Jeff's Telecaster from scratch

I know...it's been forever

2012-01-28T17:07:00.000-08:00

But I finally got back to building my guitar. I wired the pickups to the switch. I'm using a 4-way switch instead of the typical 3-way switch. It is a little more complicated. That's my excuse.

This is the third bridge I've had too. I advise you to spend a little more and make sure you get a good bridge.

The cheap-o pick guard doesn't fit like it should, so I have a little work to do there. Probably going to cut my own template and make a custom pick guard.

This is pretty much what it should look like. Not too bad for a first time.

It's been a long time since I posted anything

2011-01-16T15:24:00.000-08:00

I've spent a long time applying lacquer. Finally started putting it back together.

I attached the neck and shielded the pick-ups. I taped the pick guard and knob plate in place so I could mark holes to drill.

Do I relic this guitar or not?

2010-04-01T17:59:00.000-07:00

I've put the first coat of stain on and had some issues. Trying to determine if I should relic it. I also put frets on and shellaced the neck.

Great day to start shaping the neck

2010-03-06T13:52:00.000-08:00

It was sunny and in the mid sixties here in Memphis so I took advantage of the day and began shaping the neck.

It's hard to believe that this was a piece of Maple sitting in Home Depot not too long ago.

I started shaping the neck

2010-03-04T18:04:00.001-08:00

I used the oscillating spindle sander and began shaping the neck. I got the basic curvature going.

You can see the center line that I drew on the back as a reference point. I used tape to keep me from sanding too much from the heel.

This weekend, I will begin using a utility knife blade and start smoothing and shaping some more, then I will sand it down to the final shape.

I think I fixed my mistake from last week

2010-02-25T18:44:00.000-08:00

I sanded by hand and worked through my "dip" mistake from the sander last week. I think I was able to salvage it.

I also started shaping the headstock this evening. I'll start shaping the back next week.

First big mistake

2010-02-18T18:13:00.000-08:00

There are little things I wish I'd done better on most of the steps. Today, I sanded too far. I got aggressive with the oscillating spindle sander. I think I can salvage it, but it really ticked me off.

Here is a picture of my mistake.

Here is a picture of the body and the neck before I started tonight. I put the dots on the fretboard last week.

For most of the night, I sanded the body.

I'm still really ticked about the sanding mistake on the neck. I have to keep reminding myself that this is my first guitar.

My hardware came in this week

2010-02-11T18:36:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of photos I took before I got started tonight.

Right after I took these, I trimmed the fretboard, then drilled and installed the dots. Then I sanded the fretboard. Next week, I begin shaping the neck.

Last night's work

2010-02-05T12:20:00.001-08:00

Last night, I drilled the holes for the tuners and trimmed the headstock. I also marked the dots on the fretboard.

Then I ordered parts from Guitar Fetish, including pick guard, bridge and bridge plate, control panel and knobs, string ferrules, output jack and string retainers.

All the parts and shipping came to $84.66.

Next week, I'm going to sand the neck shape and install the tuners.

Fretboard and body routing

2010-01-28T17:47:00.000-08:00

Tonight I attached the fretboard to the neck. First, I taped over the truss rod channel so I could spread the glue without it seeping down into the channel.

Then I spread the glue and removed the tape. This photo shows the first couple of clamps. We used a lot more clamps to make sure it was stable for drying.

Once I got that taken care of, I did a little more work on the body. I had to go back and route part of the cutaway a little closer. Also, when I did the initial routing of the body, I had one place where some of the wood chipped away. Here is where we filled the chip with wood putty.

I ordered my pickups

2010-01-24T11:06:00.000-08:00

I ordered some inexpensive pickups from Bezdez on ebay. Hope to get them next week.

I'm also looking at doing this with a four-way switch. I saw a seymour duncan schematic for wiring that would allow me to do both a parallel and series wiring on the two middle setting. (Forward setting neck pickup, second setting parallel, third setting series, back setting bridge pickup.) I hear it adds another "beefier" sound, as discussed here.

Here are photos of my progress so far

2010-01-23T10:22:00.000-08:00

I've been working on this project for about an hour and a half, one night a week for three weeks. I didn't get a picture of the wood that Billy bought, but when I first saw it, he had four Telecaster templates outlined on it and was taking it to his father-in-law's house to rough cut the shapes with a band saw.

We routed the shape a little closer and then I sanded it to the final shape you see here.

I routed out the neck pocket and the pickup cavities, as well as the cavity for the controls.

The piece of hard maple for the neck was purchased at Home Depot and was routed to shape. Here is a photo showing the routed channel and installed truss rod. Next up is the fret board.

I should have started earlier

2010-01-23T09:59:00.000-08:00

I have always loved Telecasters. Yet, even though I've had a crappy acoustic guitar for more than 25 years, I still consider myself a beginner at playing guitar. At 45 years old, my "mid-life crisis" is taking the shape of building a Telecaster.

I got the idea to build a guitar a month or so back. My 8 year old daughter wants to play guitar, but all we have is my really old and really cheap Applause guitar. We also have a Squier Strat package with the baby amp, but it is a little too big for her.

I started thinking, "I wonder if I could build an electric guitar." not actually thinking that I could. I scoured the Inter-webs for info. I decided that I probably COULD build a guitar, but it would be cheaper for me to just by a scaled down guitar.

My guitar-building dream was dead. Or was it?

A friend of mine (Billy Riley) who I hadn't seen in quite a while sent me an invitation to a Christmas party. He owns Combustion Design/Advertising here in Memphis and they were having a holiday gathering at their office. And they were giving away a Daisy Rock guitar to one lucky invitee. (Daisy Rock is a client of Combustion.) I thought it would be great to catch up with a friend AND I might win my little girl a guitar.

When I went to the party, I suck my head in to Billy's office and - to my surprise - saw all these different guitars in various stages of build. As we caught up, I told him of my desire to build a guitar and he said come on by any time and he'd help.

This blog is following the progress of my first guitar.