How to Build a Warmoth Stratocaster style guitar
If you are unimpressed by shop bought guitars here is an ideal way to get the guitar you really want. There are a number of suppliers around where you can get necks and bodies but the choice of wood etc is very limited. Warmoth give you a large choice of neck, body and fretboard woods and of neck shapes, body styles and fretwire types and sizes, various bridge routing and pickguards and a range of finishes are also available, so now it is possible to build a guitar that is comparable to the very best in it's class.

Below there is a description of all the parts used and some pictures, although the digital images don't do it justice, there are also construction details and information on setting up the guitar.
So now, with all this information maybe you would like to build your own guitar or have it made for you, let me know what you think.

Parts

The neck is made from Goncalo Alves which is dark brown with paler stripes, it doesn't need lacquering, it is much better unfinished, it has a waxy feel which gives just the right amount of grip when needed and when you need to move up or down the neck quickly it is virtually friction free and very fast. The finish from Warmoth was very good but benefitted from a polish with 1200 grit paper. Now that it has been played for a while it is silky smooth and built up quite a sheen. All in all it is a superb piece of wood and for me far better than any lacquered neck wood.

The Fingerboard is Brazilian rosewood, it has a compound radius, 10" at the nut 16" at the heel and is fitted with medium height stainless steel fretwire, I have leveled, profiled, smoothed and polished the frets and they are excellent for bends, not a sign of choking off even with a low string action.
Tuning Machines, I fitted Schaller M6 locking tuning machines, these have staggered heights, no need for string trees, although not exactly lightweight I wanted good quality bright chrome locking machines and they seemed the best available.

The Nut is a Slip-Stone Delrin nut. This is a very hard plastic and is about the most slippery nut material available, just the job for bending and hard trem use. Although it is hard material to saw and file string heights at the nut can be precisely set and it lasts for ages.
The Trussrod is a Warmoth double rod and it is fitted with a Gotoh side adjuster, there is an Allen screw for adjustment on the side of the neck at the heel, this saves a really tedious job taking the neck off (usually more than once) to adjust the rod, with this little device adjustment is quick and easy.

The Body is mahogany, hollowed out to reduce weight, it has a contoured heel to make getting to the upper frets a bit easier, it has a Schaller Floyd Rose rout and Warmoth did the finish.
The Bridge is a Schaller "Vintage" tremolo, I chose what I think is the best trem I have seen with it's two pivots making overall string height adjustment easy, these pivots are set far enough apart to not be in front of the bridge saddles which means the pivot point can be closer to where the string leaves the bridge resulting in more efficient trem action, i.e. the ratio of string tension adjustment to wasted string up and down movement.

The Saddles have rollers and are adjustable for height and intonation, the grub screws for adjusting saddle height are below the top of the saddles, the bridge is smooth, nothing to tear the skin! The string holes in the baseplate are nicely rounded off - no sharp edges to damage the strings. The arm can be quickly and easily removed and refitted.
This trem works very well and in combination with the Delrin nut and Schaller tuning machines the tuning stays quite stable, however I did have to do some work on it to get the rollers to move freely, also the bolt holding the arm mounting needed the end smoothing as it butts up against the end of the arm and the end of the bolt would chew the end of the arm if left rough resulting in less smooth movement. As I use Bullet strings I decided to drill the block so that the bullet ends now rest against the back of the baseplate, this results in little or no string movement between the saddles and the end of the strings which hopefully contributes to tuning stability and helps reduce string breakage, I deliberately kept the same set of strings on for about three months until a string broke, the 1st string at the 14th fret, so string breakage is not a problem. The arm needed a little bit of bending as it was just a bit too close to the body, the arm tends to rock slightly in it's mounting, a couple of turns of PTFE tape stops that, after all that it is just about perfect!
The Pickups are Kinman Authentic Noiseless CV-HMS. I first found out about these pickups on the Sound-on-Sound website where you can read their article. These pickups are specially constructed to cut out hum and noise from externally radiating sources such as television sets, computer monitors etc. yet still sound like early single coil pickups and they really do sound good, far better than anything else I've heard, they make the guitar sound more like a vintage Strat than a vintage Strat! Find out more on the Kinman website.
Electrics the volume pot is 500k to give a little more presence and is fitted with a bypass cap and resistor to reduce treble loss when the volume is turned down, I have used a single tone control which is 250k and is common to all pickups, what is normally the second tone control is a 500k pot which mixes the neck pickup with any other combination, this gives all seven combinations and works well giving an excellent range of sounds.

The Pickguard is a standard Strat type but with the bridge cutout widened and a new fixing screw hole drilled.

Construction

Starting with the neck I adjusted the trussrod so that the neck was straight and then leveled the frets, stainless steel is a bit harder than nickel-silver, I used a diamond stone for leveling, much quicker. I profiled and smoothed the frets by using a fret file with 1200 grit paper wrapped round it, I also smoothed the fret ends and then polished the frets using burnishing cream, all this does take time but it is worth the effort giving lower, faster, smoother action.

Next job was to polish the neck using 1200 grit paper to give a super smooth finish, I then fitted the tuning machines, fitting one in place with it's nut and washer fingertight, checked with a square, marked the fixing screw position, drilled a pilot hole and fitted the screw and repeated for the other five, finally tightening the nuts.

The string nut took a bit longer to do as Delrin is about as hard as brass, first I cut it to width then roughed out the height, then it was a case of rubbing down one side until it just fitted the slot, I drilled a couple of shallow holes in the bottom of the nut just so that the glue has something to locate on and then glued it in place with PVA adhesive, I then marked out the string slots, Stewart MacDonald do an excellent rule for marking out nuts along with a whole range of tools and guitar parts etc. With the string slots partly cut in the nut the neck is ready for fitting and setting up.

Next the body and the first job was to press the trem bushes in using a drill press and a spigot specially turned for the purpose, then I carefully marked out the strap button positions and drilled the holes, I used long screws for these, screwed into plastic plugs fitted into the body, they never come loose! After that I positioned the trem spring cover and drilled the screw holes.

Although I used Kinman noiseless pickups I screened the pickup, control and output jack routs and the back of the pickguard with nickel screening compound. After masking off the area to be screened and covering the rest of the body to protect from overspray the area to be covered was rubbed lightly with 600 grit paper and then cleaned with isopropyl alcohol, given a coat of screening compound and left to dry, similar treatment was given to the back of the pickguard.

I fitted the tremolo spring claw with the two screws next and then soldered a piece of insulated wire to the claw and passed the other end through the hole into the control rout then fitted the output jack to the jackplate and soldered a piece of screened lead to the jack socket, passed the other end through the hole into the control rout, positioned the jackplate, drilled the holes and fitted the screws, I then fitted the neck, with the contoured heel shorter screws must be fitted in the outer positions.

The pickguard bridge cutout was the right depth but needed widening, this I did with a small saw and files and a new screw hole drilled and then I fitted the switch, pots and pickups and then connected all the wiring and fitted the knobs, finally I soldered the earth wire from the spring claw and the screened lead from the output jack to the pickguard and put the pickguard in position, I temporally put the bridge in place to exactly position the pickguard and held it in place with some bits of masking tape while I drilled the holes and fitted the screws, I then fitted the bridge for the last time with the springs and all that remained was to fit some strings and do the setup!

Setup

I usually start a setup with the action at the nut, holding the each string down at the third fret and checking the clearance between the string and the first fret, I like a low fast action with a clearance of about .004" - .008" for the unwound strings and .008" - .012" for the wound strings. Easiest way is to place a steel rule on it's side along the frets overhanging the first fret and using feeler gauge measure the gap there then add the clearance to the feeler gauge value and hold it against the nut and using a nut file cut the slot down to the feeler gauge making sure the front of the nut slot is slightly higher than the back, when all six slots have been cut the top of the nut can be trimmed down and polished.

The trussrod is next and the Gotoh adjuster makes this job quick and easy, with a capo on the first fret and holding 1st or 6th string down at the last fret measure the clearance at the 8th fret, I set mine to .008" as I play with a light touch.

Now the bridge and the first of several adjustments is to set the two height screws so that the clearance between the bottom of the baseplate and the body is about 1/8", then adjust the saddle heights to give just under 1/16" clearance at the 17th fret for the first string and gradually increasing going from 2nd to 6th string, I then adjusted the trem spring screws to give a clearance of 7/32" between the bottom rear of the baseplate and the body, this set the trem in the middle giving equal up and down bends. The last bridge adjustment is the intonation and is best done with an electronic tuner, this is to make sure that the 12th harmonic of each string is not sharp or flat, tune each string to the correct pitch then check at the 12th fret, if flat adjust the saddle forward, if sharp adjust the saddle back.

Last adjustment is the pickup heights and for the Kinman pickups the neck and middle should be adjusted for a minimum clearance of 5/64" between the outer strings and the magnets and for the neck pickup a minimum of 1/16". One final job was to get the trem arm at the right height as it was a bit too close to the body for me to hold in my hand in the normal playing position, it needed a little bit of bending at the (approx) 90 degree bend and that was that, all set up ready to go, although the setup should be checked and adjusted again as necessary from time to time. Just screw on the trem spring cover and there you have it, a guitar that not only looks good but plays and sounds good too!

Suppliers

Neck, body, trem spring cover and short neck screws Warmoth
Kinman Pickups Chandler Guitars Kew, London
Schaller trem and tuning machines, switch, pots, knobs, screws etc Allparts (Pincotts in the UK)
Slip-Stone Delrin nut (also tools) Stewart MacDonald