Grateful Dead Music Forum

Hello I am building an alligator style Garcia guitar

we have discussed the pickups on the forum at length and I think the answer is either D. Allen Voodoo 69s or Fender 57/62s.

Regarding the body - one can't really find Swamp Ash Fender bodies easily so what would you do:

choose a Warmouth Swamp Ash Fender copy or a Fender, deluxe, or 57 reissue USA made whatever ash or alder body? Oddly it seems like the Fender would be cheaper.

what would you choose
F

There's a lot more options out there...

I have a Carvin ash body, and while the grain isn't perfect, it beats most of what I've seen on Warmoth's site, The quality of the build is great. It has a near-swimming pool route, so any p/u combo is possible. For $15 cheaper than Warmoth its fantastic.

You could have Ron Kirn make you a model-year specific body... he's amazing. There's an incredibly detailed tutorial here: http://www.ronkirn.com/tutorial/index.htm depicting Ron building a sitka spruce 62 style Strat from scratch. Another option would be use that thread as a tutorial and build your own. You would need a router, but it's not really that hard...