Full assembly & setup :: Warmoth Stratocaster HH [7.1 lbs]

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The second of two Warmoth Strat's in for assembly.  This one also has a roasted maple neck (though with an ebony fingerboard) but was routed for no pickguard and humbuckers (Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro II).  The guitar needed the electronics to be installed and wired up.  A request of the player was to thin down the bridge's plastic humbucker mounting ring to lower it's profile.  The Sperzel locking tuners required the blind pins to be drilled before installation.  Similar to the player's other Warmoth Strat, the saddle set screws were swapped out to account for a higher neck angle.

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Finish up assembly & setup :: Warmoth Stratocaster SSS [7.3 lbs]

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Here's one of two Warmoth Strats a customer brought in for assembly.  Check out the unfinished roasted maple neck!  This one was partially assembled with the pickguard (wired up with Bill Lawrence L280 / L290 pickups) and locking tuners pre-installed.  I mounted the output jack, double checked the wiring and set up the guitar with D'Addario XL 10s.  I also had to swap out the saddle set screws for longer ones to account for a high neck angle.  The original set screws were only a thread or two away from maxing out.  I could have adjusted the neck angle but the shim would have been on the visible end of the neckpocket.

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New bridge & pots :: Warmoth Strat [8.0 lbs]

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This Warmoth Strat is approximately 30 years old and was tough to play.  The player and I found out that the bridge was vintage spaced and pushed the strings far too close to the edge of the fingerboard.  The solution was to swap it out for a new Callaham V/N bridge.  The "V" stands for vintage mount (6 screws) and the "N" is for narrow spacing.  Wow, what a difference in both playability and sustain.  (note the outer 2 bridge mounting screws were omitted as there must have been a 2 point bridge at some time with two large post holes in the body - we may opt to plug thesein the future).  We also replaced the pots as the old ones were pretty rough.  I used an Emerson Custom 500KA pot for the volume and went with Bourns pots for the tones.  I initially had Emersons in for the tones too but found the sweep far too subtle for most of the pot's travel for this guitar (around 2-3 they began to roll off rather quickly).  The Bill Lawrence bridge pickup's plastic mounting tabs were stripped out so they were plugged and re-tapped.

The pot swap was featured over on the vlog (video below).

Assembly & Setup :: Warmoth Chambered Telecaster [6.66 lbs]

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Assembly & Setup :: Warmoth Chambered Telecaster [6.66 lbs]

Here's a maple cap / ash body (chambered) Warmoth Tele in for assembly and setup.  The player-spec'd components include a Callaham vintage T bridge and Don Mare "Joel Foy" pickups.  The birdseye maple neck looks really sharp too.  Gravity pulls this guy down at the Mark of the Beast.

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Fret end dress & string tree :: Warmoth Telecaster [8.3 lbs]

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Fret end dress & string tree :: Warmoth Telecaster [8.3 lbs]

Flame maple top, mahogany back and birdseye neck on this humbucker-equipped Tele.  The neck is a short-scale 24.75" conversion neck with 24 frets.  This Warmoth came into the shop for a fret end dress and a setup.  Originally it did not have a string tree on the headstock so the lower tension of the shorten scale left the high strings buzzy and lacking sustain.  The added vintage-style string retainer greatly improved the tone and dynamic range of these two strings.