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Best custom shops for necks and bodies
Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2019 10:33 pm
by Mich_pt
Hey everyone!
Just joined the forum because i need some help trying to figure something out.
I have a project in mind for building a custom jaguar style guitar and i have some options for luthiere shops but i wanna hear your opinions on who should i go with.
So far i have seen Warmoth, USACG, Guitar mill, Musikraft, and a couple others, but i still can´t decide which ones is better overall or if i should try one for the neck and a different one for the body.
(Many reviews say that warmoth is kinda sloppy on neck works like fretting and nut? is that true?)
Any recommendations you got for me?
Thanks, everyone
PS: if you can recommend me where to get a nice relic finished on the body, that would be great too
Re: Best custom shops for necks and bodies
Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 12:17 am
by higgsblossom
Many projects around here were based on the work of MJT - see
https://www.mjtagedfinishes.com/.
Re: Best custom shops for necks and bodies
Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 7:32 am
by Jaguar018
I'm really happy with my MJT finish too, though I did not get it relicd.
Question: how 'correct' do you want the guitar to be? Like do you want the Jaguar to be 100% vintage specs, or will it have a 9.5" radius and a humbucker or something?
I really like the All-Parts neck I got. I have read on various places that USACG recently went through some er... changes or something, and they are not as reliable as they once were, but you have to take all of those people moaning about their experiences with a grain of salt. The USACG body and neck that I got were great. One of my friends is getting a Warmoth Jazzmaster made and he's super psyched about it.
You'll get different answers for which one is better overall, and, if you're ultimately going to have someone put a nice relic finish on it, then I would not get too worked up about getting everything super perfect, as the person that assembles the guitar in the end should be able to take care of any sloppy frets and what not.
You have identified all of the best-known US based builders, so I think you have a really solid chance of getting a great guitar out of it no matter how you get it all assembled.
Re: Best custom shops for necks and bodies
Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 7:48 am
by 601210
Haven't bought from them personally, but by the looks of things around here it seems like MJT is the place to go for a reliced nitro finish.
Regarding Warmoth frets, they just don't do any fret work after installing the frets -- they themselves say that you might want to have them leveled, crowned, and polished as a step in putting together the guitar. I have heard, however, that they do a pretty spot-on job installing the frets and they often need very minimal-to-no work to play well anyways.
Re: Best custom shops for necks and bodies
Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 7:58 am
by Mich_pt
601210 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 12, 2019 7:48 am
Haven't bought from them personally, but by the looks of things around here it seems like MJT is the place to go for a reliced nitro finish.
Regarding Warmoth frets, they just don't do any fret work after installing the frets -- they themselves say that you might want to have them leveled, crowned, and polished as a step in putting together the guitar. I have heard, however, that they do a pretty spot-on job installing the frets and they often need very minimal-to-no work to play well anyways.
Yeah, that's what i figured. I just wnated to make sure that it wasn't a building or installation sloppy job or anything like some reviews I saw. But that's just people right? Haha I'm leaning more and more towards getting on warmoth especially because I have more customization options and such
Re: Best custom shops for necks and bodies
Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 8:01 am
by Mich_pt
Jaguar018 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 12, 2019 7:32 am
I'm really happy with my MJT finish too, though I did not get it relicd.
Question: how 'correct' do you want the guitar to be? Like do you want the Jaguar to be 100% vintage specs, or will it have a 9.5" radius and a humbucker or something?
I really like the All-Parts neck I got. I have read on various places that USACG recently went through some er... changes or something, and they are not as reliable as they once were, but you have to take all of those people moaning about their experiences with a grain of salt. The USACG body and neck that I got were great. One of my friends is getting a Warmoth Jazzmaster made and he's super psyched about it.
You'll get different answers for which one is better overall, and, if you're ultimately going to have someone put a nice relic finish on it, then I would not get too worked up about getting everything super perfect, as the person that assembles the guitar in the end should be able to take care of any sloppy frets and what not.
You have identified all of the best-know US based builders, so I think you have a really solid chance of getting a great guitar out of it no matter how you get it all assembled.
I'm actually getting a few specific changes on the guitar, like a compound radius and a conversion on the scale lenght, the size of the frets and nut and that sort of things so i guess I'm more interested in shops that are reliable neck wise. I do want a pretty solid built guitar, tight feel. But you're right, most of the work comes from the assambling of the guitar so there's that.
It was helpful, i appreciate it
Re: Best custom shops for necks and bodies
Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 12:10 pm
by mcatano
I have two MJT bodies that I picked up second hand. One seems quite well done (though the relic-ing looks quite fake imo), but the other doesn't seem to have been sealed or primed—it shed paint every time I played it and I eventually swapped it out for a different body.
I have a guitar mill body with an excellent 'light relic' finish that I picked up from another OSGer that looks much better than the MJT ones, IMO.