This may be of use

to those that have thought about assembling a guitar. Not only that but it also hits on a little history that some may find interesting.
 
Now it is a big playing field with many issues assembling a guitar- way to many for me to want to get into on this forum. This post is to mainly share some info about Charvels guitar and Boogie Bodies. ( for clarity; assembling is not the same as building one. IMO -they can be confusing terms. One can buy a "kit" - not everyone can start with a board of wood)
 
Before Charvel started using serial numbers there were guitars being used by players such as EVH that more or less started the graphics appeal. The deal is; Charvel wasn't making the bodies or necks. They were being supplied by Boogie Bodies.
Now I'm not going into a history lesson. If interested it's easy to get the details.
 
What interests me that I wanted to share;
One of the questions when assembling a guitar is "should I get a neck from ___ and a body from ___?"  Well one can get them from different makers but there may be an issue with fit and "fit" doesn't only apply to the neck heel fitting into the bodies neck pocket. ( I won't bore with the many issues)
So if one can get the body and the neck from the same maker it sure avoids some possible catastrophic problems.
 
That makes Boogie Bodies one to consider. Their history also makes them interesting and their prices also tell a story. How? Well it gives you an idea of how much it's worth to risk using power tools LOL.
 
Here is an example;  I'll use Swamp Ash but first let us consider this; Two very popular woods (not including Poplar) are Swamp Ash and Alder. ( we are talking about Strat/Tele style guitars) The main differences; Ash is not a consistent wood but it has interesting grain so a clear finish works. Alder is a consistent wood but uninteresting grain so a paint finish works. ( not to say that Ash can't be painted but it does take more work to do so)
"Consistent" is referring to weight (wood density) in this example. Ash can be very light or very heavy. ( "Swamp" Ash seems now to be no more than a term to indicate "light" IMO)
 
Boogie Bodies offer an Ash body- It's $295.00.
One can purchase a body blank of Ash for - $125.00 excluding shipping. (I'll add @$20.00 for shipping - $145.00)
So one can safely say that Boogie Bodies shapes the body to ready for finish/assembly for $150.00.
 
The neck; Well the neck is the heart of the guitar. The neck they offer is $249.00.
IMO that is a very low price for a well made, unfinished neck. Even though a Maple board to make a neck can be had for under a twenty spot. The neck wood is just a small part of making a good neck.
 
Of course being able to shape the body/neck and have construction, design and material options is great if one can and it's also cool to have somebody with a cool history offer theirs for very fair prices. Now I have no experience with Boogie Bodies products. I'm not saying they're anything at all...other than what I've said here. I'll add that I also think it's cool that if one wanted to assemble and finish a guitar that they could "build a kit" with almost "one stop shopping".
 
I know there are others where one can almost or get "one stop shopping" and I have no need for any of it.
I find the history of Charvel and Boogie Bodies interesting so thought I'd share that along with some of "assembling a guitar" perspective. (even though I don't assemble guitars)
 
Wish I could paint...still working on that. At least my two attempts with Nitro did work out...no confidence and mostly nerve racking to do. Until much improvement, beautiful wood and a clear finish is favored.
I'll add; I did assemble a guitar once. By the time I had the neck and all the pro work done on it I had over $650.00 into the neck alone...but what a neck. Another player traded me a Deluxe Strat in "like new" condition for that assembled guitar and I didn't use not one power tool. :)
 
I'm not affiliated with either nor anybody.
 
 

Although I doubt I will ever build or assemble one for myself (I know my limitations and, as an IT professional, value having all of my fingers!), I still enjoy learning these types of things.  Thanks for sharing Michael!  

I'm at work...interrupted...
 
What's so strange/weird, you ask? Well maybe it's not but I'll tell you why I think it is.
 
One must know that with the attraction when the guitar was an infant....it must have something that was really good because the people after it could play.
 
Now maybe a few people put 2/2 together and realized that- WOW I bet if I found one of those first ones made with handwriting in the neck pocket and 3/4 digit order numbers it would be worth a fortune!
Well Ok...let them look and good luck with that.
 
What it tells me is that for a hell of a lot less money I could go to the people that supplied them with the material to build the thing and do one myself....IF I wanted to assemble a guitar...and I don't. Remember; The heart of those guitars was the neck. The ones making those necks are still doing it.
 
And maybe some may realize...with all that wouldn't it mean that Charvel must have had a hell of time once they decided to do their own neck and bodies?     Well yes it does and it was probably a nightmare for them until they got the router bits right to make those necks...you can probably make a bet that they weren't hand carving them.
 
I understand...my point(s) about posting this may be easily missed. That's Ok. I've shared all I have time for and after all....it's just what I see and I grew up in the 70's.

craigb
Although I doubt I will ever build or assemble one for myself (I know my limitations and, as an IT professional, value having all of my fingers!), I still enjoy learning these types of things.  Thanks for sharing Michael!  

 
Honestly, if you can operate a screwdriver and drill a few holes (non-critically placed ones - they generally drill the critical ones for you) without ending up with extra holes in the table or yourself, you can probably assemble one.
 
There's soldering and setup as well, but there's a vast world of difference between those of us like me who just bolt things together and people like Spacey.
 
The biggest problem I had was that the first one I did turned out way too good, which turned out to be expensive. 

what i learned in my research on building a project guitar

yeah, i know, it's blahblahblahblah..
but i thought i'd share for anyone who is interested in building project guitars..
I THINK A LOT OF TIMES...
it's really the way a guitar FEELS to the player, more than the sound that everyone else is hearing.
and that is a very tangible thing, and is personal, and can make a HUGE difference to players who are very sensitive and affected by the physical side of sonics.
 

in my years of playing, and building the odd project here and there, the one thing that i consistently saw, was that if it sounded spanky without being plugged in, it'd sound spanky plugged in.
and if it sounded dead sitting in the shop, and if i plugged it in, dead.
 
(now, this is not to be confused with lots of gain, and radical tone shaping, and all that...
just the basic pure sound of the guitar amplified, versus acoustically playing it)...
 
and i've switched out bridges and electronics, even nuts, and they all did do a little something....
but i think the magic comes from the 'tone' of the neck, and the 'tone' of the body.
and then the mojo is, marrying the two together.

"as far as warmoth's conversion necks go......."
 
when i researched and built my USACG project strat my luthier and i, had at our disposal, 5 strats in house, for sell or repairs or work....
3 fender strats of various vintage and country of origin (korean, MIM, MIJ)....
and 2 brand new american made strats.
we had my luthier's WARMOTH strat and neck....which is a conversion-compound neck, pro style, double expanding truss rod.

plus, we had a few other strat wannabes-- Godin, Ibanez, the odd project guitar..
we did, at various points in the discovery process, take apart most of them.
 
 
one thing i noticed, was that certain 'necks' would not pass the 'tap test'.
 
what the tap test was, was simply hanging the neck (with all hardware off of it) from a hanger thru a machine head hole, and 'tapping' on the wood with the finger.
you could rap the back of the neck with your knuckle, and you could hear a distinct 'ring' or 'tone' in the wood.
every single neck was different.

some were solid maple, some maple with maple caps, some with rosewood caps....
all different.
as you would expect.
 
but some were dead sounding, and some were very lively.
needless to say, the 'lively' sounding necks, sounded the best on the bodies.
the bodies, a similar thing.
when i asked for my strat body, i decided on alder, and i specifically asked for the 'lightest 2-piece alder body' they had...
 
why 2 piece?

i don't know, i guess cuz the nicest body i found in the test, was a lightweight, 2 piece body that had a nitro finish on it, so that's what i patterned after.
 
i also had read a lot of articles on pros that had vintage strats, and that seemed to be a common thread.
when i got my alder body, while it was still raw, it had that 'tap tone'.
 
now when we experimented with various pieces at hand, you could hear the difference in the overall sound of the guitar (plugged in or not) when switching the necks out with different bodies.
also, the necks that had vintage style truss rods (one of the reasons i went with the USACG necks over the warmoth necks) was another big 'aha'.
 
it seems that, the way the wood is cut, and how the truss rod was installed, made the biggest difference of all, over wood types and fingerboard selection...
 
i took a maple/rosewood warmoth neck, with a gibson conversion scale, the double expanding truss rod thingy (which really makes the neck heavier and somewhat dead sounding) and a/b'd it against my freshly minted USACG neck with rock maple neck and pau ferro fretboard, basically the same neck as the usacg, except for the truss rod and the fret wood.
no contest.
 
my neck had the 'tap tone', and the warmoth did not.

plain and simple.....
 
i was absolutely convinced.
 
another difference BETWEEN my neck and the warmoth i compared to, in particular was the construction of the 'tiltback' headstock.
the usacg uses a volute construction...
the warmoth used scarf joint.
that seems to have some bearing as well.
moral of the story....
it's gotta be the wood, and how it's constructed.
 

Michael and Bat....excellent information.
 
Per Bats comments, I always get these really weird looks when I go into a guitar store and play all of the electrics without even plugging them in.  The sales guys will always say, "Don't you want to plug that in and hear how it sounds."  To which I will comment, "No, I will find the one of the bunch that is going to sound best unplugged first."  They think I am nuts, but I have found what Bat has mentioned to be absolutely true.  Certain instruments just come together to where they 'ring' or 'snap' naturally.  

craigb

michaelhanson
...They think I am nuts, 

Then again, they might know completely but won't admit it.  They have to sell the dead ones too... 

Ha...I doubt it.  Most of them don't even know what wood the guitars made from.  

drewfx1
 
But Bat also badmouths Warmoth every time these discussions come up based on "construction" from tapping 3 necks (and apparently not knowing that Warmoth offers 3 different guitar neck construction types, including vintage single truss) - which would imply all of those identically constructed guitars you're trying should be the same.

 
WTF
 
well, i DO know this,
that the only neck i'm interested in for myself,
is a gibson scale length,
which requires a 'modern construction' neck from warmoth,
which uses a double truss rod,
which i have found to kill the neck vibrations pretty demonstrably.
 
i should re-write my piece to be more concise,
but i just don't feel like it.

 
i'll leave it to others to do their own homework,
and hopefully if they are good at it, they'll come up with the same info i came up.
 
and anyone is free to counter my opinion,
or, rather,
consider it.
 
i'm not meaning to badmouth Warmoth as a blanket statement...
i like a lot of their bodies,
and will probably buy one of their necks next, for a 'special' project....
 
but i will preface my previous post as saying "as far as warmoth's conversion necks go......."
 
the rest of it, are my findings as they actually occurred.
and either my opinion matters to someone, or it doesn't.

I agree, with you Slugbaby, I care equally about the feel. I would not buy a guitar if I didn't like the playability or the feel of it.

I do think that a lot of people mistake bad setups for bad feel, however.

Where are you spacey? 

i sold encyclopedias door to door in el dorado, back in 1979.
for Southwestern company out of nashville.
 
man, that place was so depressed back in '79 (it's an oil town, and the oil crisis was in full force),
i barely made a penny!
 

LOL
 
I moved to the area in '92 Bat. 
It seems people do very well there. More than an oil town I reckon. The mansions I've seen aren't empty. Maybe moonshine is worth more than I realize.

drewfx1
 
IOW, sometimes there is more than one right answer to a homework problem.

LOL!  Like choosing a pet you actually have when you say it ate your homework, ya?