Hey everyone. After the lessons I learned from my first guitar kit, and two complete read-throughs of Hiscock’s book, I’ve decided to just dive in to a mostly scratch build. I often learn by messing things up and getting my hands dirty. We’ll see how it goes.
The plan is to make a Tele Plus styled guitar. It won’t have the classic tobacco burst or split coiling. The plan is a light green for the top, using milk paint and TruOil, with a cream upper binding, and the sides and back oiled adler.
I have a red lace sensor dually with stainless mount, and a blue lace sensor pickup for the neck. One of my favorite guitarists is known for his telecaster plus, and he’s also British like the folks here
Gotoh Locking tuners as well.
I haven’t decided between my Gotoh or Schaller bridge, I guess it will depend on how classic I plan I going.
Onto the wood. I ordered a “red adler” 2 piece body blank from ebay for $45. Obviously the picture on ebay looked great, what I got, of course was quite a bit different:
Very mismatched wood with basically zero grain matching. I tried it because a 2 piece from StewMac would have been $130 plus for some ash. Luckily I’m painting the top, but it will still erk me. Oh well, first build, maybe I’ll botch it anyways and end up with a nicer piece of wood.
Another concern, that looks like it was poorly attempted to be filled:
I suppose this should end up being the back, thoughts on filling it in an attractive way? I thought super glue but I believe it will stand out more shiny sanded down after the TruOil. Might try a mix of superglue and sawdust after bandsawing.
I “cheated” and went with a pre slotted fretboard this time around. I have a maple blank for the neck as well.
I haven’t decided on the maple or Indian rosewood yet, but the rosewood is particularly beautiful, almost purple in the sunlight, although I think the maple will end up matching the guitar better.
I have everything except my pickups ready, they’ll be here in a few days. Over the next few weeks I’ll make my templates and slowly start trying to make progress. I’ll start with the body then work my way to the neck. The binding scares me, I have the stew Mac router binding bit and the correct size bearing, but still scary
Right now I have a small bandsaw, 1/2 router, 12” swing drill press, hand planes, chisels, and files. I intend on finding some good rasps for the neck shape. I have limited space, the “workshop” is half the spare bedroom in our apartment, so I make due as best I can!
Thanks for letting me share. If anyone has any common pitfalls or advice they’d like to offer up, I’d be thankful. Wish me luck.
Comments
JM build | Pedalboard plans
Measure twice, drill once is still the best advice here,
As for "when am I ready?" You'll never be ready. It works in reverse, you become ready by doing it. - pmbomb
Instagram
I am not a builder myself, so I can't share any tips or tricks, but I do love a Tele, so will watch this with interest.
Good luck with it.
The pickups finally made it to my little town in the mountains.
I’ll need to look for some little screws for mounting the humbucker, it didn’t come with any.
Had quite a time poster printing, trimming, aligning, cutting and taping the sheets together. I didn’t love how it turned out, but I’m not sure I could have done much better of a job. It’s a janky way of marking for a template, but I’d prefer to get used to it to save on buying template.
I adjusted the neck pocket width in pencil based off of measurements out from the centerline. My template says the neck pocket should be 2.2 inches wide. That’s about 27.9mm out from each side of the centerline and used my digital calipers to get a more accurate neck pocket width.
Are you going to go the full hog and add a momentary kill switch to the control plate?
After being unsatisfied with the quality of my first body template, I decided to combine MDF, cheap carbon copy paper, and a $5 print out of my plan from a local print shop I found. The carbon copy paper idea came from another tFB member’s thread on creating templates, found here:
https://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/180676/fano-rb6t-thinline-now-making-the-first-one/p1
Start by laying out the carbon copy paper on your MDF.
I then taped it down to keep everything from slipping around and attached the plans on top.
I will either reattach my template and use my router to clean it up now, or look into a bench top sander.
Bandcamp
Your life will improve when you realise it’s better to be alone than chase people who do not really care about you. Saying YES to happiness means learning to say NO to things and people that stress you out.
https://www.facebook.com/grahame.pollard.39/