Partcasters - Your experiences

Neil

usedtobe said:

Neil said:

I'll be the solitary downer then. 

I have never been interested in bitsas.

You buy a load of parts without knowing how it will sound or feel until its finished. 

I prefer to buy something I can try out that is real, not pie in the sky. Something that has a value if you get fed up with it not something you have to disassemble again and try to hawk off the bits. 

BTW you never hear any stories of bitsas that turn out a load of crap, they always seem to be at least Fender custom shop quality. 

None of mine are fender cs quality! 

Ah, an honest man. 

Neil

impmann said:

Neil said:

Funkfingers said:

Neil said:

You buy a load of parts without knowing how it will sound or feel until its finished. 

This is true for anybody who constructs a musical instrument from wood.

Indeed it is, but I prefer not to be the guinea pig and try something finished that I can accept or reject. 

Same with a Partcaster - except when you try your 'finished' instrument, if there is a part of it you don't like, you can swap it out for something you do without fear of 'destroying' a 'real' guitar. One of my bitsas has only the body left - I've changed all the other bits on it at least once and frankly, the body may well change in the future. Thats much cheaper than buying and selling full guitars, plus if you buy secondhand you don't lose as much money...

But if you buy a "full guitar" at the right price secondhand you won't lose any money if you sell on. 

Neil

Chalky said:

Neil said:

I'll be the solitary downer then. 

I have never been interested in bitsas.

You buy a load of parts without knowing how it will sound or feel until its finished. 

I prefer to buy something I can try out that is real, not pie in the sky. Something that has a value if you get fed up with it not something you have to disassemble again and try to hawk off the bits. 

BTW you never hear any stories of bitsas that turn out a load of crap, they always seem to be at least Fender custom shop quality. 

Your "pie in the sky" phrase means 'imaginary', but putting together a half-way decent body, neck and set of pickups is far more real and predictable than that.

And yet you still get people sitting in guitar shops and trying out many guitars of exactly the same spec until they find that eureka guitar.  

So not that predictable.  

Gagaryn

I've had loads of telecasters but only have one now - a MJT body and Allparts neck. I kept this one and got rid of the others I had at the same time (Baja and 52 Hotrod) as the bitsa blew them out the water in resonance, sound and feel. And looks!

mudslide73

I have a few. I definitely echo the pro setup route once it's finished. I'm a big fan of speccing everything the way I want it. I'm onto my 3rd Strat build and I'm still swapping pickups around in the others. It's a great way to buy guitars imo.

Megii

Re the pro setup point, agree that makes a big difference, so I should say that at some point when I was building my second partscaster, I did decide to invest in a good set of nut files - put that in as an extra cost maybe. Also, before I started the whole parts build thing, I'd already bought kit and taught myself to do fret level and dress work, not to mention soldering kit and teaching myself a bit about guitar wiring. All doable with the help available on the web these days though.

Veganic

Aren't all 'casters made of parts and therefore partscasters?

Rox

More than any other aspect - putting them together is so much fun.  Aside from the trem block itself, every component on my Custardcaster is Fender.  Japan, USA, Mexico, all side by side on my geetar fretboard living together in harmony.  Or is that pianos?

bermudianbrit

My les paul is a build from precision Guitars in Canada. Amazing woods, and is now the envy of quite a few whom I've shown it to.

guitars4you

WezV said:

usedtobe said:

Neil said:

BTW you never hear any stories of bitsas that turn out a load of crap, they always seem to be at least Fender custom shop quality. 

There are loads that turn out crap - just like most CS fenders will be crap until they are set-up properly

If you build a partscaster and you are not happy with it, its worth having someone else take a look as 9 times out of 10 its a really easy fix to make it great.  

The problem for me is parts manufactures like warmoth advertising on out the box playability.  It sets unrealistic expectations

They do a good job of it, but I have only met one warmoth neck that didn't benefit from a bit of extra attention... and I have done a lot of warmoth builds.  

The same is true of any brand, so that's not a dig at warmoth, I truly think they do an excellent job.  Allparts stuff is good quality, but very factory fresh - it needs decent fretwork and a rolling of edges to get the most out of it - you can take it from MIM to CS level just through the extra work you do on it.

If doing a partscaster please either learn, or budget for, nut/fret work.... don't expect it to be perfection out the box.  Don't settle for "playable".

I think a key part of a Partscaster is the ability of the 'luthier' - Wez has undertaken  a fair few as indicated here and still finds 'issues' that need attending to on what are considered serious parts - I've said many a time that I can go to Sainsbury's and buy the same ingredients as Jamie Oliver to make a curry, pasta dish or chilli but I bet his turns out far better than mine - The same would be said for a partscaster built by Wez or indeed others with experience, compared to those with little experience - Yet the thrill on concocting your own dream machine is an interesting thought

I've never gone down the partsocaster path, but many many times I've taken the chassis of a good copy, or indeed C/Shop and even a players grade original 60's Strat and customised them to max out the guitars playing performance - So I prefer the hot rod approach to a good replica, whatever that might be

WezV

I don't even think of it as 'issues'.  I am fairly sure if I had the free run of the fender custom shop to assemble from I would still want to do just as much fettling of the factory fresh parts.

guitars4you

WezV said:

I don't even think of it as 'issues'.  I am fairly sure if I had the free run of the fender custom shop to assemble from I would still want to do just as much fettling of the factory fresh parts.

but that is what makes perfection isn't it - Dave Brailsford and Sky Cycling work on 1% gains

Megii

guitars4you said:

I think a key part of a Partscaster is the ability of the 'luthier' - Wez has undertaken  a fair few as indicated here and still finds 'issues' that need attending to on what are considered serious parts - I've said many a time that I can go to Sainsbury's and buy the same ingredients as Jamie Oliver to make a curry, pasta dish or chilli but I bet his turns out far better than mine - The same would be said for a partscaster built by Wez or indeed others with experience, compared to those with little experience - Yet the thrill on concocting your own dream machine is an interesting thought

I agree that the skill with which the guitar is put together matters, but re the point about those with little experience not being able to produce a good instrument, I do tend to disagree - with a thoughtful, careful, considered approach, I feel it's possible to put together a fine guitar. For example, my first build was this tele:

http://s1153.photobucket.com/user/Megi99/media/Swamp ash tele 2011/customtele06.jpg.html?sort=3&o=3

It has a one-piece swamp ash body, with a thin Tru Oil finish, nice one piece maple neck, hand wound pickups, quality hardware, everything is solidly put together and lines up properly, frets levelled and dressed nicely, bone nut... - so what's wrong with it?  

WezV

Yeah, there is enough info out there that anyone can get good results if they take some time to research... but you would still find you got better results on your second and third go than your first.



I would never never discourage anyone from having a go.  But i know for a fact many stop when they get it playable, and I think that's what the OP's negative mate is referring to.

guitars4you

WezV said:

I would never never discourage anyone from having a go.  But i know for a fact many stop when they get it playable, and I think that's what the OP's negative mate is referring to.

I here that so many times from partscaster builders and indeed those that start of with raw materials from scratch - again if I look at some very early hand built by Paul PRS models they are nothing special compared with today

dean111music

Thats great thanks for all the info guys. Good and bad which is what i want to hear.

I'm hoping it will be as good as fender but who knows until all the money is spent and its put together.


I have owned a lot of fender cs guitars and they are brilliant but there has always been something that i don't like. I do want to feel like i own an old guitar and it feels good in my hands. I want a V shape rosewood neck with an ultra thin nitro. Thats easy to play, plus the compound radius is important. 10-16.

For me its the excitement of building it and seeing with my specs "can i make a better guitar" I guess i have to try! 

menamestom

I've built a few and kept one.  A pro setup makes the difference.  A Telecaster for example you can easily get CS quality for a quarter of the price.  What you won't get however is the aged Nitro finish, which probably accounts for much of the labour costs of the CS guitar.  Personally I prefer oil anyway, which is easy to do and feels great.

Plus some aspects might be better, mine has Callaham and Glendale hardware, arguably better than Fender's? Also potentially better pickups, but I like Fender pickups so I've gone the other way from BKP to Fender's own Nocaster pickups.

Also beware however, if you go the partscaster route you will not get a certificate of authenticity and lots of case candy, which seems as important as the guitar to some people.

TTBZ

I prefer building one to buying one as I can spec it exactly how I want it. That said I've never kept a partscaster and ended up selling all the parts at a loss, however I think that's more about me not getting on with fender styles. If I do get one again it'll be a squier so I can sell it on again easily and not make so much of a loss.

If I knew I liked the type of guitar I'd go parts every time, why wouldn't you if you knew it'd be a guitar you want to keep forever?

Alnico

I've posted this before in a different thread but here it is again....
It's a GSP Basses body (Obeche) and neck (Quartersawn maple) put together with fender hardware and until I get around to affording new ones, Japanese Fender 60's re-issue pickups.
It's currently being set up at @SteveRobinson ......'Manchester Guitar Tech' which will give it that professional feel when it's done.
This wasn't built for me as such but was a gift to me from one of my two best friends when I got to a milestone after rehab.

I'll have it with me at the Jam Session in September if anyone wants to try it out.

http://i.imgur.com/Cs4lT4p.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/QcAQR78.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/tCyKiLE.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/GDQ73lF.jpg

After owning this one I would definitely go the 'Partscaster' route again myself but I do fully condone the final step being having it professionally set up, but then every new guitar I've ever owned needed that in some respect as well so it's no different really.

I'm very much looking forward to getting this back all done sometime next week or the week after, depending on Steve's workload. Maybe he can comment on it here if he likes?

It's special to me for the reason that it was such an unexpected and thoughtful gift but I think if you were to play it once it's been set up, you'd probably go away thinking it was quite a special Telecaster.
I'll be interested to see what people think of it at the Jam Session.

Sassafras

If it really bothers you, you can always stick a Fender decal on it and then only you will know it's not the real thing.