Warmoth parts

Warmoth parts are of very high quality. Both the necks and bodies are suitable to assemble a very good quality bass. I have never done it because if you buy a finished body and neck, hardware and electronics, you will spend way more than you would for a comparable used bass in very good/excellent condition. I suppose you could do the finish work yourself, but even the unfinished bodies are expensive. At least too expensive to experiment on.

However, I do concede that when you are done, you should have exactly what you want.

In general if you are fairly dextrous, assembling a bass is not difficult. Setting a bolt-on neck is fairly easy if you take your time and know what you are looking for. Soldering electronics is an acquired talent, but that is something that you can practice before attempting for real.

As for the location of the strap locks, I guess you would mount them on the back of the bass body in a location that best balances the guitar.

Chas

 

The Gecko is 35".

For 36", you will have to go high end or custom.

 

I've been looking at assembling Warmoth parts for my next bass as well, thinking about a J-bass clone of some sort. I've reached the conclusion that I could buy a pre-finished body and neck and hardware from Warmoth, buy a pair of pickups here in Sweden, assemble it myself and have a bass that might even be CHEAPER than purchasing an original MIA Fender Jazz - even after high shipping costs and the VAT the customs are likely to charge me. Very tempting, I must say! That said, I still need the money for it.

 

Only some high-end builders such as Tune make 36" scale basses. You could turn to them or you could talk directly to a luthier to custom-build you one.

 

"Custom" is often a misused word (especially in the USA?)... often it seems to me that if you can pick a colour it's "custom". So Warmoth is not *fully* custom, but still "custom".

Other examples: Fender & Gibson "Custom" shops, Carvin "Custom" shop...

 

I've built 4 basses using Warmoth parts. 3 neck & body & 1 just a neck on an old P-bass body.

8 string Jazz bass <font size=2>(sold)</font>
AAAA Flame maple top on swamp ash
maple/rosewood neck
pick-up's & electronics from a USA 62 J RI
Gotoh machines
Schaller bridge

4 string Precision bass <font size=2>(sold)</font>
stripped 79 P bass body
maple/rosewood neck
Seymour Duncan 1/4 LB P&J pickups
Schaller machines
BadAss II bridge
Chrome pickguard

4 string Jazz bass*
Swamp ash body w/tounge oil finish
maple/maple w/black binding & block inlay
Fender American STD pickups
Schaller machines
Gotoh strings thru the body bridge
black pickguard

*This used to be my "Geddy Lee" bass. I recently bought the natural Warmoth body w/guard & bridge off of eBay & I love it natural. Anyone need a black alder Jazz body w/BaddAss II, pickguard & control plate?

5 string Jazz bass
AAAA quilted maple top on swamp ash body
Maple/maple neck w/abalone dot inlays
2 EMG 40 J pickups
Aguilar OBP-1 preamp
Gotoh tuning machines
Schaller Roller bridge

The thing I like about Warmoth is you can put whatever you want into it. If you were to call Fender & say I want an American Series bass w/noiseless pick-up's in it, 1st it would have to go through the Fender custom shop (big bucks) & 2nd, they don't do slight mods like that. (They didn't when I worked @ Sam Ash) If I were to have Fender build a bass like my 5 string they would charge me/you @ least $2500. & I paid less than 1/2 of that to build it myself. The only reason I put Fender p/u's in those 2 basses is because I bought them REALLY CHEAP off of someone that replaced them. I'm thinking of putting Sadowsky p/u's & Aguilar OBP-1 in the Natural Jazz.
<a href="http://www.theoremnyc.cjb.net"><img width=385 height=70 src="http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1174383&a=8647027&p=41535909&Sequence=0&res=high" border=0></a>

 

How do some of the other brands compare? I've checked out the websites for Allparts and Mighty Mite, and they look pretty good as well.

Anybody .... ?

 

I haven't seen too many AllParts neck/bodies. I have seen some Mighty Mite parts & Warmoth seems better quality, IMO.

 

Thanks Nino. I'd really like to get my hands on some Warmoth parts, but that means shipping them from the US, whereas the Allparts stuff is more readily available in Europe. Worst thing is, every time I think about building a bass, I can't get your bloody 5 string out of my mind, and it scares me off because I don't think I could achieve such an awesome result!

 

<img width=350 src="http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1174383&a=8647027&p=41153965&Sequence=0&res=high">
You mean this? It didn't take alot of work. The only hard part was the Aguilar pr-amp. Other than that, it took no time to assemble & set up to my liking. You have to be patient w/a body. Wait till you find a nice painted body on the Thrift shop page. I started a thread w/alot of nice Warmoth thrift Shop bodies. <a href="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29226">CLICK HERE</a> to see the thread.

 

Warmoth makes fine wood necks. They also provide excellent laminated top and solid wood bodies with well-selected and matched woods. I particularly know about the bodies, due to having a company where players send these bodies to have graphite necks mounted, basses finished and set-up.

 

Hey Steve, I saw on another thread that you're the owner of Moses. I've actually been looking at your site, and I'm definately considering one of your necks as an option. Can you tell me this. How difficult is it to match the screw holes from the neck and the body when you buy the two pieces seperately? I live in Portugal, and one option for me is to buy a neck from someone like yourself, and try and obtain a body locally. Hey, you don't have any distributors in Europe, do you?

 

Hey Nino, you really didn't have to post the pic, I already know how good the bass looks!!!

Seriously, thanks for the supporting words. I'm reasonably good with my hands, so I'm not scared of doing a bit of handiwork to get something like this together, plus I know a local guy who could bail me out if things go really wrong, but I'm just a but nervous about turning five or six hundred bucks worth of parts into firewood!