In an idle 5 minutes or pure boredom, I specced up a Swamp ash, hard tailed, clear coated strat body, on Warmoth. Total price is $230 which is proper money is around £230 including postage. Specced up something similar (I believe) with 1 piece swamp as in the UK and it came in at around £300. The only thing I can think of it that the body may not be a single piece.
Am I missing something? Obviously, buying British blah blah but potential saving of around £70, you would...
(Of course, there potentially/probably will be customs on top of that but...)
EDIT: yes, I did miss something.
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I have nothing against Warmoth, they were the only reasonable option for a long time
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Doesn't mean they don't need 'finishing' as part of your build, but the quality of the output has been better than anything I've found in the UK.
don't forget your import fee's but Warmoth is really knocking out good stuff and they have good quality control (I had a neck fail quality control before it shipped, I was informed and the item was re-specc'd with a free ugprade).
So I had a revisit, you select the finish and THEN, you need to specify front and back.
So, @GoldenEraGuitars cost is actually similar to the Warmoth one.
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you would need to check you are comparing eggs with eggs so to speak in terms of number of body pieces. As that will bump the price.
Also swamp ash has risen in price over recent times and also as it’s an imported wood will cost more as it will go through the importer wholsealer route. Where as Warmoth I would imagine are buying directly from the saw mill.
if you are looking for Swamp Ash to be lighter weight I would certainly ask that as a question from whoever you buy from as I have seen A lot more heavier swamp ash around than some of the feather stuff of say 5 years ago when you could get a 2lb strat body out of a single one piece board.
I'm not trying to push you in either direction as regards "Warmoth vs UK builders", but Warmoth do offer an excellent service.
A custom order is relatively expensive, if you want any non-standard features, and they still don't give certain options (e.g. specifying a lightweight body blank). However, if you can find something already in stock it will be cheaper than a custom order - especially if it's already finished - and the body you see in the picture will be the one you receive, and the description will be accurate.
Their "in stock" section is nowhere near as well-stocked as it used to be, but if you want a Strat or a Tele there's still a pretty wide choice.
None of which is to say there aren't UK builders who can provide something just as good, and you may prefer to buy British...
I remember that guitar!