Are Warmoth "Screamin' Deals" Necks Factory Seconds?

[big_teee]

I'm considering trying one of these?
https://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Strat-...357501&sr=1-53
T

[Chuck H]

I understand the appeal. But I wouldn't. All the cross grain the flame grain is WAY less stable than slab cut. I've only known a couple of flame maple necks and both have variable relief depending on the weather. And it's been my experience that less expensive necks/guitars have frets that are softer and oxidize more easily and the fretwork is typically poorly recrowned and the flats on the frets are variable in width because they aren't arced in a smooth radius (for one reason or another). It can even make for intonation problems. I wouldn't take the chance.

Sorry I don't like to be the turd in the punchbowl, just trying to help.

EDIT: In the more expensive necks you can get quartersawn which is (generally) more stable than slab cut. But I've still known flame necks to be the most unstable. If you REALLY wanted the flame look, and didn't mind the $$$ you could get a quartersawn neck with a flame fingerboard and headstock overlay. You can't order that way on the Warmoth site, but I know they can do it. Probably around 300 bones with SS frets!!! That would be a lot more

[bob p]

I often worry about those W necks on *bay. I'm thinking that *bay is where the screwed up necks go when it's time for people to dump their mistakes. I don't have a problem paying what it costs for a custom order unfinished neck and doing the finish work myself. I think the necks are worth it, especially if you need to custom order a specific profile. But not the bodies and certainly not the paint.

I'm thinking that I'm more likely to go with a Fender body and W neck. I have become accustomed to the 55-58 LP neck profile, which transitions from 0.9 to 1.0, and is bigger than the 59. So I've been thinking about the fatback and sanding it down, or maybe the 59. I'm very comfortable on a fully round 55-58 so I don't feel a need for the shoulder-relieved necks that appeal to thumb-over guys, like the boatneck. I take it your W is a 59?


Part of the problem with Chinese knockoffs is that the wood and the frets are typically softer than you really want them to be. They tend to be less stable and the frets wear quickly.


The price for a plain-jane strat body from W is pretty ridiculous. A bare alder strat body with no options comes in at $175.00. A sunburst finish adds $230 (!) to the price, resulting in a cost of $405. Compare that to a brand new Mexican alder 3-color sunburst body from Fender parts at $170:

https://shop.fender.com/en-US/parts/...=parts&start=1

I know it's hard to believe, but you can get a sunburst Mexican Fender body for less than the cost of the bare W body, and save the $270 W charge for paint. IME Mexi Strat bodies typically are not bad, though I'd be taking a chance on weight. At that $170 new price it's hard to consider buying one used on *bay. The W body would have to be one hell of a nice body to justify it's price.

Another point for comparison: Stratosphere buys new Fender guitars and parts them out on *bay. You can get a new American Special Strat body, fully loaded (which is basically the complete guitar with the neck removed) for $500.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LOADED-Amer...cAAOSwtDdahNjP

... or you could buy any of the unpopulated new Fender bodies and stuff them with your favorite parts.

[Chuck H]

I'd go with the Mexican Fender body for sure if I wanted a finish. And sure, weight is a crap shoot. I bet none are especially light as those would have been "selected" and designated for special guitars. But I've played many import Fenders with light-ish bodies and none that were especially heavy, so there must be some QC in that department.

[big_teee]

I understand the appeal. But I wouldn't. All the cross grain the flame grain is WAY less stable than slab cut. I've only known a couple of flame maple necks and both have variable relief depending on the weather. And it's been my experience that less expensive necks/guitars have frets that are softer and oxidize more easily and the fretwork is typically poorly recrowned and the flats on the frets are variable in width because they aren't arced in a smooth radius (for one reason or another). It can even make for intonation problems. I wouldn't take the chance.

Sorry I don't like to be the turd in the punchbowl, just trying to help.

EDIT: In the more expensive necks you can get quartersawn which is (generally) more stable than slab cut. But I've still known flame necks to be the most unstable. If you REALLY wanted the flame look, and didn't mind the $$$ you could get a quartersawn neck with a flame fingerboard and headstock overlay. You can't order that way on the Warmoth site, but I know they can do it. Probably around 300 bones with SS frets!!! That would be a lot more

But Chuck, you have more Dinero, Rubles, Pounds, Jack, Greenbacks, etc, than me!
I do cheap import Sh*t.
That's what I do!
I just piddle around!
That way I have more stuff to start fires with!
I've built up tons of cheapo strats, and Teles, no big issues that I remember.

T

[mozz]

I'm considering trying one of these?
https://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Strat-...357501&sr=1-53
T

Here is Kmise i just bought, hope you like orange. Mine was from Aliexpress and was cheap. I haven't finished the setup yet.

[Chuck H]

Yeah, I'm made of money.

How do you think I know about the drawbacks of inexpensive guitars And!.. Some of the coolest guitars I've ever known were modified cheapies. My favorite was a Hondo strat with the neck replaced (a pull from a Charvel IIRC) and an old DiMarzio Super Distortion humbucker clumsily mounted in the bridge position. The guy was sick of his strap coming loose so he screwed big eye bolts in where the pegs were and had trigger clips on his strap. Playable as hell and sounded great. And my own history is peppered with cheapies. One I wish I still had. A 1985 Standard Stratocaster! I got that one during a $199 ea. blowout at Guitar Center when Fender started moving production out of Japan and no one wanted the Japanese made instruments Should have bought ten!

I'll stand by what I said about figured maple necks though. Spend less and get a better neck or spend the same and get a much better neck. Though not better looking.

[bob p]

I can afford to buy a custom shop guitar but I don't see the value in sinking a lot of money into one instrument that has to be handled with kid gloves. It's like placing too many eggs in one basket. I've been through the scene of owning an uber-valuable guitar and it was a burden. I have a lot more fun owning a good guitar that I don't have to worry about. Today there are so many inexpensive guitars out there that are just as good from a player's standpoint, if you're only willing to put a little work into them.

I bought an Indo G&L Tele (made by Cort) for $270 as one of the GC/MF Stupid Deals and it's a great performer. It's worst feature was that it needed a better nut. That's an easy fix if you're a tinkerer. I've had it for about a year now. I'm totally happy with it and I'll never let it go. And I paid so little for it that I don't feel the need to worry about it. I can always get another one. It's only problem was that during it's first winter it developed a little fret sprout. It's amazing how sensitive our hands are to agonizing over fret sprout. My guitar felt like it had horrible fret ends as the neck shrunk a bit. So I grabbed one of the girls' emory boards and gave two quick passes on each fret end with the finest grade side of the board. Two passes was all that it took to make the neck feel like butter. It's amazing how such a ridiculously small amount of fret end can feel like a knife against your hand.

Rather than gambling on the cheapo necks that you can get on Ali Baba, my recommendation is to buy one of the Cort-manufactured G&L guitars when they pop-up on the MF/GC blowout sales. What you get is a very high quality instrument on a cheepskate budget. And if you're a tinkerer who's willing to fix any minor problems that may come along, you'll love it.

I ended up buying three different G&L guitars at the blowout sales last year, two teles and a strat. I'm perfectly happy with both Teles, they're keepers. but the G&L Legacy (Strat) has a body that feels like a boat anchor. And true to the G&L format, the Indo Tribute model replicates the American Legacy's neck profile, which is wider than a Strat. Some people love it, some hate it. To me the heavy body is the real deal-breaker. The biggest downside to the G&L is that the necks don't interchange with Fenders unless you're interested in woodworking... which brings me to the partscaster thread.

[bob p]

I can't get over how orange some of those fake-vintage finishes tend to be. They're just too far over the top. Like the W vintage tint necks. I'd be happier if they cut the amount of tint in half, but for some reason everybody seems to be taking the vintage tint idea to an extreme. I think something midway between the un-tinted and the vintage-tints would be a lot more appealing. What ever happened to subtlety?

[Chuck H]

Yep. Though it's not like the orange color isn't pretty It's just fake as hell. Modern polyester and urethane finishes don't amber like lacquer and shellac. Some of the older instruments really ARE very amber. It still looks fake on a new neck though and I agree it would look better if they cut the tint in half.

Tung oil, FWIW ambers like crazy. My guitar is a tad browner and half as amber and it's over twenty years old. They must have surveys and panels that they bounce these decisions off because there's no way the entire replica market decided on f#@&ing orange arbitrarily. So I guess most shoppers like it.?.

[Steve A.]

I have a completely different take on this based on information from a top-notch luthier via a good friend. Practically none of the mfgs glue frets on a new neck (or on a new guitar for that matter) which introduces the problem of frets popping up a little bit anywhere from the time of manufacture to when the end-user finally tunes it up and plays it.

Maple necks from Fender are usually coated with a lacquer which helps secure the frets. So if you order an unfinished maple neck you really need to have the frets checked for levelness before finishing or installing it which you can either learn to do yourself or have a guitar tech or luthier do for you.

Guitar necks are made from wood which is organic so their response to the tension from your preferred gauge of strings and a properly set truss rod can create high and low frets which were not present with the bare neck. When a guitar is assembled in the factory you expect that some setup may be required, either before or after you purchase the guitar. If your standards are high you will probably need some fret leveling and recrowning which you can learn to do yourself or pay someone to do it for you. I like to bend strings so I want no fretting out at the higher frets with 3, 4 or 5 fret bends. (Shredders have their own requirements.)

When you buy a finished guitar you can hope that a full professional setup was done at the factory but I never count on it. Besides, depending on your playing style the requirements of a professional setup can vary.

If you are assembling guitars from pieces you can expect to do a professional setup when you are finished. If you can't do any required leveling and recrowning yourself then have your luthier or guitar tech check out the neck before you start to make sure that there aren't any major problems. It could be that just a few high frets need to be tapped down as is often the case with new guitars that I have checked out.

Most decent guitars sold today come from the factory much better than the guitars we bought in the 60's and 70's. Back then Gibson and Fender figured that the professional guitarists would pay their guitar techs to set them up while the kids like you and me would not know any better. (Damn, those guitars were very hard and painful to play back then!)

I guess it was the PRS SE guitars built in Korea in the mid-00's that really knocked me out with their playability right out of the box but my friend who tutored me in luthiery the past few years wasn't that impressed — the guitars he sets up play so much better. So I am now a believer in professional setups, something I think that most of us here can learn to do with the proper tools and instruction (there are a lot of good videos on YouTube but you need to find the ones that are appropriate for your style of playing... good luck on that!)

Steve A.

P.S. While some people have mentioned finishing a maple neck with tung oil I personally recommend Tru-Oil which is used for giving a very hard finish to gun stocks (go NRA!)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000C5398/

While the price for 8oz isn't that high there are several threads on how to make your own if you will be needing a quart or more...

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/tru-oil-recipe.399201/

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[Chuck H]

Well "fret sprout" (a term I hadn't heard but leaves no questions ) isn't a glue or lacquer issue. It's a wood shrink issue. And the four coats of tung oil I put on my guitar twenty some years ago is holding up very well. In fact the back of the neck has developed quite an even polish. Though it still isn't sweat sticky like higher build finishes. And I've actually been very impressed at how well it's resisted grunge staining. But I can get behind Tru-Oil. I use to use tung for a lot of things I now use Daly's Teak Oil for. The Daly's product sets up harder, faster, but still doesn't act like other more polymerized finishes. More like a fast tung oil. I imagine the Tru-Oil to be a similar thing. I used the Daly's product on a pool cue shaft (maple, needs to slide on skin) and it feels just as nice as tung. If Tru-Oil is like that then I suppose it could be great. I've heard about it enough by now that I really should get some and experiment with it. Since I live in the PNW now I can't rely on the same drying conditions I enjoyed in California so plain tung oil might test my patience. Still, it's naturally affected to polymerize with evaporation by heat tratment. Somehow I like that better than synthetic polymers. I don't know what Daly's really is, or Tru-Oil, but if they're just thinned out synthetic polymerized finished there's a lost aesthetic for me. I'll look into it though. A guitar neck should be at least as tough as a gun stock.

[bob p]

"fret sprout" is a bit of a misnomer, as it suggests that the frets are growing rather than the wood shrinking, but I still use it because it is a colorful description of the problem, and it's a non-ambiguous term to people who understand the underlying process.


I was hoping that Chuck would give us the answer about Tru-Oil, since he knows a lot more about finishing than I know. A great many musicians and gun people swear by Tru-Oil. Tru-Oil is damned expensive for what it is.

My understanding is that Tru-Oil is nothing more complicated than a brand name for a traditional Danish Oil type of drying oil, or finishing oil. That would make it either a tung oil or linseed oil mixture that's diluted in a stoddard solvent (white mineral spirits) to thin it out. Tru-Oil's marketing people claim to use some sort of "proprietary modified oil" in the mixture. But as far as I can tell that could be nothing more complicated than boiled linseed oil; boiled linseed oil has drying agents added to it to enhance polymerization. Typically, those are metal catalysts that use environmental oxygen to promote cross-linking of the oil molecules, which results in hardening of the finish.

I've been a long time user of boiled linseed oil for wood finishing. I built a bench swing for great-grandma last summer and I used a BLO finish. It hasn't started to amber yet, but I know that it will turn brown in years to come.

I was hoping that Chuck could fill me in on why tung oil might be better than linseed oil, or if one is just as good as the other.

[Chuck H]

Well, not being a chemist I can't speak to the molecular difference between the products, but I can tell something about what they are at face value and how they are to use.

Tung oil is made from tung seeds and linseed oil is made from flax seeds. They are treated about the same as far as processing to extract compounds from the raw oil and modifying it to polymerize. And it's not unusual for products called "Danish oil" or "Teak oil" to be made from either, neither or some combination as many seed oils can be prepared like this and behave similarly. Though most are indicated as tung oil. Still, Danish oil and Teak oil are generic terms for prepared seed oil and intentionally do not imply any specific product. Unless, as I always assumed, Danish oil were made from Danes Ok... Using them:

Linseed oil is typically sold as it's made. That is, thinned only to a viscosity that allows it to be packaged and used. About as heavy as motor oil, which is pretty heavy if you want penetration. It's sticky and slow to dry, requiring easily twice the dry time of of most tung oil or generic oil finish products. I only use it for rough work, like rubbing down fence boards, concrete forms, dipping posts or soaking floor planking, etc. because it can be purchased cheaply by the gallon. Of course it can be thinned too. And I did finish a gun stock with linseed oil once. It took many coats and took forever but looked great and FINALLY got acceptably hard after a few months! Color is nut brown/amber (though it's said to be clear, it's not)

Danish oil, Teak oil, etc. tend to be thinner. The solvent aids in penetration and probably allow faster evaporation of any surfactant properties because they do harden faster than linseed oil. Still pretty slow IME and though 24hrs. is usually indicated, 48hrs. between coats is better. Color is usually a little lighter than linseed oil but these products are sometimes tinted and offered in colors by the manufacturers that implies a stained wood appearance with the finishing process.

Tung oil is similar in viscosity to most Danish/Teak oil products, though sometimes a little thinner. It works about the same too, but seems more "waxy" and less "sticky" even when dry. It's also lighter in color than all of the above and leaves wood with a more natural "wet" look. Dries slower than most Danish/Teak oil products but 48hrs between coats with good dry conditions seems fine most often. Probably some longer chain oils left behind in the preparation slow it down and might also be responsible for the waxy feel. A long time favorite for a natural wood feel on the back of guitar necks because it's a little easier to control surface sheen, the waxy feel and the lighter color.

But with enough surface build and dry time between coats ALL these products will shine. Tru-Oil? Maybe it's like one or all of these products. But if it's not different, why market or sell it? I'll look into it, but my fear is that its a Homer Formby kind of thing, which is just a thinned out polymer finish with a little processed seed oil in it. Designed to dry out hard and fast. More of an instant gratification product. I hope this is not the case. Whether it performs as well or better than other products I really don't know. I do know that there's a long and well respected reputation for the other products.

[bob p]

Great post, Chuck. Thanks for the finish expert's opinion.

I found the MSDS for Birchwood-Casey's "Tru-Oil". Looks like Linseed oil diluted with a Stoddard solvent, along with a "proprietary modified oil" which might be nothing more than boiled linseed oil. So it sounds like it's a natural seeded oil product that's been pre-diluted and perhaps tinted. It's definitely been well marketed and has achieved brand recognition.

https://www.birchwoodcasey.com/getat...Sheet.pdf.aspx

BTW: There seems to be a popular opinion that Tru-Oil consists of linseed oil plus a urethane component. According to the MSDS that's not true.