Sources and Approach

There are many approaches to purchasing your parts. Each has its own attributes in terms of risk, ease of effort, cost, timeframe.

• Purchasing at retail from shops like the Guitar Center. This is likely to be medium in expense, and unlikely to deliver truly exciting and unique parts. Also, it is unlikely that the sales staff have enough experience to add value by helping get the right parts.
• Purchasing on the Web from places like Steward MacDonald, Allparts, MightyMite and Warmoth is another option. This can offer some better values than retail prices or Fender parts, and definitely more custom parts, but the information may be marginal. Some options, like Warmoth custom bodies and necks, can be very expensive, but then you can get some very unusual stuff (e.g., solid rosewood neck with mother of pearl inlay and your choice of nut and frets.
• One of the Web sellers that offers amazing values and are great people to deal with are the folks at Aamp's electric guitar store. Check out the Allparts and MightyMite necks under parts (deeply discounted, as in less than on eBay).
• Another Web retailer that I like and are really great folks are Picker's Parts.
• Ebay is a little risky, though much less than you might think.

Ebay can be a treasure trove of parts depending on what you want to build and how self-reliant your are. Here are some tips to assist your getting the best results:

• Stick to sellers that have lots of sales and are 100% rated (or very close). Examples include Reliable Fender, Stratosphere, Music Parts Guru.
• Watch for a while (a week) and notice the price trends on items you are interested in.
  Get a PayPal.com account, it is so much easier, and they provide both the buyer and the seller some protection.
• Don't bid directly, you will only drive the price up. Decide on a reasonable price you want to pay, taking into consideration what the shipping is, and use a bidding tool such as ezSniper.com to bid – it will place your maximum bid for you, just in the last few seconds of the auction. You will not always win, but eventually you will win, and at the price that is acceptable to you.
• My experience is that many times, if the deal is too good to be true, it probably is. Be very suspicious of parts that are not photographed or described well, especially if the seller does not answer questions directly and clearly and if they do not have a well established selling record of satisfied customers.