Old Warmoth Strat Refurb

[Andy40]

I was at a mates place a few months ago and spotted an old disused Warmoth strat there.

He got it second hand some years ago and gigged with it quite a lot. It no longer worked and he was quite sad about that and I convinced him to give me a go at it.

From initial inspection of the body, it had been originally painted some bone or beige colour which had been sanded off at some stage and no finish had been applied.

Hence hours and hours of gigging sweat gave it this look. I really could not tell what wood it was made from?



He did not mind at all that I would get rid of that look.

The neck and frets were fine, all of the hardware was good - except no back plate and the scratch guard was warped.

The volume knob was busted but other than that the electrics were good. In fact it was equipped with a nice set of kent armstrong lipsticks!

[Andy40]

After many.....many hours of sanding....it became apparent to me that the body was solid maple!



Finished it with straight Truoil. Got a new three ply scratchplate and back plate for about $20 and a new volume pot



Finished result

[Andy40]

I didn't get any other photos before I gave it back.

but here is a video of it in action at the Royal Mail Hotel!

[andrewdosborne]

Nice restoration Andy hard to beat a natural finish with tortoiseshell pick guard

Sent from Lineage OS 14.1

[Hobastard]

Its nice to see life breathed back into an instrument left for dead..... Well done.....

[Simon Barden]

Looks great Andy.

Can't help thinking that with so many bits of wood in the body (I count 6), that that's probably not a Warmoth body. Also, it hasn't got their logo stamped in the neck pocket (though this may have been removed if the pocket had originally been painted then stripped back).

[DrNomis_44]

Hey Andy40, that Strat you restored looks and sounds really good, those Kent Armstrong pickups are cool, good restoration job, and yeah it's surprising that the body turned out to be made from solid Maple, I was half expecting it to be Ash, the neck looks like it is made from Maple with a Rosewood fingerboard.


The neck I'm using for my Gold Strat build is a Fender licensed Mighty Mite all Maple Strat neck, and I think it is finished in a Satin clear lacquer if I'm not mistaken, I bought it on eBay sometime last year, I forget how much I paid for it, but it does have a nice feel to it, which is the main reason why I'm using it for the Gold Strat build, incidentally, my Gold Strat build is not that far off from being completed, the body is going to get two more coats of White Knight Super Gold spray paint, and then maybe two coats of clear coat, and then it'll be ready for re-assembly, I'm going to replace the stock pickups with a set of three white Kent Armstrong Dual Blade pickups, will post a demo clip and some pics once it's all up and running.

[wazkelly]

Hi mate, the shot on the leather lounge almost had me thinking you had finished in DT CG.

Top job, it came up really good.

[Andy40]

Thanks guys.

@ Simon, Its a very old guitar, like 90's. I think you are right he probably referred to it as a Warmoth one just meaning its a partscaster. yeah, loads of bits of maple in there, but looks cool.

@doc, yeah originally I thought it was Ash until my sanding went no-where!. I think those Kent Armstrongs are worth about $240. They do sound sweet though. I'll have to jump on your mega build diary sometime and see how that strats going.

@ Waz, yeah many coats of truoil darkened it up a bit.

[ILRGuitars]

Nice work Andy. It looks great but careful on the 'old' business. Some of us were born in the 60's!