Alexander

Thanks guys. Hmmmm I'm oiling my body (my guitar body, you dirty minded freaks) but Warmoth advised me to lacquer the neck due to the higher humidity in the UK. I understand they say 1 in 10 oiled necks ends up warping as opposed to 1 in 200 lacquered necks? Are there any other options?

That is a goddamn beautiful instrument! Yeah, I ordered some bits and pieces from stewmac last week, and they arrived here in the UK about 2-3 days later- I was very impressed. Companies that organised always get return business from me.

Indeed, but they can't ship outside of the USA either

Cool! They look awesome, dude. At some point, when I either put my own neck together or find somewhere that sells pre-made necks/boards with no inlays, I'd like to go that route. It kind of says "Yeh, I know which damn fret is which, thanks."

It struck me the other day how damn cool it would look to have a fretboard without any fret markers on it (obviously you'd need the markers on the edge of the board to look at when playing). Strangely I've never seen a guitar with a non-marked fretboard. Do you think this would make the guitar too hard to play, look stupid, or what?

I've gone with the Warmoth parts, just put it all together option for my first one. Mainly because as Dirty Harry said "A man's gotta know his limitations" - I have zero woodworking skills. My main reason for building my own guitar is that I've been playing for many years and I kind of know what I want out of a guitar, and finding it is very difficult. Closest I've got to my perfect guitar is my Gordon Smith - quite simply the nicest playing and sounding guitar I've ever had. But I want something a little hotter (EMG 81), simpler (one pup, one vol knob) with a trem (wilkinson). That's all - nice graphite nut, light body, sperzels, and I'm done.

Best of luck finding a hard case for that!

Hi all, I'm trying to find a good stockist of satin finish lacquer, in an aerosol, to finish my maple neck with. Is it the kind of thing I can find at a hardware store, or are there any online UK retailers that sell "instrument quality" lacquer? I tried reranch.com but obviously they won't ship aerosol cans overseas .

Some info and a question - For other UK forum members, I found Tru Oil pretty cheap (£5.30 a bottle) at www.thegunshop.co.uk. Couple more questions before I leap into the breach, if you'd all be so kind: 1) Does anyone know a good UK supplier of clear laquer, preferably aerosol, satin finish? 2) I'm going to be tru oiling a swamp ash body - any pitfalls I should know about with this wood? Thanks again for all your help, you guys are great

Just a couple more questions (I said that in a Columbo style): If I decide to lacquer the neck, is this instead of tru-oil or does it go over the top? How many bottles of tru-oil do you think I'll need for a strat shaped body and a neck? Thanks a lot!

Excellent. But what about what the nice American chap at Warmoth said, about the neck probably needing a lacquer? He seemed to think the damper climes of the UK would be detrimental to it if I just oiled it...?

No, that's fantastic! Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it. Right, I'd better get reading!

Hi All, I have on order a swamp ash warmoth body and a maple warmoth neck. As this is my first project guitar I'm not going to attempt to paint it! Plus I like the look of natural wood guitars. I'd really like to oil it to obviously seal and protect it somewhat from the years of sweat, blood etc it will be subjected too (I hope!) and I've been doing a bit of reading. I realise the three main types of oil are danish, tung and gun oil (I think?) but I have a couple of questions if any of you would be so kind: 1) Which would you recommend for ease of application, quality of finish, and longevity? 2) Could you point me towards any simple step by step tutorials (assume I know nothing!) 3) I'm in the UK - where is the best place to find these products? 4) The chap at warmoth said I would probably need to lacquer the neck - do I do this as well as oiling it or instead of? He recommended reranch.com to get the lacquer. Sorry if these are obvious but I really want to do a good job of this guitar, and I'd rather do my research now rather than mess it up due to lack of preparation...

Howdy! Yes indeed it is - all these millions of people on the 'net and you still end up talking to your next door neighbour.

Thanks again, I shall do that. A bit trickier than I was hoping for my first project, but a great way to learn..

Ah thanks - I see... Obviously I want the neck to be centred, but my concern was that the existing holes in the neck aren't drilled central if you see what I mean. They certainly don't look like they're centred in the neck, one pair of holes is visibly closer to the edge than the others. So was worried that if I sand away at one side of the neck hole to make the neck fittable, it would still be off centre for the body.

Ah! You guys are awesome. If I'd known about that site before, I would have saved myself half a day and three blistered fingers.

Hi all, Is there anywhere one can guy a ready-cut strat pickguard, but with no pickup or control holes drilled? I'm planning a frankenstrat thing but I'm only going to use one humbucker in the bridge, nothing else. I just had a go at cutting one from scratch from a square of acrylic and it looked pants. I've found plenty of places that sell SSS (obviously) and HSS but no HXX. Can anyone help?

Blimey that sounds a lot like woodwork to me - scary. Makes sense though. Thanks for your reply!

Hmm OK, so after a few minutes sanding the neck now slots into the cavity. However, the existing drill holes in the neck are too far off to one side for the screws to line up. Bummer. I assume if the neck fits in the hole that it's going to be centred for the guitar, so does this mean I have to drill new holes in the neck? This could be tricky because the existing ones are only maybe 1-2mm out of whack so they'll be too close to where the "proper" holes will be. Help!

Hi all, really simple question: I've bought a strat copy body and a generic strat dimension neck, I checked that one would fit the other with the vendor prior to buying them. However, they arrived in the post today and the neck is fractionally too large to go in the neck socket, I would say by about 1-2mm max. Is it OK to just sand away at the cavity until the neck fits? How snug should it be in the hole? Any tips for doing this? Thanks in advance!

Wow, nice friendly place here. It's not the bread and dripping you have to worry about in Yorkshire, it's making sure you don't get whippet hairs in your finish. Got some more bits today.... quite exciting, but rather daunting. I'm always reading about how other people build guitars, pitfalls they've encountered etc. and sometimes I think "Well, this can't be that hard, loads of people do it" and other times I think "crap, I've got no chance here - I can't even sand straight!". My philosophy is to give it my best shot and if at first I don't succeed, try try again...

Thanks chaps, yeah I've discovered highlystrung and axesrus for some more bits, the rest is coming from good old ebay! I've got two guitars in the pipeline. First is going to be a pretty standard stratalike, with a nice hot kent armstrong pickup (one humbucker in the bridge, nothing else). For this I've got hold of a cheapie strat copy body and a generic neck (I'm no where near good enough to start doing any woodword, I'm afraid), so I'm basically building a frankenguitar just to get the hang of the electronics, and what have you. I also have a swamp ash soloist body and a 13 degree angled headstock neck ordered from warmoth, and that's going to be a real beast - I have that all planned out on paper. The idea being, the stratalike is going to be my "stunt guitar" upon which I can make lots of newbie mistakes, and then by that time I might be in a position to make a really nice instrument out of the warmoth pieces. Eek!

Good news - another clueless newbie! I'm in England (Yorkshire to be precise) about to embark upon my first project guitar as soon as Royal Mail see their way to delivering my bits and bobs. So yeah, hello.