Re: how much do you spend on a custom guitar?
USACG have an ex fender custom shop guy working with them now so that puts their quality up. Their necks have always been 10x better than warmoths imo
I thought that USACG always had 'Sean' i think is his name that used to work for the Fender custom shop.
Sometimes, I like to search Ebay's accessories, and click on bodies, necks, bridges. If you're patient and snipe auctions, you can build something good for a decent price. I like to look at US Fender necks that came off guitars, so the nuts are already cut. Then, add one of those to the rest of the parts, and it's all setup, and no luthier-level assembly. As long as you can setup a guitar, it'll fall into place easily.
What Joneser said is probably the easiest best way to assemble a really good parts guitar at THE best price. All assembly with close to 0 luthier time. That is if all the parts fit perfectly and you dont mess up somehow on your choices.
The problem with parts guitars like warmoth and usacg is that you really need to know what you want. Since you are the sole designer. Sure the MIA strats which they put together arent anything special, at least in my opinion, but i think that it takes time and money for Fender to research the darn thing in the first place.
That is before Fender or whatever co. start mass producing something. i assume they must research it. So they start by putting together a bunch of parts and designing a guitar that is cost effective ( depending what Quality line its from) for them to make and at the same time does what they want it to do. So with experienced luthiers/designers they sit down and put together a guitar that is within the budget that upper management gives them and they come up with a product which best fits the marketing target.
The problem is that when we make our 'parts' guitars WE are the sole designers and luthiers. So many times although we may put together better parts per se, the end result might not be as effective. Or in other cases it might take more time, money and tries to get it right. this is what happened to me in one instance in building. Luckly for me it came out better than a custom shop jobbie. but it did cost quite a bit. and i might have not been that lucky.
The mistake i have made in making these assumptions is that we look at a mass produced guitar and think, " well the parts on this guitar arent anything special" when we fail to see the research that went into making it in the first place.
For example I remeber when the EVH guitar series came out alot of us, including me went ape**** over the price. Although i do still think it is overpriced, they must have trashed a bunch of guitars/parts before finalizing the design. In the design i mean, the type of wood they will use for the body, the average weight of it ( for consistency), the neck wood and shape, and all the combinations ( tuning keys, pickups, pots, etc..) they used for parts. In a nutshell when we see the final guitar they sell we dont see the stack of bodies, necks and parts they 'wasted' to come up with the final product.
So if you dont know exactly what you are looking for, you are taking a crap shoot kinda at making a guitar.
If i had the money and resources i could DEFINATELY improve on the design of my guitar. Yes it is already a great guitar, but by 'fine tuning' the parts i could come up with something even better. This is what we reffer to as upgrading our guitars. Which does cost money and time. For example, the neck of my guitar i would want next time to be unfinished, assymetrical, and a tad bit thicker. This to me would up the tone and playability. Dont get me wrong, it is a really great guitar, but it can always be better.
On the flipside of it, you can come up with something really special. Which i think my latest project took me close to. But still we cant be sure of the final result as you can with a guitar you go and actually play.
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