So this is my third self-build, but the first two had pre-finished bodies - so this is the first one that I have tackled from the bare wood.
(Apologies for the rubbish camera-phone photo... complete with feet...)
It is a Swampash Tele body that I got from ebay/guitarbuildonline just after Crimbletide, and I got materials and lots of great advice from Bill Quinn at www.tonetechluthiersupplies.co.uk
Body sanded, grain filled, sanded some more, dyed (water-based wood dyes), spray sanding sealer, lightly sanded then about 8 coats (1.5 cans) of rattle-can nitro-cellulose, waited a week, then flatted back with 1000 then 2000 wet&dry, before polishing.
I bottled out at 'going to town' over the flatting-back, as I was told to wait 3/4 weeks for the Nitro to cure before attacking it, so I might well flat back some more in a month or so when it is good and hard.
I have to say the the surface finish is (or has the potential to be) outstanding - quite beyond what I expected to achieve - so much so that had I known how good it was (almost) going to be, I would have taken much more care with the initial preparation. Still, this is how we learn, and I certainly learned a lot about the finishing process.
Hardware is mainly from Axesrus. Pickups are Suhr Aldrich (recently acquired from John_P of this shire) and are outstanding! I usually wire humbuckers in parallel as I want to use coils splits, and HBs wired parallel produce about the same signal level as half an HB (split), so it is feasible to split & unsplit mid-song.
I have the pups on a 5-way switch: bridge_HB, bridge_HB + neck_split, bridge_HB + neck_HB, neck_HB + bridge_split, neck_HB. This gives a useful graduation of tones from bridge through to neck.
The tone pot is a push-push for splits, and split it has: bridge_outside, bridge_outside + neck_outside**, bridge_outside + neck_outside, bridge_outside** + neck_outside, neck_outside. The splits marked with ** indicate that the coil is connected through a 6k8 resistor, which attenuates it somewhat so once again there is a useful (and usable) graduation of tones from bridge though to neck.
And what tones!!! Those Aldrich pups are amazing - bright, complex, really solid bottom ends without a trace of muddiness - fantastic.... Split, they would give many a proper single-coil a run for their money...
... (having said that, I've just received a second Brassknuckle from Ash, and I have high expectations that they will be every bit as good as the Suhrs - maybe I'll post back here whn I've tried them).
(And yes, I know that the bridge pickup is fitted "backwards* - that is so that I get a humbucking pair in the middle position when using the splits...)
The other element of note is the Warmoth neck. This is my fourth neck from them, and like the others it is faultless...
The great thing about Warmoth is that you can order pretty much exactly what you want, and they are playable out of the box (the bad thing is the price... but "if you want good hay then you have to pay for it - however, if you are content with hay that has already been through a horse, it comes cheaper...")
Neck is maple, "59 roundback" (which I really like as a pretty chunky handful, but apart from the feel, I'm certain that the fatter neck is more rigid and that contributes to a good tone - or more likely it "sucks less").
Pau Ferro fingerboard, which has most of the brightness of a maple f/b, but feels like rosewood (I love the sound of maple, but not the feel), and stainless steel 6100 (jumbo) frets. The stainless is a $20 (IIRC) upcharge, but are likely to last 3/5 times longer before needing a refret. Topped off with an Earvana nut and Hipshot locking tuners.
Overall, for playability (at least 75% due to the neck, I believe) and sound (40% neck and 40% pickups, I reckon) it is outstanding, and exceeds my expectations.
When I did my first self-build I did so with some trepidation, but my view now is that provided you know what it is you are trying to achieve, you can end up with something that is custom-shop quality or beyond, and configured exactly as you would want it... (And if it doesn't end up quite as you wish, you carry on tweaking...)
La, la, la - well into the "honeymoon" period, and all traces of GAS (temporarily) displaced...
Comments
Lovely, lovely, lovely. And what a great choice of sounds! Wow.
Then polish. I used T-cut for my initial attack, but car shops sell coarse/fine pastes that are probably better. I fancy that some people protect their finishes with (non-silicone) wax, but my sense tells me to wait a couple of months before applying that, handling very carefully whilst the finish is still soft. I understand that Nitro is typically 70% thinners to start with, so it shrinks considerably in thickness while it cures...
Sadly, I can't spray here at all, so it's wudtone for me, which is a very good alternative that has its own thing going that nitro cannot do (but likewise, you can't really get that flat mirror shine from wudtone... Pros and cons!).
Your tele looks great though. Nice to know the process to get there
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Still, worthy of consideration, it's a very long winded process, too. Each coat takes a day to cure enough to rub back and apply the next, so it'll take a month to finish a guitar if you're, like me, doing one side at a time. But it smells nice and is easier than nitro.
Top coats I'm giving 2 days of curing before rubbing back as it really seems to level a bit better that way. So not every 20 minutes, that's for sure!