set-up one wants, that isn't available in a stock guitar.
The Professor

[freethought]

5. Trying to find that stock guitar has been something of a problem

I was turned on to guitar by a neighbor, then and now a professional musician. He was crazy enough to loan me a late 50s/early sixties era Stratocaster. This particular instrument had a pretty thick neck front to back, it was also quite wide, and the fingerboard had a rather pronounced radius. Oddly enough I found it to my liking.

My hands are not well built for guitar playing. They are large and thick, what one may consider a trademan's hands. And with these narrow,
thin, flat fingerboard necks they put on guitars these days I have a hard time navigating the fingerboard. For whatever reason the neck on that old Strat seemed ideal and trying to find another instrument with a similarly shaped neck has been in vain. My last guitar was a Carvin Telecaster style. Quality wise the instrument was fine but that thin, narrow neck drove me nuts.

I considered Warmoth because they have options on the shape, thickness and width of the neck at the nut that you don't see elsewhere. What good does it do to buy just a neck? May as well go all way and put together a whole instrument. I have not ruled this out as an option entirely.

[Idylle Moon Dancer]

6. well that changes things a bit, then

I sort of, maybe, know where you're coming from. I have small hands and play bass. Fortunately there are plenty of basses around with skinny necks. You might want to figure out how much it would cost you to put together a guitar from parts, and then try to get an estimate from a custom shop, and see which suits you better.

[freethought]

9. Yeah, but only a bit.

Fate could intercede and I could find a great instrument in some shop somewhere.
Estimating the cost from components seems like a good option. Assembling a guitar myself sounds like a great idea, I would need to read up quite a bit first. Then there is a matter of setting the action up. I have never really done it myself I have always had techs do the work for me. Could be interesting to learn though.

Whatever path I take, I am not going to get out of it without an outlay of a good amount of cash.

If you rank the guitars I have owned it would go like this.
1.) Fender Telecaster
2.) Robin -strat style, no model name
3.) Hamer Chaparral- to this day I have never played a guitar with lower action, very fast. Guitar was built for metalheads, had too much crunch for the lighter, bluesy stuff I like to play and the neck was way too narrow.
4.)Carvin Tele-style- You may like Carvin, you may hate them. This guitar had a flame-maple top and was colored translucent blue. Very handsome. Well put together. Can't fault Carvin for bad quality or poor assembly. Oddly I didn't like the neck-through construction. If you reached up into the high notes the neck seemed to disappear under your hand and it felt very strange. I also didn't like the way the guitar sounded, Carvin uses there own pick-up design and the sound it produces was "flat" sounding. Kind of hard to describe.

Best guitar overall was the old Strat I was loaned. Sigh!!!!

[ProfessorGAC]

10. I Understand

It's why i did it too! The Strat i started with was a early 70's model. I got it pretty beat up, and it was my first single coil guitar. After that, i was a STRATGUY for a long while. But, i didn't really like the neck.

Me, i've got somewhat smallish hands. My hand is a normal length for a guy my size, but the fingers are shorter than the palm area, as opposed to the other way around, like most folks. So, a neck that feels like a 2 by 2 wasn't exactly what i wanted.

Of course, i got carried away, thinking "i might as well go all the way", just like you. By the time i got done, i had spent a ton of money on it. It's a really good guitar, but i've got a stock strat that is just as good and two stock guitars (Ibanez and Schecter, but both high-line models) that are much better.

I should note, however, that my friends are i are insane about set-up and intonation, so all my guitars play really easily. So, i'm not talking about the difference between a Teisco and a Paul Reed Smith. Just subtle differences.

But, you might want to think about this: Look into a Mexican strat that has the body and sound you want, and just buy a neck that works for your hand. All you'd have to do is bolt on the neck and the entire project would be done!
The Professor

[Jamastiene]

11. It sounds like Fender.com would be your best bet for starters then.

They have reissues of pretty much most of their guitars on the web site with a list of dealers, or at least they did last time I looked. Hope this helps some.

[XNASA]

7. I'm not a big Strat fan, but I like that one a lot.

If it's the same one I was playing last time I visited.

[freethought]

3. Yeah, both of you are probably right!

It's weird thing I have. A few years ago I bought a book on how to put together your own PC. Another one on how to assemble kit motorcycles.

Just seems to be some appeal on putting something together yourself.

Keep on playin' gents!!!

[ComerPerro]

8. Get a kit and then customize it as you see fit

I've always wanted to do that.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

12. I'm thinking of doing the very same thing

For many years I've been playing jazz guitar on nylon strings. But something snapped inside my head and I want to play loud electric guitar like I used to many years ago. I recently bought a Mexican made Fender strat for $100. It's a hopeless piece of junk, in my opinion. Unfortunately, I sold the great electric guitars I used to own. In my youth I owned a pre CBS telecaster, a pre CBS stratocaster and a 1962 Gibson 335 and a Les Paul Junior made some time in the 1960s, as well as an old Epiphone archtop Broadway jazz box made in the 1950s. You can't find decent guitars anymore at an affordable price. I paid $100 for the pre CBS telecaster back in the 1960s and $150 for the Les Paul Junior (all used, of course). The ES 335 (paid $500 used for it in 1972) had a very wide (1 7/8 inches) neck and a very, very slim neck radius (as slim as a Jackson wizard neck). The fretboard radius was as flat as that of a classical guitar. It was the fastest and easiest playing neck I've ever had.

I'm thinking of putting together a minimalist telecaster from parts at Warmoth. Included in those parts would be a hollowed-out body for better tone and a wider than standard (1 3/4 inch) neck with the very slim "wizard" option along with a near flat (16") fretboard radius. That might come close to the fantastic neck on my old Gibson. I'll only install one humbucker at the neck as I have never used a bridge pick up in any guitar I've owned. I figure about $650 for all the parts.

My continual complaint is that nearly all mass produced guitars available nowadays seem to have the same neck width (1 1/16 inches at the nut), the same standard neck radius and the same fretboard radius. It seems like mass consumerism and capitalism results in uniformity instead of the wide diversity among guitars that used to exist when true craftsmen were putting them together, each craftsman putting a little bit of his own ideas into each guitar he/she made.